Summer Shorts/ June is Audiobook Month
June is Audiobook Month and it is the official start to my personal audiobook listening season. It’s so warm and beautiful that I have the inclination and make time to walk all the places, and listen to all the books. Last year I participated in a wonderful collaboration between audiobook narrators and bloggers called Going Public…In Shorts, organized by the lovely and accomplished Xe Sands. I interviewed Karen White and featured a story she read called The Death of a Soldier, from the public domain by Louisa May Alcott.
Normally Going Public posts an audiobook narration each week from the public domain, but again, for the entire month of June, there will be Summer Shorts, a new short story each day featuring a narrator reading a short piece by an author whose work they admire. You can listen to a different story for free each day, and buy the collection, including additional unreleased recordings, at the end of the month. Proceeds from purchases support ProLiteracy. From the Going Public website:
The audiobook community is giving back! Spoken Freely, a group of more than 40 professional narrators, has teamed with Going Public and Tantor Media to celebrate June is Audiobook Month (JIAM) by offering Summer Shorts ’14, an audio collection of poetry, short stories and essays. All proceeds from sales of the collection will go to ProLiteracy, a national literacy outreach and advocacy organization.
Throughout June 2014, 1-2 stories, poems and essays will be released online each day via Going Public, as well as on various author and book blogs. As a “Thank you!” to listeners, pieces will be available for free online listening on their day of release. As a bonus for those who purchase the full collection from Tantor Media in support of ProLiteracy, there are over 20 additional tracks only available via the compilation download.
Choosing A Story
At the time were discussing the June launch of this project, I had been reading Lynn Cullen’s Mrs. Poe, the absorbing fictionalization of Poe’s relationship with Frances Osgood, a celebrated poet in her own right. The novel details the affect this rumored relationship had on his marriage and on the mental health of the fragile Mrs. Poe. Many references were made to Poe’s stories, what kind of mind could have created them, and the hardships he suffered that might have informed such a grim perspective on life. I was reminded by how much I enjoyed reading Poe’s stories growing up, and how creepy they remain so long after they were written- even to my adult ears.
I really loved Hillary’s take on this story and the attitude she gave the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart. It seemed appropriate given who he is and what he is attempting.
Listen to The Tell-Tale Heart
The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe
The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It is told by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sanity, while describing a murder he committed. (The victim was an old man with a filmy “vulture-eye”, as the narrator calls it.) The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator’s guilt manifests itself in the form of the sound—possibly hallucinatory—of the old man’s heart still beating under the floorboards.
The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allan Poe (read by Hillary Huber) by Going Public
About Hillary Huber
Multiple Audie Finalist, Earphone Award winner and one of AudioFile’s Best Voices of 2010 and 2011, Hillary has recorded close to 200 titles. AudioFile Magazine says, “Hillary Huber’s narration is lyrical enough to be set to music.” Hillary splits her time between Santa Monica and NY.
