Articles by Aurelia C. Scott

Let’s get far away from present-day Earth this month with some thought-provoking and fun science fiction. Up first are Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki’s...

When Wanda McCaddon died in December 2023 at the age of 91, we lost an effervescent spirit, a fine actress, and a chameleon-like audiobook narrator. McCaddon was one of those...

The six audiobooks selected for our list of Best Fiction of 2023 are distinctive and uniquely satisfying. Listening to them is akin to joining a book group whose reading choices...

Feeling scattered these days? You need micro listens! They offer all the pleasure of an audiobook without hours of commitment. Here are four single-story audiobooks plus a...

October, the harvest month, often is a period of reflection for me. Thus far, I can say that this has been a year of happiness and sadness. Wonderful, awful, and pretty...

September is a bountiful month, full of farmer’s market plenty and the annual Booker Prize shortlist. This year’s shortlist will be chosen on September 21 from a...

Let’s take a summer road trip without the hassle of actual driving. We’ll meet lovers, aliens, people on the lam, and a father and son on their way to Mount...

I did a happy dance when I heard that three of my favorite narrators have been inducted as AudioFile Golden Voices. Nicholas Boulton, Kevin R. Free, and Marin Ireland are...

Each May, the Pulitzer Prize Board awards outstanding achievement in journalism, letters, and music. Stamped with the image of Benjamin Franklin on one side and a printing press...

When I miss my mother, an intuitive woman with a sense of adventure, I like to imagine her living in the future—perhaps traveling through space on a sleek starship while...

Let’s consider love, that many-splendored thing. Love as affection for your running buddy, gratitude for your cat’s purr or your dog's devotion, and yes, lust...

In this first month of 2023, I want to share five novels about not giving up. Even the most sincere New Year’s resolutions take us only so far. To carry us past the third...

The six Earphones Award-winning audiobooks on AudioFile’s list of the best fiction list of 2022 gave me hours of listening pleasure. They’re witty, thoughtful,...

September will always be back-to-school month for me, even though it’s been decades since I sat in a classroom. Knowing that many of you right now also have the urge to...

Just in time for the last lazy days of summer listening, I give you four authors and seven—seven!—historical fiction titles that will spirit you away in your own...

Listening to Juliet Stevenson narrate an audiobook is like finding a perfect gift inside a beautifully wrapped present. The voice—warm, inviting, exquisitely...

In my part of the world, birds are singing, and the trees are a watercolor of tender green, baby pink, and bridal white. It’s spring, the perfect time for audiobooks that...

Put down your doomscrolling device and voyage with me out of earth’s orbit to different realms in five new fantasy and science fiction novels. A mix of stand-alone and...

Let’s revisit Upton Sinclair, whose 90 books and muckraking journalism helped make 20th century America a safer, fairer place. Let’s revisit him because we’re...

When I was in third grade, Valentine’s Day was simple and heartfelt. Our class made glue-smudged creations of red construction paper, lace doilies, and paper-doll cherubs...

At the age of eighty, author John Edgar Wideman is not resting on his laurels, which include a Rhodes Scholarship, MacArthur Fellowship, the Prix Femina Étranger, the...

The five Earphones Award-winning audiobooks on AudioFile’s list of the best fiction of 2021 kept me awake past my bedtime and made me forget half the items on grocery runs...

Novelist Colm Tóibín, an ebullient, broad-shouldered Irishman with piercing dark eyes, has given persuasive voice to many women, including Nora, a forty-year-old...

Mary Roach wants to know stuff. Fascinating, icky, weird, occasionally embarrassing stuff. The great thing is that she finds out about that stuff and shares it with us. The...

As students head into the classroom this September, many of them for the first time, I thought I’d celebrate their achievement by sharing five debut novels. It takes...

August is the archetypal vacation month. This year, it’s also a good month to celebrate the relationships that have helped us survive the last seventeen months of...

Listening to Maggie Shipstead’s new audiobook, GREAT CIRCLE, narrated by Cassandra Campbell and Alex McKenna, offers the immersive satisfaction of an historical saga, the...

