Transcript

[00:00:00] Nicole: Welcome to another edition of the readerly report today, Gayle and I are going to be presenting you with our deep dive into audio. So Gayle has a bunch of audio apps that she is going to give us a review and let us know the best places. Find audio books. She’s gonna give us some pros and cons. We’re gonna talk about the best audio books we’ve listened to.

This year, so far, maybe some of our favorite narrators in the audio pet peeves were really just gonna get into all the things. So I know we have a bit of catch up to do. We missed week schedules got hectic, so we weren’t able to come together. So I’m curious to see what Gale has been reading in interim.

[00:00:40] Gayle: Yeah. So, or had we been able to do reading ? I have been doing some reading, which has been good, and I apologize to our listeners. Um, Nicole and I both for separate reasons had a very, very hectic end of may, beginning of June. And we just had a really hard time finding time for us to record. So we apologize for taking some time off.

It’s not intentional, but we are back this little stretch, the last like four or so books have all been repeat authors for me. Ooh, highly anticipated, repeat authors for me. With varying levels of success. So success, you read the Tom Perra, then I read the Tom Perada. I can start with that one. I did was the most recent that I finished.

Um, I liked it. I liked it. That’s the, the ostensible sequel to election because it has the same character Traci flick. The book is called Traci flick. Can’t win. Um, I actually never read election. I saw the movie and I read a lot of other Tom Parras. So I felt fairly confident going into this, that I would like it.

Um, and it was pretty good. It’s not, it, it doesn’t focus as much on Traci flick as either the title would suggest, or as I think people would expect given that the first one election did focus so much on her. Um, she’s now like a middle aged woman living in New Jersey. She’s the assistant principal at a, at a public high school and the principal is retiring.

And so she, um, is in line to get his job. But of course that process is never smooth. So it’s really like classic Tom Peric, you know, territory, it’s suburban New Jersey people living lives of quiet desperation, you know, bearing various crosses and like burdens and secrets and things. It was good. It’s not like the most memorable book, but it’s Tomara is very, just sort of just dependable in his like observations and assessments about just, you know, suburban life.

So I would say it was pretty good. I liked it. I’m glad I read it.

[00:02:47] Nicole: Do you have any interest in reading election?

[00:02:50] Gayle: I mean, I maybe, but I saw the movie and I guess they were pretty similar. I would probably just watch the movie again. I

[00:02:57] Nicole: didn’t know. They were pretty similar. Have they said it

[00:03:00] Gayle: stuck really closely to the book?

You know, that’s a good question. I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. Whether he, it deviated or not. So, I don’t know. They can be very different.

[00:03:10] Nicole: yeah, they can have you read all of Tom Prada’s books,

[00:03:12] Gayle: not all of them, but I’ve read a fair amount. I’ve read the leftovers. I think I read it’s the one that was turned into a series about people like some percentage of the population one day, all of a sudden disappeared.

I don’t know if you remember this, Nicole. I was with you. We were at, um, book expo and Tom Parrado was signing books. And his latest one at the time was the leftovers, which has this dystopian element where, you know, 10% of. People just spontaneously disappear. And I said to him, I’m not a big dystopian person, but if anybody can drag me into dystopia, it’s going to be you.

I said that to him. I definitely read and liked that one. Just looking up in my blog. What are some of the other Compras that I’ve read?

[00:03:58] Nicole: I do remember that one time. Remember

[00:04:00] Gayle: that saying that to

[00:04:01] Nicole: him? Yes. I’m sure. I probably got a copy of the book. Cause I was in line with you. I don’t think I ever read the leftovers, but I do wanna watch the show.

[00:04:09] Gayle: Yeah, it was, but he has observing the

[00:04:13] Nicole: leftovers. Yeah.

[00:04:15] Gayle: Okay. What are some of the other Tom Pradas I’m looking, sorry. I’ve gone away from the mic cuz I’m looking at my oh, he wrote little children, which was also really good. Really good. That’s I think that’s my favorite of his and they made that into a movie with Kate Winslet and I forgot who the guy was.

I watched

[00:04:34] Nicole: Mrs.

[00:04:35] Gayle: Fletcher. Oh, yes, I did not love that as a book. How was it a movie or a series?

[00:04:42] Nicole: It was a series. And I feel like they started recording that pre pandemic. And I don’t know if it was a ratings thing. I believe it was on HBO or, yeah, I don’t know if it was a ratings thing or it just got caught in just the pandemic happening.

