Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

Welcome back to the Audiobooks.com Podcast! We're wrapping up this year in audiobooks with the Best of 2015. We've coalesced this list of top audiobooks based on sales and public response and segmented them by fiction and non-fiction so we can dish it up for you with some color commentary.

You'll recognize several titles on these two lists from previous discussions on the podcast. We talked about Elon Musk in episode 2. Why Not Me, Go Set a Watchman and Girl in the Spider's Web in episode 12. And even though Addy has been struggling to read a Stephen King novel, we got a voicemail from a listener encouraging her to give it another go!

Reflecting back on 2015, we see trends amongst the most popular books. One is gender flipping, such as with Grey by E. L. James, when an author, who has written from one gender’s point of view, writes another novel in the voice of another gender in the original, or a novel that jumps between the point of view of a man and a woman.

Another trend is comedians writing autobiographies, or otherwise works of non-fiction. In addition to Aziz Ansari and Mindy Kaling on the non-fiction list below, 2015 also saw books from David Spade, Rainn Wilson, Tim Hawkins, Amy Poehler, and Judd Apatow. We’re not complaining!

The final trend is similar to the second but even more, indicative of how much our culture is changing. YouTubers and Bloggers are also writing books, which brings us new authors like Miranda Sings, Shane Dawson, and Jenn McAllister, amongst a shocking number of other book deals from the visual internet mediums.

Without further ado, here are the lists! Let's see if they match up with your top 10 of 2015!

Fiction

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Grey by E.L. James 

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee 

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

Finder's Keepers by Stephen King

Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham

See Me by Nicholas Sparks

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Non-Fiction

Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

Down the Rabbit Hole by Holly Madison

The Wright Brothers by David McCullogh

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitana by Erik Larson

Why Not Me by Mindy Kaling

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Rimini

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Road to Character by David Brooks

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear Elizabeth Gilbert

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
• Gray by E.L. James 
• Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee 
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
• Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
• The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz
• Finder's Keepers by Stephen King
• Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham
• See Me by Nicholas Sparks
• Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
• Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
• Down the Rabbit Hole by Holly Madison
• The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
• Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
• Why Not Me by Mindy Kaling
• Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Rimini
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Road to Character by David Brooks
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

A love of a particular book arises for many reasons. A premise, a concept, a theme often draws us to the book, but an author’s imagination is usually what makes us stay. This week on the Audiobooks.com Podcast, we speak with an author who has that envious and covetous imagination which brings books to life in a multidimensional sort of way. Lee Stephens, author of Dawn of Destiny, part of the Epic series, created a full production audio drama out of his first novel and joins us for a little chat!

To give you an idea of just how involved and exciting the audiobook is, we play a short clip of his epic science fiction adventure. In this clip we hear both the description of the action and the sound effects that accompany it. We hear unique voices for each characters. And, most importantly, we hear the result of four and a half years of commitment to a project Lee believed in and wanted to share with the world.

The plan for the Epic Universe is an 8-book series. Four are currently available, but only Dawn of Destiny is available in audiobook form. The fifth book, Lee promises, is nearing completion. We asked Lee if he has plans to turn the other books into the same type of audio drama as he did with the first one. You’ll have to tune in to the podcast for the answer!

The story featured here in this podcast, Dawn of Destiny, follows a young man heeding a call to war. Earth has been invaded by three alien species, and Scott Remington is one of a handful of young men that lead outstanding excursions onto the battlefield, coming up with the impossible, and igniting an action-packed story. This book explores though-provoking themes about the human condition, about God and faith, and about what it means to answer a call on one’s life.

A huge thank you to Lee for being on the show this week! Take a moment to go check out Lee’s website, epicuniverse.com, and then show him some love on Twitter: @epicuniverse. His first, and only, audiobook (thus far) is available at Audiobooks.com! Check out the Books and Resources section of this post to be redirected.

