Listen up good

If you listen to audio versions of books, do you also read them? Why or why not? Or do you never listen and, if not, why not?

by Dietrich

I enjoy kicking back and reading a book, it’s a quiet reward at the end of a day. Then there are times when I’d rather hear an audiobook, like while I’m engaged in doing some simple task that could use some spicing up. Perhaps reading a book engages my imagination more, allowing me to paint the scenes in my mind rather than having someone else describe what’s going on. Either way, my retention seems to be about the same whether I read or listen. 

Sometimes I’m curious to hear a story that I previously read. One thing’s for sure, talented narrators can add much to the stories when they nail the delivery, pacing and the voices of the characters. Anthony Burgess’s 1963 novel, A Clockwork Orange, is a perfect example. It’s a longtime favorite, and I revisited it by listening to the audiobook years after first reading the novel. It’s narrated by Tom Hollander who did such an amazing job with the dystopian language and the overall tone. I ended up loving the audiobook even more than reading the book. 

The late Frank Muller was another narrator with a golden voice. The recipient of the Audie Award for Best Male Narrator two years in a row, earning a Golden Voice recognition from AudioFile, Muller narrated eleven Elmore Leonard novels which I had previously read. He also narrated several favorites by Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy too. George Quidall, who’s narrated over 800 novels, also read several by Elmore Leonard: Touch, Cuba Libre, Out of Sight, and Split Images and he did an amazing job. My favorite narrator of an Elmore Leonard novel was Robert Forster who read Mr. Paradise. He also played Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, based on Elmore’s Rum Punch.

Long after reading All Quiet on the Western Front, I checked out the audiobook, also read by Frank Muller, and I found it every bit as enjoyable as turning the pages. 

Another special novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, first published in 1970 by the incomparable George V Higgins was also turned into an audiobook, read by another true talent in Mark Hammer who was also the voice on several Elmore Leonard audiobooks, as well as some of James Lee Burke’s Robicheaux novels. Will Patten’s also done an amazing job lending his voice to some of the Robicheaux series.

Other narrators who did justice to books that I’ve read: Claire Danes reading Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale; Sissy Spacek reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Samuel L. Jackson narrating Chester Himes’ A Rage in Harlem. And I also highly recommend Kathryn Stockett’s The Help read by Jenna Lamia,,Bahni Turpin,,Octavia Spencer,and Cassandra Campbell.

When my publisher asked me to weigh in on the voices for some of my own audiobooks, I had the chance to listen to the audition tapes for Cradle of the Deep, Under an Outlaw Moon and then Nobody from Somewhere. The narrators who were picked — Keith MacKechnie, Patrick Garrow and Ron Lea — all did great jobs and each of them nailed the flavor of the stories and the characters' voices. You can check out all three audiobooks on the ECW Press website, or you can find them on Spotify.

Coming September 24, 2024