Authors From PENGUIN AUDIO

Julia Alvarez

"Oh, I didn’t want to do it!" says Julia Alvarez, mock pain coloring her warm, Spanish-inflected voice. "When they said that I should narrate the BEFORE WE WERE FREE audiobook, I said, ‘No, no! An actress can do it. I’ll just stumble, groan, and want to change every word!’"

Dave Barry

Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson

Dave Barry says he was ecstatic when he heard that Jim Dale had agreed to narrate the audio of PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS, the prequel to Peter Pan, which Barry co-authored.

Tracy Chevalier

Some authors love rereading their work. Some, such as Tracy Chevalier, do not. “I don’t write my books for myself to read; I write them for other people to read. So I tend not to revisit a book when it’s done,” says Chevalier on the telephone from London, where she lives with her family. “It’s like seeing yourself in a video from behind when you’re not used to it. You say, ‘Oh my God, do my legs really splay apart like that? My walk is so goofy!’”

Harlan Coben

Harlan Coben is as funny in person as his sleuth is on the printed page. The winner of Anthony, Edgar, and Shamus awards, Coben was honored this past March at the Florida Mystery Writers of America "Sleuthfest."

Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver has been many things in his life: a journalist, a folk singer, an attorney, and a published poet. Originally from Illinois, he now lives in North Carolina, where he writes bestselling thrillers, raises show dogs, and listens to audiobooks. He listens in the car, in bed, and even while cooking. It’s something he and his girlfriend enjoy doing together.

Sarah Dessen

“I’m a huge audiobook person, especially after having my baby,” says Sarah Dessen, writer and mother of 2-year-old Sasha. “I listen to books in the car constantly. And on the treadmill. And when I’m pushing a stroller. Portable books are a whole new way to experience literature.”

Nicholas Evans

Producer, screenwriter, and bestselling author of THE HORSE WHISPERER, THE LOOP, and THE SMOKE JUMPER, Nicholas Evans says stories come from "a collision of ideas." He always carries a notebook and clips newspaper and magazine articles. "I store them away and make notes. Usually, these are no more than a fraction of an idea. And then something happens, and two or more of these things collide, and you suddenly realize that out of that collision there is a fusion that might sustain a novel."

Tana French

Tana French appeared on the mystery scene quietly, but in a short time her novels have taken the literary crime world by storm. Like a pint of Guinness, with nothing “lite” about it, her writing gives off a crisp flavor and a full body that leaves the reader satisfied to the final sip. Her debut novel, IN THE WOODS (2007), won the Edgar, Macavity, and Anthony awards for Best First Novel. Each of her three novels has received universal praise.

Elizabeth George

Elizabeth George never listens to her own works on audio. “I imagine very distinct voices for each of my characters,” she says, “especially that of Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley. Except for a brief excerpt by Derek Jacobi, I don’t listen to my audios because I’m concerned that I would lose the voices I carry in my head.”

Seth Godin

Narration isn’t a high-risk profession, so listeners may be concerned to hear Seth Godin lament at the end of his recent audiobook, THE BIG MOO, that he’s hoarse and having trouble breathing.

W.E.B. Griffin

“Audiobooks are very important and growing more important all the time—and you may quote me!” says W.E.B. Griffin, speaking dynamically with the same judicious word usage that shows up in his words in print.

“Oh, I was inundated with mail after that book,” the author says with a throaty chuckle from her home in Washington, DC, where she is stopping between book tours for her newest Richard Jury mystery, THE GRAVE MAURICE. “I got letters from women readers saying ‘For God’s sake, surely you haven’t killed Richard Jury.’ Women told me that they had woken up crying about it.” She pauses before adding in a self-deprecating tone, “The power that I have!”

Jan Karon

As author of the popular Mitford books, Jan Karon enjoys writing about the familiar and the ordinary. Her novel series features lead character Father Tim and a cast of heartwarming characters who live in the mountain town of Mitford, North Carolina. “I never take my readers far from home,” she says. “We don’t go to Alaskan outposts or Italian villas or the French Riviera in the Mitford books—we hang out in somebody’s kitchen or go to the grill down the block or make a tomato sandwich and eat it standing up at the sink.” Karon writes this way “so that my readers can fully participate in what’s going on in the story.

