Hall Tackles Early Rand Work

Christopher Hall read Ayn Rand’s Ideal for Blackstone Audio. Rand first wrote the book in 1934 as a novel, but thought the theme of the work would be better suited as a play, and she put it aside. In December 2014, New American Library, an imprint of Penguin Random House and Rand’s longtime publisher, announced it would be releasing the work for the first time. Both NAL’s edition and Blackstone’s audiobook will go on sale July 7. “Christopher was chosen [as a narrator] because he is, above all, an excellent story teller,” noted Blackstone. “Ideal is very much influenced by the time period it was written in, and Christopher does an exceptional job of conveying time and place. This is very different from Rand’s other works, and Christopher’s approach has demonstrated that quite well.”

A Quick Multicast at Harper

Cris Dukehart, Jim Meskimen, Lorna Raver, Tonya Campos, and Tim Fannon will perform Silver Linings Playbook author Matthew Quick’s upcoming novel, Love May Fail, for HarperAudio. In the book, an “aspiring feminist and underappreciated housewife” embarks on an “odyssey to find human decency and goodness,” according to the publisher. The audiobook goes on sale June 16.

Schultz, Thor Reunite at S&S

Armand Schultz, Brad Thor’s longtime narrator, will read the audiobook for the author’s Code of Conduct, the 14th book in the Scot Harvath book series (following the bestselling Act of War), for Simon & Schuster Audio. The CD and download editions will also feature an extended interview between Schultz and Thor; the audiobook goes on sale July 7.

Safina Goes ‘Beyond Words’ at Tantor

Carl Safina narrated his book, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, for Tantor Audio. Safina is the author of Voyage of the Turtle, The View from Lazy Point, and Eye of the Albatross, and in the new book, he offers an “intimate view of animal behavior, to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals,” said Tantor. Safina, who has received MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim fellowships, moves from Kenya to Yellowstone National Park to the oceans of the Pacific Northwest, as he examines how the “similarity between human and nonhuman consciousness, self-awareness, and empathy calls us to reevaluate how we interact with animals.” Holt is releasing the title in hardcover.

Colfer Travels to Land of Stories with Hachette

Chris Colfer, best known for his role as Kurt Hummel on Fox’s Glee, read the fourth in his The Land of Stories children’s series, The Land of Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms, out from Hachette Audio on July 7. The hardcover will be released by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, also out July 7. In Beyond the Kingdoms, brother and sister Alex and Conner Bailey, “move beyond fairy tales into other beloved territory, such as Oz, Neverland, and Wonderland,” according to the publisher.