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• Dawn of Destiny
• Epic Universe

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

In 2012, the world was made aware of a strange, desert town in the Southwestern United States. Details of this town were provided through advertisements and news segments on a bi-monthly basis. The name of this town? Night Vale.

This week on the Audiobooks.com Podcast we had the pleasure of speaking with the creative minds behind Welcome to Night Vale, the very podcast that made Night Vale one of the most popular fictional towns in the world. Or, at least, on the Internet. Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor developed and released Welcome to Night Vale in June of 2012, providing bi-monthly installments since then, and became the most-downloaded podcast of 2013.

In the ongoing wake of the podcast’s popularity, the men wrote a novel which hit our hungry bookshelves in October 2015. Set within the same town, but narrated by two characters fans of the podcasts will recognize, the novel is for new fans and seasoned fans alike! We catch up with Joseph and Jeffrey just a couple months after the book’s release to learn about their motivation for writing it, their creative process and storytelling techniques, and how the book has been received by fans.

Joseph and Jeffrey, as well as many of the Night Vale cast members, belong to the New York-Neo-Futurist performance organization, which is known for its long-running show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. For 50 weeks a year, the Too Much Light family puts on a different show, consisting of 30 plays in 60 minutes. The show format is quick, comic and light, the audience gets involved, and the plays are written by the performers. Both men say that they borrowed significantly from their experiences writing for a variety of people and styles, week after week, to make Welcome to Night Vale into what it is today. If you’re ever in New York, catch a show!

A huge thank you to both Joseph and Jeffrey for their time with us this week! Go show them some love on Twitter and Facebook. And then, listen to the book!

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
• How To Be Both by Ali Smith
• Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
• Welcome to Night Vale podcast
• Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

Can you handle the truth? The Real Brian and the One and Only Addy serve it up on a silver platter in this week’s installment of the Audibooks.com Podcast! We had the great privilege of speaking with Neil Strauss, author of 2005 New York Times bestseller The Game and the newly released The Truth. From an elite player in a secret society celebrating the artistry of picking up women to a father and committed monogamist, Neil tells us about the amazing journey of writing The Truth that lead him away from being a monogamy nay-sayer.

Having already exposed his pick-up methods and encounters in a very detailed manner throughout The Game, and later Emergency, we were interested in learning about how his approach to the new book differed from his approach to the earlier ones. How did the writing process change for him? Did he continue to learn more about himself as he put it into words?

To our great surprise and interest, Neil says that he started out writing The Truth as a means to redefine relationships and speak out against monogamy, coming at the book with all sorts of research that exposed the inefficiencies of that lifestyle. But at one point, while re-reading his own words, he reflected on the voice coming from the page and thought he sounded like a man scared of intimacy and commitment. This reflection redirected his course and turned The Truth into what it is today, an uncomfortable book about relationships.

Neil leaves us with some excellent advice that corresponds directly to the wonderful conversation we had in the course of getting to know him and his new book. He gives this advice: “Lovingly and compassionately question and challenge yourself, question your presuppositions and the bases on which you have your thoughts. Challenge yourself to break habits and routines, to get outside your comfort zone.”

We want to thank Neil for being a guest on our show this week and hope that you will too! You can find him on Twitter, @NeilStrauss and keep up with his latest projects by visiting his website, neilstrauss.com. Check out his available audiobooks in the Books & Resources section in this blog post.

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• The Game by Neil Strauss
• The Truth (An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships) by Neil Strauss
• The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
• Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera
• Ask the Dust by John Fante
• If On A Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

What better way to close out the month of November on the Audiobooks.com Podcast than with an author, and a book, that would make for a great Christmas gift! By the next time we’re streaming into your ears, we’ll be beyond Thanksgiving and into the season of shopping and of gift giving. For children, and for those with childlike imaginations, we recommend the novelette The Tale of Nottingswood by J.R. Young.

