AudioFile goes Behind the Mic with narrator Robert Fass, who shares insights into his recent audiobook project, THE HAPPINESS CURVE. Jonathan Rauch explores how age affects happiness, and “Why Life Gets Better after 50.”
“It will give you some encouragement, and some hope that things do get better.”—Narrator Robert Fass
Among our recent personal growth audios, quite a few focus on the specific things we can do to be happier and more satisfied with life. Being productive is one of those things, and in OFF THE CLOCK Laura Vanderkam says we’re going about it all wrong. She’s against obsessive time-management and instead offers a graceful invitation to stand back from our to-do lists and take a mindful look at how we can best engage with what needs to be done.
Another recent title, HOW WOMEN RISE, is about overcoming obstacles to personal effectiveness, another component of happiness. Lifted by the refreshing reading of voice pro Suzanne Toren, the audio describes how women can use their strengths to confront workplace gender bias instead of automatically capitulating to it. Read more…
Regardless of individual political allegiance, Americans—and many in Europe, Asia, and Africa, too—are gaining new and more popular awareness of how words can be used to both contract and expand communication. Whether used as singular epithets or strung into carefully designed phrasing, words and the meanings they carry can persuade, enrage, comfort, and signal a lowering or heightening of tension. People who love to read know this as surely as do gossips and clergy crafting sermons. Adding the high-octane fuel of skilled performance of the written words guides listeners through pace, tone, and inflection to burn every spark of available meaning and potential nuance from the written word and bring it to the audiobook reader’s attention. Read more…
This week on Behind the Mic we’re hearing the full truth, and nothing but the truth, about narrating Hector Macdonald’s TRUTH.
“Hector Macdonald has done us all a great favor. He has done a deep dive into this current information landscape.”—Narrator Robert Fass
Today I welcome the versatile Robert Fass to the 5 Audios / 5 Questions hot seat. I say versatile not only because Robert’s audiobook catalog covers a wide range of genres but also because he’s dipped his toe into the audiobook publishing pool as well (IT HAPPENED IN BOSTON?).
5 Audiobooks
One of Robert’s strengths as a narrator is creating a strong link between listeners and author, especially for nonfiction. For example, his performance of the personal essays in THE FLY TRAP highlights entomologist Fredrik Sjöberg’s personality, enthusiasm, and wry humor, making us feel as if we had just made a new friend. Robert’s delivery of Henry Fountain’s THE GREAT QUAKE, about the 9.2-magnitude 1964 Alaskan earthquake, helps us absorb the unthinkable devastation as described by eyewitnesses but wisely backs off the melodrama. Read more…
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