As we celebrate the mask-free smiles of post-pandemic life, hugs and laughter are starting to repair the pain and isolation of the past fifteen months. Still, the world is...

The just-announced shortlist for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction promises hours of fantastic listening. If you start soon, you’ll be able to hear the audiobook...

In April, cheered by Easter egg shades of crocus and chilled by the north wind, I welcome spring with chewy fiction. Beautifully written, intriguingly peopled, immersively...

Joan Didion and Morgan Jerkins’s new audiobooks give us reason to celebrate the power of women’s voices. The authors, both of whom have written novels, memoirs, and...

That Cupid strikes with an arrow suggests that love is more complicated than it seemed in third grade when I pasted pink cherubs on Valentine lace doilies and savored chalky...

Feel like escaping the confines of your second pandemic-winter without actually going anywhere until you can receive a vaccine? Me too. That’s why I’ve selected six...

It's been a banner year for fiction, which means that AudioFile's list of the best fiction audiobooks of 2020 is a stellar one. What a treat awaits you in these novels that...

Poet and author Paulette Jiles's celebrated debut novel, ENEMY WOMEN, newly released in audio, is a gripping and unexpectedly relevant exploration of the ravages of...

English author Zadie Smith’s luminous new collection of essays, INTIMATIONS, should be kept close to hand so that you can reach for it when you need to reflect, find comfort, or...

I have sewn a wardrobe of washable masks and discovered a heretofore unappreciated skill for following directional arrows along grocery store aisles. I don't know what our...

Daring, funny, relatable, eye-opening, moving, and filled with gorgeous prose.  Those are some of the adjectives I’d use to describe the two novels that won top...

In this happy month when we applaud the talents of AudioFile’s Golden Voices, let me forewarn you that Arthur Morey’s narrations are so diverting that while listening, you may...

Poet and bestselling author Julia Alvarez’s first novel for adults in fourteen years, AFTERLIFE, is a timely and timeless exploration of what it means to care—for family, for...

Women make history in large and small ways every month of every year, including Women's History Month in March. The third month of the year is also when I celebrate the memory of...

When I was single, I squirmed every time I was encouraged to bring a "friend," aka romantic partner, to social gatherings. Arriving alone often resulted in excesses of sympathy....

So, how is your new year going so far? While I hope it's going brilliantly, I've found that many of us spend January in need of a boost, nudge, hug, or serious talking-to. That's...

In my family, we call it naked vacuuming. That urge to eradicate crumbs under the table while tiptoeing to the laundry room to retrieve underwear. One crumb leads to the next,...

It's a special pleasure to share AudioFile's list of the best science fiction, fantasy, and horror audiobooks of 2019. Wildly different from each other — the list includes magical...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy cooking, cleaning, traveling, laughing, stressing-out, hanging-out, gossiping, tippling, eating. My advice — forget politics for the day or...

In this month of gratitude, I am celebrating new novels by five of my favorite female authors. Plus I'm giving some of their previous books a shout-out because the only thing...

When I go on haunted house rides with the children in my life, I'm the one who screams most often. I also close my eyes when ominous movie music begins.  And if I'm startled, I...

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is touring America this month to fight for climate justice and a living planet. October is also Theodore Roosevelt's birthday month. While still a...

Pioneering reporter, commentator, and author Cokie Roberts was astute, witty, wise, and kind. When she died last month of breast cancer, a disease that is all too personal for...

Kate Atkinson's most recent Jackson Brodie mystery, BIG SKY, came out this summer, and I was so pleased to get to talk to her about her audiobooks in the August/September issue...

That day, about two-thirds of the way through summer vacation, when you eat the entire bin of caramel corn and allow your brain to embrace indolence? Well, that day...

I was delighted to interview author Anthony Horowitz for the October 2018 issue of AudioFile magazine. Horowitz’s second Detective Daniel Hawthorne mystery, THE SENTENCE IS DEATH,...

Who are you planning to bump off this summer? Oh, don't look shocked. If it isn't an in-law, blood relative, supervisor, cubicle mate, or politician, then it's the barista who has...

A company named Deep Space Industries is working on a plan to harvest minerals from asteroids. Not immediately, but as soon as they can configure "high performance propulsion...

