National Book Critics Circle Award winner Eula Biss first scored hot, independent publisher Graywolf Press to release the print edition of On Immunity, her provocative examination of the flashpoint issue of vaccinations as a difficult but vital choice for personal and societal health. She found an equally hot, independent publisher for the audio edition: HighBridge will proudly release the audio edition simultaneously with the hardcover in October of 2014. On Immunity is sure to be the most intelligently researched and well-balanced look at the history behind the vaccination controversies and the best way for us to move forward in thoughtful discourse – and in good health! Biss combines science, mythology, literary history and her personal experience as a mother to justify the claim made recently by Salon that she may be our next great writer of exceptional non-fiction, “Joan Didion’s heiress apparent.”
On Immunity from Eula Biss, “Didion’s heiress apparent”
April 2nd, 2014 by Frank Randall · Acquisition News
→ No CommentsTags: audiobook·Eula Biss·Graywolf Press·HighBridge·Joan Didion·On Immunity·vaccinations
Featured Audio Giveaway – April 2014 – Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
March 31st, 2014 by Kay Weiss · Featured Audio Giveaways
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A #1 IndieNext Pick!
Hear what all the buzz is about—and why narrator Scott Brick counts it among his top favorite books he has narrated. With his wife gone, a rare book stolen, and both his bookstore and love of life in serious decline, only something extraordinary could alter the sagging fortunes of A. J. Fikry and Island Books. What he discovers one night among the children’s books, however, could change everything. Read about Scott’s thoughts on narrating Storied Life here. |
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How to Win This Audio CD
1. Send an email to newsletter@highbridgeaudio.com
2. Put the word “Fikry” in the subject line.Entries must be received by no later than 4/18/2014. See the Program Details for more information.
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Last Giveaway Winner
Congratulations to ALLIE MOYER, winner of the previous giveaway, Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse. Thanks to all who participated.
→ No CommentsTags: featured audiobook giveaway·fiction·Fikry·Gabrielle Zevin·Indie Next·scott brick·The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
Living and Loving by the Book: Zevin’s THE STORIED LIFE OF A. J. FIKRY
March 31st, 2014 by Kay Weiss · Uncategorized
He looks across the spines, which are, for the most part, black and red with all capitalized fonts in silvers and whites. An occasional burst of fluorescence breaks up the monotony. A. J. thinks how similar everything [looks]. Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A. J. decides, because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.
He selects one and holds it out to his friend. “Maybe this?”
Having worked in publishing for nearly 30 years, I sometimes catch myself assessing rather than simply enjoying a new book. The analytical side of my listening brain fights with the emotional one that just wants to succumb to a story’s charms.
“Analytical brain” fought valiantly against Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, read by Scott Brick—but it was no match. One reason might be that Fikry himself fights so hard against the turns in his life. You identify with him only to find yourself, like him, forced by fate to accept a very unexpected path. The path is not without rocks and roots to trip one up; it’s not “a walk in the park”; but you come to the end knowing you are better for the journey—even if you never really had any choice in taking it.
The basic premise of Storied Life is this: A bookstore owner’s fortunes have fallen apart after the accidental death of his wife. Then one day a baby girl is abandoned in his store. Always a rather interior if not unsocial man, the addition of the baby forces his loner life to change.
What makes Storied Life special is Zevin’s keen understanding of bookstores, the publishing industry, and literature. Both the humor and the poignancy she draws from this understanding and deploys in subtle ways lends additional heft to a story essentially about love and transformation.
Narrator Scott Brick* captures those subtleties in a reading that uses pace and pause to full effect. For instance, when Fikry is speaking or acting, it seems like the reading slows just infinitesimally, providing a slight weight or sense of age to a man who in many ways does behave like someone older than his years.
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is for cynics and romantics; it’s for English majors and would-be writers; it’s for parents and for loners; for anyone who’s ever worked at a bookstore or in publishing; it’s for anyone who’s experienced loss or felt stuck in a rut or has searched for love. That covers quite a range of people. So it’s with confidence that, if you’re looking for an audiobook to exhilarate you, I can hold this one out and say “Maybe this?”