To help seal the deal on this gift, we had the wonderful opportunity of speaking with Justin himself, who, before writing this book has made a name for himself in acting, voice acting, and public speaking. We get to ask Justin about how he made the leap into writing, what the process was for turning his book into an audiobook, and the aftermath of releasing both.

The Tale of Nottingswood is written in verse and, as Justin says himself, needs to be read aloud. Deeply thought provoking, moving, and enlightening, the tale follows a boy and a girl, twins, who live in a land which cast out their majestic guardian, built a wall to block out the sun, and find contentment in decay. But then this brother and sister stumble across a Creature who changes their lives forever, and thus The Tale is born

We play a clip from the audiobook, which Justin recorded himself, to give you a quick glimpse into just how wonderful this story is. If you end up giving this gift as a Christmas gift, please follow up with us after the book has been opened and read and share the experience you had while reading it aloud or listening to it! Based on the feedback Justin has received thus far, and the opportunities it’s provided him to speak with schools and students, we have no doubt that great conversations can be had from that experience.

Get in touch with J.R. Young! We encourage you to reach out to him, buy his book AND audiobook, because the illustrations alone are a sight to be seen, and share your experiences with the book with him. Justin says the best way to keep in touch and be updated on what’s going on is to visit Nottingswood.com. He can also be found on Facebook.

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• Armada by Ernest Cline
• Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
• The Tale of Nottingswood by J.R. Young

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

Welcome to the Audiobooks.com Podcast! Every week we have the great privilege of chatting about the audiobooks industry, sometimes talking about what we’re currently listening to, other times getting to speak with people on the business side or authors or avid book lovers. The spectrum of guests has been enlightening and rewarding and we look to continue that streak with this installment, featuring special guest Sanjay Singhal, CEO of Audiobooks.com! Our conversation with Sanjay covers everything from where Audiobooks.com started from to where the industry is headed and to what is currently in his audiobooks queue.

Meet & Greet

We’re getting an inside look this week from the man who devotes his livelihood to anticipating and innovating the future of the audiobooks industry. It is both encouraging and exciting to hear about the passion Sanjay has for the industry, and audiobooks in general, because it only means good things to come our way in the future.

Inspired by Netflix and the methodology of delivering entertainment to the doorstep of a consumer, Sanjay and his business partner launched Simply Audiobooks in Canada back in 2003 with monthly fees and an assortment of titles in their collection. After sticking with the business despite a rocky first year, audiobook rentals have exploded into a lucrative and evolutionary business.

Looking at the last couple decades of audio, it’s amazing to see how the preferred medium has transformed the delivery; from cassettes to CDs to digital media, our methods of consumption have changed tremendously, and industry leaders like Sanjay have been on point to meet new needs as they arise. As the escalation of technological advances shows no sign of slowing down, the format of audiobooks will no doubt continue to change as well.

Watching the market, watching technology, and listening to the consumer base helped Sanjay to guide the delivery of audiobooks in a transformative way. This same attention, and same passion for making audiobooks accessible to everyone, is now leading audiobooks into the next phase of life as interest and competition increases.

Finishing Well

Lately, we’ve been talking about some peripheral topics surrounding reading and listening to books, and this week we approached the question of whether it’s imperative to finish a book once you’ve started. Brian is reading a book that he considers mostly review for him for where he is in his career, but isn’t quite sure how he feels about quitting on the book.

What do you think? When is it appropriate to set a book aside, with no real interest in completing it? Do you have a rule you follow when you find yourself in these situations? Send us an email and let us know your perspective!

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• Good to Great by Jim Collins

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

From Tamara Ireland Stone to Fred Godsmark to Tucker Max, we’ve had a lot of authors and audiobook business persons featured on the podcast, so this week we get back to the receiving end of audiobooks. Welcome business coach and audiobook lover Ellory Wells to the discussion! Ellory lends us his perspective on the listening experience and gives us a lot of recommendations for audiobooks to explore.