You're stuck behind the lawn mower this glorious July week, or worse yet, behind a desk piled high with past-due deadlines while everyone you know on social media is vacationing....

In this happy month, when we are celebrating actors honored by AudioFile as Golden Voices for their outstanding achievement in audiobook narration, I wish to announce that few...

In the midst of this month's celebration of AudioFile's Golden Voice narrators — voice actors who have demonstrated unparalleled excellence in the art of translating books from...

Memorial Day signals the start of the summer season—gardening, picnics, barbecue grills, swatting mosquitoes, splashing in the pool, fireworks, beaches, bike rides, sunburns,...

At lunch one day when he was four years old, my nephew asked when he would turn into a girl. After a microsecond of silence, his father replied that unless he thought that he...

Now that I'm no longer young, I climb every flight of stairs I can find, memorize whichever numeral strings present themselves, and recite the alphabet backwards for fun. I don't...

It's spring! Yes, even if a snow-bomb cyclone dumped a foot of white stuff in your yard last week, Passover, Easter, and Earth Day are all right around the corner, followed by...

Springtime in the city.  Blue skies, warming temperatures, birds singing. I walk out without a hat, breathe deep, and inhale the pungent scent of aged dog poop revealed by melting...

We adults who love YA titles used to be hesitant to reveal our passion, lest other adults recoil in literary-fiction-horror. But no longer. Bahni Turpin's amazing...

Ah, the joy of sun hats and short sleeves, palm trees and warm blue waters. Yes, that's me, escaping the icy Maine weather last month for some time on Florida's gulf coast. I...

The remarkable coincidence that this blog entry is posting on my birthday encourages me to share that on the first birthday I remember, I hid under a table at the Wharf Theater in...

I listened to Andy Weir's ARTEMIS, just nominated for an Audie Award in Science Fiction, because long ago, my dyslexic brother-with-a-PhD learned to read with the help of comic...

[caption id="attachment_26694" align="alignright" width="300"] Aurelia's mother on stage[/caption] When I say that I come from a family of spoken word enthusiasts, it’s not just...

This time of year, I want to be inspired and enlightened about things that matter while also being entertained. I seek hope about the future, even if that hope is tethered to a...

As we count down the remaining days of December, I wish all of you a new year filled with unexpected moments of delight—the smile of a passing stranger; a tune that sends you...

It turns out that "May you live in interesting times" was probably not an ancient Chinese curse, but I mutter it to myself anyway, because, hey, are these interesting times or...

In my next life, I will be mathematically gifted, a natural athlete, pale with copper hair or mocha with corkscrew curls, able to carry a tune and tell a joke without ruining the...

We became culinary rebels the year that no one wanted turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. My parents preferred it cold anyway, especially in sandwiches made with toasted sourdough,...

Meet my great great grandfather Reese, who emigrated from Wales to Wisconsin in the 1860s and married Matilda, whose family originated in Saarland. And my husband Bob's...

I'm one of those election clerks you'll encounter on November 6, checking off your name and handing out ballots. (And as you can see, my husband and I are voters.) After the polls...

It's around this time of year that I bow to the wisdom of A.A. Milne, who wrote, "Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them." After a summer of failing to orchestrate the...

When life is going full tilt — the kids back to school, those two and a half deliverables due by the end of September, and the realization that you haven't done a thing about your...

// I wish Ollie, my family's handmade marionette, could have met Mr. Rogers. That was my first thought as I settled happily into LeVar Burton's Earphones Award-winning...

Last month I kayaked within sight of Mount Katahdin. I also drove a mile into Canada, for which I needed a passport, which implies foreign travel. However, I took my most...

As far as I'm concerned, summer vacation-reading is about finding a comfortable spot and succumbing to guilt-free total immersion. I prefer a hammock, beach chair, or quiet back...

I love my family, in all its born-into, married-into, blended, extended exuberance. Yet it’s around now in the summer family-togetherness season—generally while navigating a...

Ever since Jurassic Park was released in June 1993, the summer has belonged to dinosaurs. I mean, you or a close family member have already seen this summer's blockbuster, Jurassic...