* Read more about Scott’s thoughts on narrating Storied Life here.
→ No CommentsTags: audiobook·bookstores·fiction·Fikry·publishing·scott brick·staff pick·The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
Sandrine’s Case: The Mystery of Self
March 27th, 2014 by Steve Lehman · Uncategorized
In Thomas H. Cook’s most recent novel, Sandrine’s Case (a Mysterious Press-HighBridge Audio, read by Brian Holsopple), 
the first-person narrator, English literature Professor Samuel Madison, is on trial for his life for the premeditated murder of his wife Sandrine, also a professor at tiny Coburn College. Madison contends Sandrine’s death was suicide; the prosecution is certain it was a murder made to look like a suicide, and the circumstantial evidence for that case is impressive. Madison recounts each day of the trial while looking back over the events of his life, particularly his marriage, trying to figure out how it all came to this point.
Sandrine’s Case is thus a murder mystery, though the mystery isn’t who committed the crime but whether the untimely death was a crime at all. But there’s another, deeper mystery at the heart of the novel: who is Sam Madison, and what is the nature of his guilt or innocence? That’s the mystery Sam is trying to solve. As he puts it early on, “Regardless of the verdict, my trial had exposed everything, and from it, I’d learned that it is one thing to glance in a mirror, quite another to see what’s truly there.” Sandrine’s Case is about how we lose ourselves, about the subtle, barely noticeable steps by which our lives can take a wrong turn and set us on a path we didn’t intend to follow and weren’t even aware we were on. But while Sam was oblivious to those tiny events, Sandrine was not: she watched it happen to him a little at a time, saw the minute changes coalesce and harden into something unrecognizable, something she was unable to prevent through all her efforts, something that would lead to her death. Whether there could be a turning point, whether recognition and redemption were possible for Sam, was knowledge that she was, in the end, denied.
So Thomas Cook writes mysteries, or at least that’s the genre assigned to his books. 
As with Sandrine’s Case, they’re usually about crime or the possibility of crime, with plots that twist about a central unknown, and there’s invariably at least one death involved. I guess those particular features qualify his novels as mystery or crime fiction. Whatever. If you’re looking for the kind of genre fiction that follows well-travelled formulae of plot and character book after book, however, well, Tom Cook isn’t your guy. His settings and protagonists and supporting casts vary widely from story to story. What they always have in common, in addition to an accuracy of detail that comes from thorough research, are penetrating psychological investigations into the hearts and minds of his characters in the circumstances in which they find themselves. Cook writes about real people, not caricatures, and he does so with uncommon insight. His characters evolve, adapt to new information and external forces, act and react out of the amalgam of emotion, reason, instinct, and conditioning that comprise human motivation. In other words, he populates his novels with fully-realized personalities as unique and quirky as members of our species always are. There’s an underlying intelligence to his books, not just in wide-ranging references both literary and historical, which are never forced or ostentatious, but in a psychological acuity, precision of place, and deft, elegant prose. Of all these things, Sandrine’s Case is exhibit A. Small wonder it’s a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel.
I’d be remiss not to mention Brian Holsopple’s terrific reading. Every sentence, every piece of dialogue, comes alive through his voice. Holsopple is a veteran, award-winning narrator who is clearly still at the top of his game.
→ No CommentsTags: audiobook·Brian Holsopple·crime fiction·HighBridge·mysterious press·mystery·Sandrine's Case·Thomas H. Cook
Ray Chase Returns for The Empire of Night
March 26th, 2014 by Josh Brown · Author/Narrator News
HighBridge is pleased to announce that Ray Chase will be reprising his role as narrator for Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler’s latest entry in his thrilling Christopher Marlowe Cobb series, The Empire of Night. The historical spy thriller series stars Christopher Marlowe “Kit” Cobb, a World War I–era American journalist turned Allied Spy.
Ray Chase is a prolific voice actor who can be heard on dozens of audiobooks, several national commercial spots, and numerous video games. One of Ray Chase’s biggest fans is the author, Robert Olen Butler, who told him, “Now when I write Cobb, I hear your voice in my head.”