The Experience

We’ve discussed on the podcast before the differences between listening to an audiobook for entertainment purposes versus listening to an audiobook for reasons of time constraints or circumstance. It is much easier, and safer, to listen to an audiobook while stuck in traffic, for example, than reading a hardcover book! If the purpose we have to listen to an audiobook is entertainment, then the narrator contributes a great deal to that experience.

The book series that Ellory is currently reading, Undying Mercenaries written by B. V. Larson, keeps him engaged largely because of the narrator, Mark Boyett. Earth is visited by visitors from another galaxy in this book series, and instead of being exterminated, mankind joins with their visitors and go on adventures in space. Ellory says they’re easy reads, but are engaging and he enjoys the way Mark Boyett brings the characters to life. The entertainment value is high.

The same goes for The Martian, a book and audiobook we’ve discussed previously on this podcast, and one that continues to receive good reviews. The narrator for The Martian does a fantastic job of conveying Mark Watney’s, the main character, personality. Heavily sardonic, but an articulate intellectual, who has been well trained to survive in circumstances that normal people do not face. The narrator brings charm to Watney’s voice and a deep emotional connection with the man living alone on Mars.

Is It Cheating to Listen?

Does the method of consumption contribute to the legitimacy of an experience? Do we lose something by listening to, rather than reading, a book? This is one of the questions we ask Ellory, and his response is very interesting! We’re going to let you listen to the podcast to hear his perspective, but in the meantime, let’s take another look at this concept.

It should come as no surprise that in our modern, 21st-century culture, scientists have explored the differences of effects between reading and listening to books when it comes to how the brain processes and absorbs information. Researchers have done studies for decades about listening comprehension versus reading comprehension and their correlation to different personalities and different learning styles. But even through all of this research there seems to be inconclusive evidence that a person absorbs or understands better either through reading or listening.

A well-known phrase, coined by Marshall McLuhan in his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, says this: “the medium is the message.” One of his first objectives is to demonstrate how the content of a particular medium is also a medium. In the case of audiobooks, if we were to ask what the content of an audiobook is, the answer might be “book”, whereas we’d say the content of a book is “the written word”.

The question of whether it is cheating to listen to a book becomes a little different in this context because there is a degree of separation between the written word and the way it is absorbed. If scientists can’t find conclusive proof that we, as humans, understand better through reading or listening, then it’s difficult to say that listening is straight up cheating. There is certainly something to be gained by various learning styles from listening to audiobooks, but it can also neither be a blanket statement.

In Understanding Media, McLuhan argues that a medium translates content. While reading a book, the written word translates the story for our brains to absorb; while listening to an audiobook, the narrator translates the story for our brains to absorb. In both cases, our brains still achieve direct access to the story; our mind’s eye must still create the story in our imaginations or our intellect must process the information for application.

Is it cheating to listen to audiobooks? Science and social theory may never be able to give us a direct answer to that question. Perhaps that question is tied into a deeper social issue of the modern age as we witness other mediums fade into the category of obsolete technology. Whether we use technology as an excuse or a crutch to avoid a tedious task is also called into question. In the end, we love audiobooks for the similar reason we love the theater, or a film, or a rock concert: it is another medium through which we can absorb, learn, grow and be entertained.

Get In Touch!

As always, we would love to hear what you are currently listening to and what is in your queue! Send us an email or hit us up on Twitter. And while you’re at it, send Ellory a quick thank-you for talking with us this week!

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• Other works by B. V. Larson
• Andy Weir’s The Martian started as a series of blog posts
• Ellory Wells

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

Welcome back to the Audiobooks.com Podcast! Halloween has passed, November is upon us and we can finally start thinking about Thanksgiving here in the United States. No more being shy about ordering pumpkin spice lattes, it’s now a shameless request. There are a lot of fantastic autumn beverages that often get overlooked, though, like Masala Chai and apple cider. If you have a favorite autumn beverage that gets overlooked, write us and tell us what it is!