William Kennedy

Albany, New York, native William Kennedy has received numerous literary awards, among them a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for his novel IRONWEED.

Stephen King

“The human voice always adds a dimension to good writing,” says Stephen King. In an interview with AudioFile, King talked about his experience narrating his new novel, BAG OF BONES, and why he’s so enthusiastic about audiobooks. “It’s possible to have a much more intense emotional experience listening to a reading of any work of literature than by reading it to yourself.”

Dean Koontz

In 1988, when the first of his books was produced on audio, Dean Koontz was appalled. “I allowed an abridged version,” he says, “and the story became incoherent. I never realized that ‘abridged’ meant as much as 60 percent of the story would be cut!” The bestselling author bought back the audio rights to WATCHERS, the second book in the contract, and has insisted on unabridged recordings ever since.

D.J. MacHale

D.J. MacHale bounds to the front of the library room, where nearly 100 middle school kids are assembled to meet the author. Another hundred will follow in the next school period to hear MacHale talk about Pendragon, and his latest RAVEN RISE, number 9 in the 10-book series, Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space. This school event is not unusual for MacHale, who makes frequent school visits, but the inclusion of narrator William Dufris to perform a scene of Bobby Pendragon and the start of another time-travel escape is a treat for the crowd. Dufris has recorded all nine of the Pendragon series since 2005 and creates not just Bobby’s voice but an extensive cast of Travelers and the demon, Saint Dane. The kids love the addition of actor Dufris and stay keenly tuned throughout his reading.

Jacquelyn Mitchard

Jacquelyn Mitchard’s third novel was supposed to be a ghost story. “And it was a real good ghost story, too,” she says. But she ultimately abandoned that project when a dramatic legal case in Wisconsin that raised questions about family and family bonds began to haunt her. The new novel, A THEORY OF RELATIVITY, tells the story of 24-year-old Gordon McKenna, who is devastated when his beloved sister and her husband are killed in a car accident, leaving behind a baby girl. In the aftermath, both he and his parents find solace in his decision to adopt the baby. But when the child’s paternal grandparents begin a fight for custody, the ensuing battle reveals that the young man is not considered by state statutes to be a blood relative of the child because he himself had been adopted.

John Mortimer

Novelist/playwright John Mortimer’s writings share a preoccupation with lawyers (he himself is a barrister), a satiric
edge softened by the gentleness of his wit and a whimsical melancholy underlying his humor. Moreover, he writes for the ear. He composed his first play, The Dock Brief, for radio; only later did it gain success with Michael Hordern on the West End and Broadway. Even his novels and memoirs seem designed to be read aloud. Perhaps that’s why he’s one of England’s most “audiobooked” living authors. Somewhere around 30 Rumpole of the Bailey titles alone are currently available. Mortimer’s favorite narrators of his own works are Leo McKern and Martin Jarvis. He, too, has stepped to the mike from time to time recording his memoirs. (Alas, Mortimer’s readings are available only in the U.K.) AudioFile was, therefore, pleased to ask Yuri Rasovsky, who produced the first American radio production of The Dock Brief, to phone him on our behalf.

Nathaniel Philbrick

"Audiobooks can be dangerous!" says marine historian and bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick. "When you’re driving, you can get so engrossed that you don’t pay attention to the road!" Given the spellbinding tales this Nantucketer weaves, maybe we shouldn’t play them in heavy traffic.

Jodi Picoult

When bestselling novelist Jodi Picoult is writing, her head is full of shouts and murmurs and the rapid-fire conversation of people interrupting each other. “Sometimes,” she says, “it seems that all I’m doing is writing down what I hear.”

Michael Pollan

“My first reaction was, well, I want to do it myself,” Michael Pollan recalls about the news that his books would be recorded. “But then they told me what was involved. It would mean coming to New York and being in a studio for weeks. And, they wouldn’t sell.”

