This month, a former Secretary of Defense, a Tony Award nominee, Audie Award winners, actors, and authors will be heading to the studio to record audiobooks for the likes of Penguin, Hachette, and Naxos—just to name a few. One publisher is even donating a portion of the proceeds from a very important audiobook to charity.
Tantor Audiobook to Aid Avielle Foundation
Daily News staff writer Matthew Lysiak’s Newtown: An American Tragedy—which tells the tragic tale of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.—will be read by narrator by Adam Verner for Tantor Media. As a Connecticut publisher, Tantor will be donating a portion of the audiobook’s proceeds to the Avielle Foundation, which was created to reduce violence and honor Avielle Rose Richman, one of 26 children and educators killed at Sandy Hook.
Gates Performs His Audio Duty
Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, will read the introduction to his forthcoming memoir, Duty, for Random House Audio. The memoir—also read by George Newbern—examines the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the author’s relationships with both presidents and his battles with Congress.
Brilliance Brings Tan to Audio
In her latest novel, The Valley of Amazement, Amy Tan uses multiple points of view, and for the audiobook this meant the use of several narrators. For its audio production, Brilliance Audio called on television and film actress Nancy Wu, award-winning audiobook veteran Joyce Bean, and Tan herself to narrate this sweeping epic that spans 40 years and two continents.
Boutsikaris Booked for Black-Eyed Blonde
The new Benjamin Black novel featuring Philip Marlowe, The Black-Eyed Blonde, will be read by veteran narrator Denis Boutsikaris for Macmillan Audio. Black is bringing Raymond Chandler’s beloved character back to life for a new adventure, and Boutsikaris—whose television and film credits include Person of Interest, Elementary, The Mentalist, The Bourne Legacy, The Good Wife, Shameless, and Law & Order—will be in the recording booth to aid him in this quest.
Davis in for Stella Bain
Tony Award–nominee Hope Davis is set to narrate Anita Shreve’s novel Stella Bain—a sweeping narrative about love and memory—for Hachette Audio.
Penguin Gets Its Audio Wings
Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings is coming to audio. The novel—about slave owner’s 11-year–old daughter named Sarah Grimke, who is given ownership of 10-year-old handmaid Handful in 1803—is told in the alternating voices of Handful and Sarah and will be narrated by Jenna Lamia and Adepero Oduye for Penguin Audio. The audio production also includes an author’s note read by Kidd.
Audio Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Ramón De Ocampo is recording Hard Luck, the eighth installment of Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid. De Ocampo has narrated all the books in this popular series, and has been praised for bringing to life the book’s protagonist, Greg Heffley.
Bean Held Hostage in Recording Booth
Narrator Joyce Bean will read Hostage, the second installment in Kay Hooper’s Bishop/Special Crimes Unit series, for Brilliance Audio. Audie Award–winner Bean was selected for her ability to convey the book’s building suspense and enhance the paranormal aspects of this story.
Fox Brings Romance to the Studio
Narrator Christian Fox will read bestselling author Maya Banks’s latest romance, Theirs to Keep, for Tantor Media. The audio edition of the first installment in the author’s Tangled Hearts trilogy—about a woman with no memory who comes between two longtime friends—will feature a sultry read by Fox, and it will be published in November.
Anton Lesser Brings the Poetry of Wilfred Owen to Audio
English actor and veteran narrator Anton Lesser will be narrating the audio edition of The War Poetry of Wilfred Owen, which is part of Naxos AudioBooks’s Great Poets series. This collection contains all of the major (and lesser-known) poems that Owen wrote during the course of World War I, before his death in the last days before the Armistice in 1918.