We have a very special treat for you this week as we invited entertainer and entrepreneur Tucker Max to join us. The truth is, every week is a special week, every guest is a special guest, but we are excited to share this interview with you because of the unique change Tucker has brought to the world of books and audiobooks.

Google and Wikipedia will tell you about the Old Tucker Max, the one without a wife and a son, the one who wrote I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, and the one who basically helped form the genre fratire. What they don’t spend a lot of time describing is the New Tucker Max, the one who we got to chat with in this interview and the one who is re-inventing what it means to author books.

As much as we celebrate audiobooks on the appropriately titled Audiobooks.com Podcast, we also celebrate the opportunity to consume knowledge from those who have the expertise and experience to provide it. Unfortunately, by the nature of that position in life, a book containing that knowledge often ends up being compiled in a memoir. The relevance of its content, upon release, is already losing its criticality and is thus treated by the media and public as more of a biographical work.

Book in a Box is changing everything. Tucker Max and his business partners have developed a method which enables a person with expertise to get relevant knowledge out to its target audience while it is still critical. As audiobook lovers, we can appreciate the time it takes to either read or listen to a book, which says nothing about the time it took an author to write it. The greatest aspect to Book in a Box is that it does not take a person with this critical knowledge more than 12-16 hours over the phone! Time, as a caveat to producing relevant content, is almost negligible.

This process has amazing potential and we are excited to see the products that result from it. Check out the links below for more information on this enterprise, as well as the books that Tucker Max has written! Then, send him a thank-you for taking the time to chat with us.

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• Book in a Box
• Mate by Tucker Max
• I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." — Edgar Allen Poe

We’ve all heard of H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz, but this week on the Audiobooks.com Podcast we’re talking with the founder of Audio Realms, Fred Godsmark. As Halloween is just a couple days away, we thought it appropriate to bring on an expert in the field of horror, someone knowledgeable about the books and audiobooks currently popular in the genre, and get some insight into current trends and demographics surrounding fans of horror.

Niche Books

There are fans, and then there are true fans. The dedicated masses. The fanatics. The ones that will paint their faces, dress up like a mascot or character; the ones that go to conventions, host themed parties, and follow the object of their fanaticism around the country. These kinds of fans undoubtedly inspire companies like Audio Realms to not just exist, but to thrive.

These kinds of fans, in fact, create companies like Audio Realms! Fred himself is an avid reader of the horror genre and dedicated to bringing the authors and stories he loves into the light. He mentions that stories by H.P. Lovecraft sell just as well now as they did 10 years ago, but he also says that new authors come about every year with fascinating stories to tell that don’t get nearly the same attention as the pop culture horror authors do.

To remedy this, Fred gives us a ton of recommendations to get a more thorough look into the genre of horror! At the forefront of his mind are Wolfland by Jonathan Janz, The Things That Are Not There by C. J. Henderson, and The Guns of Santa Sangre by Eric Red.

Getting a Taste

Audio Realms is currently working on a series of short story collections. Historically, Fred shares with us, the medium for horror was predominantly short stories. People would line up to buy these “old rags”! One such collection Audio Realms has produced is called Out of Tune, which has a really cool theme. They’ve taken a series of old ballads and wrote short stories to accompany them, and also a short explanation of the ballad. This collection was edited by Jonathan Mayberry.

We’ve talked a couple times on the podcast about how the length of a podcast can be difficult to fully embrace. It’s true that listening to an audiobook is often faster than reading it, but audiobooks that are 20-30 hours long is a big commitment. When it comes to a road trip, the longer the better! Short stories, on the other hand, are ideal for commutes that aren’t quite of the same degree as a road trips. It could take 45 days to listen to a 30-hour audiobook, if your daily commute is 40 minutes. That’s over 2 months!