The previous two audiobooks in the series — The Star of Istanbul and The Hot Country — are both currently available on CD or digital download. (The Hot Country was recently featured as HighBridge editor Steve Lehman’s staff pick.) The Empire of Night will be available in October.
→ No CommentsTags: audiobook·Christopher Marlowe Cobb·historical·Kit Cobb·mysterious press·narrator·Ray Chase·reader·Robert Olen Butler·spy·The Empire of Night·The Hot Country·The Star of Istanbul·thriller·World War I
In Memoriam: Comedian, Author David Brenner
March 16th, 2014 by Kay Weiss · Author/Narrator News
David Brenner helped generations of Americans laugh. In some ways a precursor to Jon Stewart and today’s political satirists, current events fueled Brenner’s humor. His first career as an award-winning documentary writer and producer in retrospect appears the perfect developmental ground for his later work as an observational comedic artist.
Brenner died Saturday after a battle with cancer.
Various tributes are noting his numerous appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He also appeared as recently as 2010 on Modern Family, in an episode in which the family patriarch attends his standup show. The episode reaired Saturday night.
At HighBridge we will of course remember Brenner as the author of I Think There’s a Terrorist in My Soup, which he narrated on audio in two parts: I Think There’s a Terrorist in My Soup and I Think There’s Another Terrorist in My Soup.
The audios—their genesis and their content—are exemplary of Brenner’s particular gift to the world, both comedic and personal. Consider this excerpt from their description, written back in 2004:
Comedy legend David Brenner shows how humor can give us the power to transcend tragedy.
On September 11, 2001, David Brenner was in the midst of a 48-week standup comedy gig in Las Vegas. Immediately after the tragic day, he cancelled the engagement and instructed his manager to book him on a nationwide tour. He called it the “Laughter to the People” tour, and it was to become the most gratifying chapter in his long and distinguished career—a nightly session of hilarity and healing which absolutely confirmed his conviction that “laughter is the best medicine, and if one can laugh, one can live.” . . . With humanity and honesty, he offers this work as a prescription for our ailing world. Apply liberally; repeat as needed.
→ No CommentsTags: author·comedian·David Brenner·I think there's a terrorist in my soup·narrator
Seeing Red: Star Wars: Crimson Empire Audio Drama
March 14th, 2014 by Josh Brown · Uncategorized
Star Wars: Crimson Empire is a full-cast audio drama adapted from a 6-issue comic mini-series published by Dark Horse. The comic was written by Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley with interior art by Paul Gulacy and covers by Dave Dorman. Issue 1 was released in December 1997. The comic has since been released in a number of formats including collected hardcover and paperback editions, and spawned two sequels.
Originally released on two cassettes, now available as a two-disc CD set, Crimson Empire features original Star Wars movie music and sound effects. The drama stars Patrick Coyle as Kir Kanos, Robert Downing Davis as Carnor Jax, and Nichole Pelerine as Mirith Sinn. It was directed by Peter Moore, and produced by Tom Voegeli (the same Grammy-award winning producer who worked on the radio adaptations of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi). The cover and inside panels feature fantastic art from Dave Dorman, the same artist who did the covers for Dark Horse’s comic series, which is a total bonus.
The idea of adapting a adapting a comic book into an audio drama may seem odd, or even impossible, but many had that same feeling back in 1981 when the original Star Wars movie was adapted into a radio play. How can something so visual be translated into a medium that can’t technically be seen? Well, as Star Wars the Original Radio Drama proved back then, not only is it possible, the results can be a spectacular auditory experience like no other. John Madden was famously quoted when he was directing Star Wars the Original Radio Drama: “You may think you’ve seen the movie; wait ’til you hear it.” The same can be said about Crimson Empire: You may think you’ve read the comic, but wait ’til you hear it.
