I love listening to books. I almost always have an audiobook in process, in addition to the piles of books that lie on my desk and on my floors, the lists of books on my ipad.
One of the benefits of listening to books is the ability to do something else at the same time. I can listen while I walk. I can listen while I knit. But I think it also takes me back to my childhood, to the joy of those final moments of every day, when my mother would read to me. She would pull a chair over to the side of the bed, after tightly tucking me in. Now, when I reread books from my childhood—the beautiful picture books by Elsa Beskow; the lovable Frances the badger, eating her bread and jam; the problematic Little House series—I can still hear my mother’s voice in my head, almost 60 years later.
I spent hours reading with my children, too. My son had an old easy chair with a footstool in his room, and I can see the two of us there, a pile of books at our side. When she was little, my daughter had a rocking chair in her room, and the afternoon light poured in her windows as we read. At night, I would lie with each of them in their beds, reading (and often rereading) their favorite books.
My son came of age with Harry Potter, long before we learned of some of the author’s beliefs—he turned five a month after the first book came out. We had the full set of audiobooks narrated by Jim Dale, and for years, he listened to those tapes when he was going to sleep. He is a wonderful mimic, among many other possibly more useful talents, and I feel sure that the ability came, in part, from those hours listening to Dale read the familiar story in all those amazing voices.
The audiobook voices, for me, become part of the story. Edoardo Ballerini is one of my favorite narrators. I hear his voice, and I’m immediately transported to the world of a book. I can’t quite imagine the Italian village of Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins without Ballerini’s voice. I listened to the Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante and narrated by Hilary Huber, and when I reread the books in print, I hear Huber’s voice. I also love listening to books to hear the proper pronunciation and regional accent: I listened to both of Douglas Stuart’s novels: Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, narrated by Angus King and Chris Reilly, respectively. I found with those, though, that I needed to read the books in print at the same time, to see what I was hearing.
And now my debut novel, Beyond That, the Sea, is soon to be an audiobook! One of the biggest joys, to date, of this getting-a-book-to-launch process, was when I received three audio files and was asked my thoughts on who might be the best narrator. What a thrill it was to listen to these British women read excerpts of my book out loud. It was hard to choose between them. One of them was an actress I was familiar with, and I was tempted by her version. It was very dramatic, and I wondered if it might bring a bit of energy to what is a quiet story.
But in the end, I went with Ell Potter, whose voice complements the story, I think, and makes each sentence come alive. Their voice was somewhat familiar to me, and then I remembered that I had listened to their narration of Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. I had so enjoyed listening to that book. It was the first spring of the pandemic, and it was a refuge for me. I couldn’t wait to get back to it each night—the world that O’Farrell had created came to life with Potter’s beautiful narration. And what a thrill, as I was writing this piece, to learn that Potter had enjoyed narrating the book. I think you can feel that in their voice.
So here’s a small excerpt of the audio of Beyond That, the Sea. I hope you enjoy it. The book and the audiobook will be out on March 21!
See you in two weeks!