If you’re someone who enjoys completing a task more quickly than that, then perhaps looking into Audio Realms’ short story collections is a good idea for you! Watch for new collections from Audio Realms to get a taste of horror for yourself.

What Are You Listening To

We’ve heard from Fred, now we want to hear from you! What was on your audiobooks playlist for the advent of Halloween?

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Books & Resources Mentioned

• AudioRealms.com
• Castaways by Brian Keene
• The Things That Are Not There by C.J. Henderson
• Limbus Inc. by Joseph Nassise, Brett J. Talley, Anne C. Petty, Jonathan Mayberry, Benjamin Kane Ethridge
• Author Jonathan Janz
• The Guns of Santa Sangre by Eric Red
• Stillwater by Maynard Sims
• Scares That Care

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

We are so excited to share this week’s installment of the Audiobooks.com Podcast! Last week, Addy gave us a preview into the new novel by Tamara Ireland Stone entitled Every Last Word and this week we have the honor and privilege to speak with Tamara and the woman who read the audiobook, Amy Rubinate. It was such a pleasure to speak with both women about their journeys, hear the stories that have inspired them to do what they do, and, in turn, to be encouraged and inspired by their experiences and advice.

Prior to becoming an author, Tamara owned her own marketing strategy firm. But her true calling has always been writing. Now her bibliography includes three novels. In addition to Every Last Word, which centers around a young girl with OCD, she also wrote Time Between Us in 2012 and Time After Time in 2013, both exploring an unlikely romance between a girl from 1995 Chicago and a time-traveling boy from 2012 San Francisco. The author is very active on social media, including Twitter and Tumblr, so we encourage you to connect with her and thank her for the time she spent with us on the Audiobooks.com Podcast!

From behind the pen to behind the mic, we get a glimpse into where Amy got her start as well. Amy actually began as a cabaret singer, then migrated into voiceovers before falling in love with audiobooks and finding a niche in that industry. Since getting involved with audiobooks, and starting her own audiobook publishing company called Ideal Audiobooks, Amy has recorded dozens of books and received the AudioFile’s Earphones Award.

As much as it is a treat to hear both of their stories, it is even more incredible to hear about the relationship and rapport the women have developed since their paths crossed following the release of Tamara’s first book. They hold deep respect for one another, and the industry of books and audiobooks, out of which comes an invigorating passion in the way they talk about their craft.

If you are as much a book and audiobook nerd as we are, you are going to love the detail that Tamara and Amy go into about their respective trades. On Tamara’s side, we get a look into how she begins writing, how she develops characters, and that routine she has when starting out on a new idea to get inside the heads of her characters. On Amy’s side, she tells us about how she goes about bringing a voice to the story she narrates, both in resonating with the characters and with the author.

The stories and experiences these women share are so wonderful and we’re always just so thankful to speak with individuals in the industry who are eager to see the medium thrive. When we have the chance to hear authors and narrators genuinely fawn over what they do, and also express a genuine love for the craft, it is equally as transdimensional as it is to be immersed in a book or audiobook. They transport us to this dimension where all that exists are fictional stories that enable us to depict deep truths in relatable ways, and we really felt that throughout this conversation.

Thanks for joining us this week! We encourage you to reach out to Tamara and Amy on social media and thank them for their time. Be sure to check out Tamara’s other books, as well as the ones Amy has narrated. And then, let us know what you thought of the interview. What inspired you? What did you learn? Let us know!

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Books & Resources Mentioned

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone | Narrated by Amy Rubinate

Ideal Audiobooks

Tamara Ireland Stone on Twitter

Amy Rubinate on Twitter

Site: http://www.audiobooks.com/podcast  | Email: [email protected]

Welcome back to the Audiobooks.com Podcast! We’re so glad you’re joining us for this installment where we take a step back to check in on what we’re listening to and review a couple recently completed audiobooks. In addition to finally discussing Ready Player One, Addy also gives us a synopsis of and her reaction to Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone. Hopefully this will be a great segue into next week because we have the distinct privilege of speaking with the author of Every Last Word herself! We hope that you will join us for that interview.

