Whether you’re primarily a romance fan or a sci-fi and fantasy fan, these charmed romance audiobooks with fantastical elements all make for magical listening—so everyone wins! I know I’ll be sneaking some of these into my own listening queue. Enjoy!
Actor and narrator Emily Woo Zeller was inducted as an AudioFile Golden Voice this June. She is a marvel of a narrator with the ability to bring listeners into the story and capture the heart of a book. She narrates across many genres, including fantasy, science fiction, nonfiction, and stories of immigrants. She uses language and accents to voice audiobooks authentically, including many moving narrations of audiobooks by Asian and Asian American authors. She was nominated for an Audie Award for THE BRIDE TEST by Helen Hoang and in 2018 won an Audie Award for FIRE ROAD by Kim Phuc Phan Thi.
In today’s episode, host Jo Reed interviews Emily Woo Zeller, and they discuss her journey into audiobook narration through voicing anime, her skills with using accents, and what it was like narrating Fang Fang’s WUHAN DIARY in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are delighted to kick off June as Audiobook Month by honoring five new Golden Voice narrators—JD Jackson, Julia Whelan, Arthur Morey, Emily Woo Zeller, and Ramón de Ocampo. Golden Voice is the highest accolade AudioFile gives to narrators. The award celebrates an artist’s iconic role in the field of narration and honors those who have made significant contributions to the audiobook art form.
On AudioFile’s podcast, blog, and social media, we are celebrating the new Golden Voice narrators . . . . as well as many of your other Golden Voice favorites, including Scott Brick, Jim Dale, Dion Graham, George Guidall, Bahni Turpin, January LaVoy—you can see them all here. Listen or read the interviews in these features, but really the award is all about their performances! We have put together suggestions for essential listening for each of the 2020 Golden Voices. Read more…
June is a great month to be an audiobook fan. As you probably know, this is Audiobook Month, so it’s the perfect time to celebrate and honor AudioFile’s newest class of Golden Voice narrators. This lifetime achievement award is given in recognition of excellence in audiobook performance.
Among this year’s honorees is the versatile Emily Woo Zeller, a narrator known for her careful pacing and thoughtful characterizations. I’m always impressed with her ability to convey different perspectives, attitudes, and state of mind and to subtly tweak those features as the characters in an audiobook undergo change. Emily has skillfully taken us from ancient battlefields (THE MAGNOLIA SWORD) to futuristic America (A BEGINNING AT THE END) and from contemporary fraternities (THE RED WORD) to our own messy closets (THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP), all without missing a beat.
To highlight Emily’s Golden Voice performances, I’ve picked 5 AudioFile Earphones Award–winning audiobooks to suit a variety of listeners. Enjoy! Read more…
I’ve attended so many digital meetings lately, and I’m sure if you’re working from home, you are doing the same. My digital social life is busier than my actual one used to be, BC (Before Corona). I’m not complaining. I’ve had several great digital chats with friends and colleagues about romance lately, which is an undiluted pleasure. In my recent romance chats, it really shook me when numerous people mentioned that it’s hard to focus enough to read. Life is too fast-paced, too different, too stressful. They just can’t sit and read . . . yet. And usually the second thing they said was, But I’m listening to a lot of audiobooks. To which I say, Great! Let’s create some listening bridges between new titles and familiar favorites with these four romance match-ups. Go ahead and listen—it’s a delightful way to be kind to yourself in jarring times. Read more…
Feeling down because you’re all caught up with your current fantasy series? Be sad no more, because 2020 is overflowing with new characters and new adventures for audiobook lovers.
Today’s Take 5 roundup is all about introducing you to book 1 of this season’s series in a variety of fantasy subgenres, from fairy tale retellings to epic battles between good and evil.
Let’s take a look at some recent audiobook releases. Read more…
In a social-distancing world, students from kindergarten to college are trying their hand at homeschooling and self-learning to finish out the school year. Thus for today’s Take 5 roundup, I recommend nonfiction audiobooks that can be used as a basis for home study, particularly for listeners from young teens on up.
All of the following audiobooks can be used as a foundation for building a study unit or for starting a conversation with your students about the topic at hand. Read more…
Let’s talk about audiobooks performed by more than one narrator. You may ask, what kinds of audiobooks call for multiple voice actors? The first that come to my mind are audio editions of plays, which usually require a full cast of performers. The second are novels that have been turned into audiodramas, such as E.B. White’s CHARLOTTE’S WEB.
Collections of short stories are a natural for multiple performers, and of course, fiction told from multiple viewpoints is another great choice for two or more narrators. Nonfiction can also benefit from a collaborative effort; THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY by Garret M. Graff is a particularly powerful example.
Today’s Take 5 celebrates some recent audiobooks that feature multiple narrators. As always, I recommend audiobooks from a variety of genres—I’m sure you’ll find at least one audiobook that fits your own listening style. Read more…
The anticipation that some people feel about nominee announcement day for the Oscars, the Emmys, or the Golden Globes pales in comparison to the thrill I feel when the announcements arrive for the Audie Award finalists. Being a part of AudioFile, I sort of feel like Little Women’s crotchety Aunt March: I have a high bar for audiobooks in terms of sound quality, accents, and narrative excellence, but when the finalists are announced, I feel this wash of pride and excitement for the work that went into creating and judging these tremendous titles. I voraciously read up and down the finalist list for titles and narrators in every category, and then my scrolling hand slows as I reach the Romance finalists (they’re alphabetically near the bottom of the list). I pause. I get breathless. My brain goes blank as I struggle to remember every good title I’ve listened to or read about, wondering if any of my favorites became finalists. And then I read the titles, the authors, the narrators, the publishers . . . and time shifts from the moment before I knew to the moment of knowing which titles we will be specially honoring in this annual blog post. If this is that moment for you, I won’t delay it any longer. Let’s celebrate romance audio!
It’s the New Year (although everyone is still very confused about what day of the week it is). Your home, perhaps recently the scene of scads of visiting family and dinners that covered several folding tables (or maybe that’s just mine), is once again your haven of serenity. I covet the quiet spaces of January as a welcome relief from the hectic frenzy of December. 2019 is over, and the rare concept of spare time has reappeared like a lovely winter blossom. In January, you can curl up in a cozy corner with your pets, your hobbies, and your bright, shiny New Year’s Resolution to listen to more audiobooks. What bliss! So this is the perfect time for romance with a homey setting. Here are four romance audiobooks that will convince you that there’s no place like home. Love your 2020 listening — we can’t wait to recommend new listens for you. Read more…
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