Category Audiobooks

Auto Added by WPeMatico

Orbital by Samantha Harvey audiobook review – lyrical, hypnotic reading of otherworldly tale

Sarah Naudi reads the Booker-prize-winning novel about the daily lives of astronauts on the International Space Station

Tracking the movements of six astronauts on the International Space Station, Samantha Harvey’s Orbital – the winner of last year’s Booker prize – imagines the day-to-day lives of those who have chosen to be “shot into the sky on a kerosene bomb and then through the atmosphere in a burning capsule with the equivalent weight of two black bears upon them”.

Only basic information is provided about the crew, who are from Russia, the United States, Japan, Italy and the UK. Harvey is more interested in the tasks undertaken to keep themselves healthy and their lodgings shipshape. Simultaneously expansive and intimate, Orbital reveals how the usual routines of eating, sleeping and exercising are fraught with challenges when you are weightless: toothpaste foam must be swallowed rather than spat out and cutlery adhered to the table using magnets.

Continue reading...

Street-Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence by Will Hodgkinson audiobook review – indie pop’s ultimate underdog

This warm, funny account of a mercurial talent gone to waste teems with love for its subject

When the music journalist Will Hodgkinson proposed writing a book on Lawrence, ex-frontman of the post-punk band Felt and latterly of Go-Kart Mozart (recently re-christened Mozart Estate), he was told there would be conditions. Lawrence – who goes by his first name only – said he couldn’t speak to any old bandmates. Furthermore, there could be no anecdotes or use of the word “just”. Asked what is wrong with “just”, Lawrence tells him: “I just don’t like it.”

A simultaneously entertaining and melancholic account of an overlooked musician, Street-Level Superstar depicts the sixtysomething Lawrence as a pallid eccentric who passes his time walking around London, who lives on liquorice and milky tea and is fearful of cheese – “We know that in nature if something smells, it is dangerous to eat.” We learn that Lawrence hasn’t had a girlfriend for years. Reflecting on sex, he says: “I was a two-minute wonder. They’re not missing much.”

Continue reading...

‘AI doesn’t know what an orgasm sounds like’: audiobook actors grapple with the rise of robot narrators

As demand for audio content grows, companies are looking for faster – and cheaper – ways to make it

When we think about what makes an audiobook memorable, it’s always the most human moments: a catch in the throat when tears are near, or words spoken through a real smile.

A Melbourne actor and audiobook narrator, Annabelle Tudor, says it’s the instinct we have as storytellers that makes narration such a primal, and precious, skill. “The voice betrays how we’re feeling really easily,” she says.

Continue reading...