The story takes place immediately following the events of the Dark Empire series. Crimson Empire does not include the main Star Wars characters (Luke, Leia, Han, etc.), but rather introduces new members into the Star Wars universe. It ventures into the history of two of the Emperor’s elite Royal Red Guards and their journey through the ranks of the Empire as comrades and eventually as arch enemies.
In the wake of the events following Dark Empire, the forces of the Imperial Remnant are now under the rule of former Imperial Royal Guard Carnor Jax. Jax is obsessed with locating a fugitive named Kir Kanos, also a former Imperial Royal Guard.
A couple of off-duty Imperials get into a drunken bar-fight on the distant and remote world of Phaeda. The man they brawl with? That’s right: Kir Kanos. Kanos is given shelter by a man turns out to be a part of the Rebel Alliance (now finally gaining a political foothold in the galaxy as the “New Republic”). Kanos soon finds himself caught up in a ragtag group of rebels under the command of lieutenant Mirith Sinn.
An Imperial attack on the Rebel base forces Kanos to display his extraordinary combat skills. After the invasion, Kanos divulges his history, and the fact that he has sworn a “blood oath” against Carnor Jax. Mirith Sinn expresses interest in recruiting Kanos to the Rebel cause, but Kanos insists that he strictly works alone, and only to further his own agenda of killing Jax. What follows is an intergalactic melee of action and intrigue, Star Wars style. It is an exciting adventure, complete with the familiar music and sounds to transport you right smack in the middle of the Star Wars universe.
Crimson Empire along with all the Star Wars full-cast audio dramas are true gems. The voice acting in Crimson Empire is a lot of fun, and it really captures the overall feeling of Star Wars. There is lots of talk these days of an “audio drama renaissance,” especially in the science-fiction and fantasy genres. With the advent of podcasting and today’s technology, it is getting easier and easier for people to produce high-quality audio dramas right out of their homes. The original Star Wars radio dramas, and the other Star Wars audio dramas that followed, were an important milestone in the world of radio/audio dramas, and have provided inspiration for many people over the years.
Crimson Empire is a great listen for any Star Wars fan young and old, and certainly a must-have for any self-respecting Star Wars collector.
Also available:
→ 1 CommentTags: art·audio drama·audiobook·comic book·comics·crimson empire·dark horse·full cast·radio drama·sci-fi·star wars
Narrators selected for upcoming MP-HA classics
March 12th, 2014 by Josh Brown · Author/Narrator News
HighBridge is pleased to announce narrators for the forthcoming Mysterious Press-HighBridge Audio Digital Classics: R. C. Bray will be reading The Mordida Man by Ross Thomas, and Donna Postel will be reading 77th Street Requiem by Wendy Hornsby, both available in June. In addition, Derek Perkins will be reading Dark Nantucket Moon by Jane Langton, available in September.
In The Mordida Man, independent fixer Chubb Dunjee enters a dangerous world when the president asks him to recover his abducted brother. R. C. Bray has narrated a number of HighBridge titles, including The Singapore Wink, also a Mysterious Press-HighBridge Audio digital classic by Ross Thomas. He currently lives in New England with his wife and two daughters.
In 77th Street Requiem, filmmaker Maggie MacGowen looks into the decades-old murder of a controversial cop, unaware that she and her camera will uncover events in his past that may be better left unknown. Donna Postel is a prolific narrator who has previously worked on a number of projects for HighBridge, including Midnight Baby and Telling Lies, also part of Wendy Honsby’s Maggie MacGowen Mystery series.
In Dark Nantucket Moon, transcendentalist scholar and former detective Homer Kelly agrees to defend a troubled young poet accused of killing her ex-lover’s new wife. To clear her name he must discover who set her up, and what happened during the two minutes of a Nantucket eclipse. Narrator Derek Perkins is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner, and has previously worked on The Transcendental Murder and Emily Dickinson Is Dead, also part of Jane Langton’s Homer Kelly Mystery series.