Ruth Reichl

ruth reichl talks about her audiobook MY KITCHEN YEAR

When Gourmet magazine abruptly closed in October of 2009, editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl was as shocked as the rest of the world. Returning from a book tour, she faced the end of a life she’d loved. “I thought--what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

Kathy Reichs

How does Kathy Reichs manage to be both an accomplished forensic anthropologist and a bestselling author? It takes “organization and discipline; whenever I’m not on a case, in court, or on the road, I pretty much write all day,” says Reichs. “So far I’m able to do it.” Indeed she does. In her new adventure, GRAVE SECRETS, Tempe Brennan is sent to find the truth about a brutal massacre that happened in a Guatemalan village in 1982. Similarly, Reichs went to Guatemala in the year 2000 as part of a human rights research team with Clyde Snow, a renowned forensic anthropologist. She says, “My stories are derived from real cases I’ve worked on. The situation in the book was modified somewhat, but villagers really came and watched the excavation and removal of the bodies from the well.” As for the background of the village massacre, Reichs said that it was “pretty much as described; men had fled the village, and the women and children were rounded up by the soldiers and killed.” Many people she worked with had to flee the country, and things aren’t completely cleaned up there yet. She says, “The world is not aware of what is happening there.”

Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts’s biography NAPOLEON: A LIFE, one of last year’s most readable and satisfying biographies, has now produced one of its most memorable audiobooks. Professor Roberts spoke with AudioFile in early December, shortly after his book’s publication, on a day he was conducting--did he say 17?--other phone interviews. He couldn’t have been more gracious, patient, or forthcoming.

John Sandford

John Sandford defies being pigeonholed or categorized. He’s a man’s man, and his two dozen thrillers are certainly men’s adventures, yet his characters display both sensitivity and sexiness that appeal to female readers. Sandford is a Midwesterner, a longtime resident of Minneapolis/St. Paul. His books are set primarily in Minnesota, with characters who eat, breathe, and sweat the prairie. But his themes and the storytelling with which he reveals them are universal. In 1986 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a newspaper series he wrote about American farm families in crisis. After that, he turned his talents to fiction and has seldom looked back.

Carol Shields

Carol Shields, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has narrated all three of her books—THE REPUBLIC OF LOVE, THE STONE DIARIES, and now her newest, LARRY’S PARTY. She always wanted to be an actress. “I always tried out for parts in the school play, but I was too self-conscious, and I didn’t have a loud voice.” When her publisher, Viking, offered the chance to read her works, she thought, “Here’s something I can do!”

Susan Vreeland

Susan’s Vreeland’s love for the world of art began early. “It started when I was about 8 years old when my step-grandfather came to live with us. We had an art studio for him in the backyard, where I would watch him paint. I remember one day he took my hand in his gnarled, spidery one, and together we painted a watercolor of a calla lily.” That moment, she says, created a passion for painting and sculpture that she nurtured during 30 years as a high school English teacher. The idea for Vreeland’s first novel about art, Girl in Hyacinth Blue, came as she was developing a collection of short stories, each written from the point of view of a character peripheral to an artist: Monet’s gardener at Giverney, for example, and a girl whose back is turned toward the viewer in a Vermeer painting. Imagining the girl to be Vermeer’s daughter, Vreeland wrote a short story that became a critically acclaimed novel.

Garry Wills

Garry Wills may be the only man ever to choose THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE as a workout tape. But he did and has fond memories of running to the prose of Edward Gibbon while on vacation in Mexico.

Stuart Woods

With twenty published novels, and more than thirty audiobooks, few writers are as well rep-resented in the audiobook world as Stuart Woods. Half-a-dozen Woods audio-books are slated for pub-lication in 2000, including his latest novel, THE RUN (in abridged and unabridged formats from Harper Audio), and an unabridged reading of his 1981 novel Chiefs (Recorded Books).

Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson was a storyteller even as a child--although when she was younger, she says, these stories weren’t the “once-upon-a-time kind,” but more outright lies, tall tales she told to see just how much she could get away with. “It wasn’t malicious,” she laughs. “I just loved to engage people with stories from a young age, and I didn’t know how else to do it.”

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