Looking this week at our choices for the BEST titles in the Biography & History category, I’m excited that we have the narrators’ Behind the Mic videos for so many of these titles.
Christian Baskous talking about recording Richard Ford’s BETWEEN THEM; Mark Bramhall on Ron Chernow’s GRANT biography; Jonathan Yen giving us a wonderful teaser to explore A MIND AT PLAY and discover the man who is called the father of the information age, Claude Shannon; and Rob Shapiro talking about recording THE WORLD REMADE, a timely look at America in World War I.
I love all the video comments we’ve gathered from narrators, but why do the narrators talking about performing a biography seem particularly powerful? A narrator has to get as deeply involved with the subject as the author does—that is usually a very deep dive. When we hear the narrators talk about the experience, we admire the work on a different level. The intimacy of the author, the narrator, and subject of the biography is amplified.
And of course “REMEMBER THE LADIES”. Not to leave off the women on the list—or the female narrators! As Suzanne Toren takes us to the fight for women’s voting rights, Cassandra Campbell narrates THE JERSEY BROTHERS, and Xe Sands performs CAUGHT IN THE REVOLUTION, all three narrators “speak” for the female authors of three periods of history—Russia in 1917, a missing Naval officer in WWII, and the suffrage movement in America.
Check out the full list of our 2017 BEST Audiobooks with sound clips and video comments in our media-rich EZine.
Photo of Xe Sands by Charles Tarnowski Photography.