Popular, But Bad?

Before jumping into our reviews of Ready Player One and Every Last Word, we explore a handful of books in popular culture that have been categorized as overhyped. Many books receive a lot of attention or a lot of praise either by the media or by a particular subset of people, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate a work of excellent fiction. In fact, in many circles, book lovers might classify these books as bad!

We fully acknowledge that judgments of this sort are highly subjective. Books on this list include the likes of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series, and Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, which all have enormous fan bases and have received critical acclaim in certain respects. It is interesting to see what people are reading, what is trending on the New York Times’ Best Seller List, and contrast that with the opinions and reviews of those books elsewhere.

We found a surprising number of classics that often fall under this banner as well. One such book is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, originally published in the U.S. in 1958. Shortly following its release in the United States, a columnist for the New York Times wrote a rather harsh review of the book, not just highly critical of the book’s content, but also critical of the snobbish intellectuals who gave the book so much momentum following its release in Paris several years earlier. At one point, the reviewer wrote: “There are two equally serious reasons why it isn’t worth any adult reader’s attention. The first that it is dull… The second is that it’s repulsive.”

A contemporary of this reviewer for The Atlantic, had nearly the exact opposite reaction. He closes his review by stating: “It is one of the funniest serious novels I have ever read; and the vision of its abominable hero…brings into grotesque relief the cant, the vulgarity, and the hypocritical conventions that pervade the human comedy.” As Addy states on the podcast, it’s important to take each review and recommendation with a grain of salt, to understand the reviewer’s general interests and to understand the subtext of taste. For every person who raves about a novel, there will be someone else to cut it down.

Another classic that got its start with a bad review is Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, originally published in 1936. The reviewer found it riddled with convention—conventional dialogue, conventional characters—and yet states that Mitchell’s style is rather unconventional for an early 20th century female novelist. The reviewer leaves the reader with a notion of puzzlement, as he praises the efforts of the author but has no distinct praise for the story. Now, over 75 years later, the book is regarded often as one of the greatest books of all times. In 2011, for the 75th Anniversary of the book’s publication, TIME Magazine published an article that claimed Gone With the Wind has transcended criticism, along with Star Wars, in that it will never lose its relevance.

Shaping Our Time

Despite the critical or common reviews of books in popular culture, it is clear that these are the books shaping our times. Books like Ready Player One might not be literary masterpieces, but they are highly indicative of modern culture along the projected continuum of human history by presenting realistic peeks into possible futures. Given a certain set of scenarios, and a little imagination, we get a raw look at what could happen. Perhaps we won’t see a future exactly like the one Wade Watts experiences in The Oasis, but the internet has certainly connected us to a virtual reality that is quickly becoming more fibrous than the physical world.

The last century of books has brought with it an uptick in disturbingly possible dystopian future scenarios. Brave New World in 1932. 1984 in 1948. Fahrenheit 451 in 1953. A Clockwork Orange in 1962. The Giver in 1993. And then, more recently, cultural phenoms like The Hunger Games and Divergent. As much as our society can produce visionaries that seek to find solutions to the earth’s problems, we also have novelists to paint word pictures about unpleasant futures that seem to be a direct result of humanity left unchecked.

All of the dystopian novels listed above are currently available for your listening pleasure at Audiobooks.com! What is your favorite dystopian novel of the last century?

Halloween Cometh

We’re just a few weeks away from Halloween, so we want you to be ready to freak yourself out! Check out one of our recommendations for seasonal listening: The Edgar Allen Poe audio collection, Dracula, and The Invisible Man. What are you listening to for the Halloween season? Let us know so we can pass along the tips!

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Books & Resources Mentioned

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

The Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection

Dracula

The Invisible Man

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