July 1st is the anniversary of the start of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. On my first visit to the battlefield, which is one of the country's top summer travel sites, I got...

Now that it's all but officially summer,  joggers are loping along our city streets. My own running skills are best described by telling you that in 7th grade, I was panting on the...

If I said that a much lauded, respected, and beloved narrator was once put to work cleaning toilets in an Athens youth hostel, would you guess it was Lorelei King, John Lee, Davina...

See the yellowed pages in my copy of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE?  That's to prove that I am a true Janeite. Bona fides established, let me tell you about the literary mashup PRIDE...

[one_half][/one_half][one_half_last][/one_half_last] Hilary Mantel's historical novels about Henry the Eighth's chief fixer Thomas Cromwell, WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES,...

So how did your tax preparation go this year? Personally, I only cursed twice. First when I dropped the file of medical receipts. Second when I learned that despite what my husband...

I don’t come from a religious family, but during this week between the Roman and Orthodox Easters, I’m reminded of my one experience of church on Easter Sunday. In the children’s...

My husband Bob and I recently drove from Maine to California and back just to listen to audiobooks. Okay, we also wanted to escape winter in the 23rd state. However we played lots...

I spent years believing, or was it hoping, that I was too special to read books found on bestseller lists. Then I became a writer. Now I'm grateful for readers. And I applaud those...

What I remember most about my childhood attempt to ski is cold feet. Mine were so painful that I whimpered. That’s why, after one frozen season on the slopes, and several...

When I was about seventeen, I read the obituary of a New York City matron that included her recipe for a happy marriage. She had recommended living as she and her husband did, in...

One of my father’s favorite stories was about when he picked apricots from an orchard and barely managed to outrun a shovel-wielding farmer (and a cow that he mistook for a bull)...

I tend not to make resolutions because they remind me of raising my hand in fifth grade while praying Please don’t call on me, please don’t call on me. I wanted to be one of the...

As we close out our December celebration of the Best Audiobooks of 2017, I wanted to share some of our winning narrators’ lesser-known skills and challenges. [caption...

After months of persuasion, my friend Dory finally listened to her first book during a nine-hour drive from Virginia to Maine last month. She chose Kenneth Branagh’s performance of...

"Focus on something. It’ll steady your nerves," my mother advised. That’s why I stared fixedly at Mr. Potter the Latin teacher throughout my 6th grade...

As our national celebration of family and pie approaches, I’m reminded of the Thanksgiving when our gorgeously brown turkey slid off the serving platter and across the...

Asked to read a telephone book, Meryl Streep could find subtext even in the X’s. Hand her a novel and she’s la crème de la crème. That cannot be said about most celebrities who've...

It began with “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” which is arguably Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous short story. I was 11 years old and at odds with the world when my mother...

Soldiers lunged muddy, exhausted, and wide-eyed across our kitchen table most evenings when I was a teenager. It was the Vietnam War, in all its fear and confusion, playing in...

At age twenty-two, my grandfather looked a hero in his WWI pilot’s uniform. Peaked cap at a rakish angle, hand on his father’s shoulder, arm around his mother, he smiled broadly...

I was fourteen and my brother seven when my parents hid the television in the attic linen closet and told us that it was broken. It remained at the "repair shop" for two years,...

When I first visited rural England in late August about twenty years ago, I was prepared for hedgerows, pubs, village greens, and vicars and their requisite belfries. Also dead...

As a kid, I spent hours perusing an illustrated coffee-table book about ancient Egypt, imagining myself as Queen Nefertiti. Then I went through a period of wearing wooden clogs,...

The summer before my mother died, I repainted our front porch. Neither she nor I wanted me in constant attendance. So, in between visits to her bedside, I scraped, painted, and...

Summer travel season is here, and I’d love to hare off to an unfamiliar clime. In previous years, I’ve watched zebras on the Masai Mara and scraped my knees on a shortish Swiss...

Over the years as a Contributing Editor for AudioFile Magazine, I have heard and reviewed about a gazillion audiobooks and interviewed fewer, but still many, authors and narrators....