→ No CommentsTags: 77th Street Requiem·audiobook·classic·Dark Nantucket Moon·digital·Donna Postel·download·Jane Langton·mordida man·mysterious press·mysterious press-highbridge audio classic·mystery·narrator·R. C. Bray·Ross Thomas·Wendy Hornsby
The Colorful World of London’s East End in the 1950s: Call the Midwife
March 10th, 2014 by Gladys · Uncategorized
Incredibly moving, compassionate, shocking, funny, disturbing, and evocative of a time and place forever changed by the upheaval of post-World War II: Call the Midwife is Jennifer Worth’s memoir of her experiences as a midwife-in-training with an Anglican order of nuns in London’s Dockland slums in post-war 1950s. These dedicated nuns had worked amongst the poor Cockney residents of Poplar and surrounds since the 1870s.
I was already familiar with Call the Midwife as the source of the BBC series—its third season airs in the U.S. on PBS this month. In the series. Jennifer Worth is Nurse Jenny Lee, the narrating character on the show. This audiobook tells the many human interest stories that appear in the series, but they go much deeper, including descriptions of post-War London housing before the slum clearances, community that was all-important and where no one locked their doors, and families forced to go into the Workhouse. Many stories of the community of nuns with whom she trained were touching, but I also I found myself laughing out loud at the hilarious stories about these strong and compassionate women.
I was immediately riveted by narrator Nicola Barber’s superb portrayal of the many characters in this memoir: her range of accents effortlessly produced are so authentic and convincing, you’d swear you were on the scene with the author. (It was a special treat to hear Ms. Barber, because my husband’s family hails from Poplar, and I instantly recognized the Cockney accents of his mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins.)
The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grim and impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. I gained a huge respect for the value of the midwife in the lives of these people; and also for the brave, strong women who struggled in often squalid and crowded conditions with often many children—5 to 6 children wasn’t considered a large family in those days. And the husbands were usually of little help in the home. That was strictly the woman’s domain, and she was expected to do the best with what she had.
While the author witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, lightened by a great deal of Cockney humor. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be depicted in fiction. “So many of those great characters have stayed with me,” she said on the publication of Call the Midwife. “Most people in London at that time didn’t know the East End – they pushed it aside. There was no law, no lighting, bedbugs and fleas. It was a hidden place, not written about at all.”
Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Worth’s stories bring to life the colorful world of the East End in the 1950s. I can’t wait to dig into the second and third in the Call the Midwife series, also read by Nicola Barber: Shadows of the Workhouse and Farewell to the East End.
Jennifer Louise Worth, nurse and writer, born September 25, 1935; died 31 May 2011.
→ No CommentsTags: Audiobooks·birth·Call the Midwife·Cockney·East End·Jennifer Worth·London·medical·medicine·memoir·midwifery·PBS
Featured Audio Giveaway – March 2014 – Call the Midwife: The Shadows of the Workhouse
March 10th, 2014 by Kay Weiss · Featured Audio Giveaways
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Call the Midwife:
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A perfect choice for Women’s History Month! The sequel to Jennifer Worth’s New York Times bestselling memoir is a rich portrait of a bygone era of comradeship and midwifery populated by unforgettable characters. When twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the direst section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood’s most vivid chronicler. Woven into the ongoing tales of her life in the East End are the true stories of the people Worth met who grew up in the dreaded workhouse, a Dickensian institution that limped on into the middle of the twentieth century. Though these are stories of unimaginable hardship, what shines through each is the resilience of the human spirit and the strength, courage, and humor of people determined to build a future for themselves against the odds. This is an enduring work of literary nonfiction, at once a warmhearted coming-of-age story and a startling look at people’s lives in the poorest section of postwar London. |
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How to Win This Audio CD
1. Send an email to newsletter@highbridgeaudio.com
2. Put the words “Midwife” in the subject line.
Entries must be received by no later than 3/21/2014.
See the Program Details for more information.
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Last Giveaway Winner
Congratulations to CARENCAY BOWEN, winner of the previous giveaway, Mandela: An Audio History. Thanks to all who participated.
→ No CommentsTags: Call the Midwife·featured audio giveaway·Jennifer Worth·Nicola Barber·Shadows of the Workhouse