Hello from Selected Audiobooks! As you may be able to tell, I’ve just finished listening to Wintersmith, the third in Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series. I nominated it for consideration by our committee, because — to me — it fits the bill of a great audiobook: a book that is enhanced by reading it aloud.
When you hear narrator Stephen Briggs read — particularly the Nac Mac Feegles in that wild Scottish accent — most of us get a whole new level of understanding and appreciation for those wacky characters; one that we wouldn’t have were we just reading it to ourselves (unless you had a Scottish accent, of course!). Now granted, the Wee Free Men are pretty lively in print, but Briggs gives them a personality that is utterly enjoyable.
After a slow start, our committee has started nominating more titles:
- The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven
- Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn by Sarah Miller
- Larklight (and its many subtitles) by Philip Reeve (also nominated by me … hence the Huzzah!)
- Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
- Monkey Town by Ronald Kidd
- …and Wintersmith
We are of course, listening to as much as we can: between the nine of us, at least one person has listened to 119 of the 167 titles on our current list! Whew!
Did you know that you can make a field nomination of an audiobook that you’ve listened to and liked? If you nominate a book, one of us has to listen and “officially” nominate it as well … but we’d love to hear from you! You’re also welcome to leave comments about our nominations so far — I think we’d all like to know what other YALSA listeners think!
Just make sure it was published this year or last:
http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/selectedaudio/selectedaudiobooks.htm
It’s spring break week here in Oregon! Enjoy!
Lee.