And, you know, I think a lot of things that may have been planned just never got momentum again. Yeah. I really liked it. I would’ve liked to see the story continued. I thought it was handled like in a really thoughtful way. Um, I watched it with my mom and my aunt, so it provoked some discussion mm-hmm so I’m always interested in things, you know, like that.

So, um, but I don’t think I read the book. Maybe I’ll read the

[00:05:24] Gayle: book. Yeah, the book I thought that was okay. I didn’t, I didn’t like it as much as I like little children. Um, I also read the abstinence teacher, which. Was good. You know, he likes to set a lot of books in sort of in and around school environments.

There’s a book called Joe college that I read the wishbones, which was about a band. It was like a bunch of middle aged guys in a band or something. Um, you know, I think so those are the ones that are on my shelf. Um, the it’s just, he has like, there’s this sort of sweet spot for him of like, again, suburbia sort of middle age, like people living lives that are not what they expected or hoped for.

He writes a lot about like kind of high school glory. And then looking back on it many years later as lives have taken different turns.

[00:06:10] Nicole: Yeah. Kind of like with Tracy flick, she gets well mm-hmm was she elected in election? she

[00:06:17] Gayle: did she in election. She won the election, but there was a teacher who was very angry at her, played by Matthew brodder in the movie and he took two votes.

It was like the, she won by one vote and he took two votes and put ’em in the trash. So he tampered with the election results and she did not win. And then I think it got found out that he had done that. And I think in the end she did, but it was like a tainted victory. Right. It was not the victory she had hoped for.

So. It kind of sets her off on this path of like, life is not gonna be fair.

[00:06:51] Nicole: And now here she is assistant and here she is

[00:06:52] Gayle: vice principal assistant principal. Right. So I, yeah, it’s a good book. I mean, I liked it. Okay. So what else? Okay. What else? Um, I read marrying the ketchups by Jennifer close, which I know you and I have talked about on the show.

So this is her recent book about a family in Chicago who has a restaurant and like her other books. That’s when I went back and read reviews, I had written about her earlier books, like the hopefuls or the smart one, or girls and white dresses. And it’s very similar in that. There’s not a lot of plot, not a lot happens.

There’s very, very good character development, lots of detail around these characters. Like you feel like, you know them really well she’s so she’s like the queen of detailed interactions and you feel like you’re sitting right there and you can totally picture what is happening and you can totally see.

How these characters are and just envision them. Um, and so this book takes place right after the 2016 election. And, um, there’s a lot of anger and a lot of political anger in the book. And apparently she wrote the book and then the election happened. And then she went back in and added these scenes of anger and fury about what had happened.

And I’ve read some complaints that it feels disjointed because it, those parts feel either unnecessary or tacked on or not organic to the story. I didn’t agree with that. I thought that it felt fine. And I mean, I shared so much of that anger that I don’t know how you write about November, 2016 and not talk about that.

Cuz it was such a huge. Like cloud over everything, I think at that time. And it was her book is very much set in a particular time. It’s right. When the Cubs finally won the world series and this family were big Cubs fans. So I liked it. I it’s, again, like for someone who wants a super plot driven, you know, can’t put it down type of book.

It’s probably not the one. I, this was actually my blow dry book for a couple of weeks. So I was only reading maybe 10 pages at a time, but that was fine. And you promoted it. Yeah. Then I promoted it at the end. It got to yeah. Poll position. Okay. So there’s that I’ve read the new Linda Holmes called flying solo.

It’s just the author of a book I loved called Evie Drake starts over and this one was a disappointment. did not like it. It was kind of boring. It was about a woman who goes, she lives in Seattle, her beloved great aunt dies. And she gets tasked with the job of cleaning out her great aunt’s house in Maine.

So she flies to Maine, which is where she grew up for. It’s sort of an unstated amount of time. Looks like it’s about a month, six weeks or so. And while she’s cleaning the house out, she comes across this duck decoy and the duck decoy becomes a big part of the story because there’s kind of this like mystery element.

Like what is the duck decoy? Why does she have it? Is it valuable? I won’t even get into too much of this. I thought it was pretty boring. I, there was very little tension in the story. I loved Evie Drake because it was had this deep sadness to it, even though it was sort of a romance, he had these damaged characters and it was all about like, how are they gonna overcome their own internal.

Issues to try to figure out if they can like, have a relationship and have a happy life in this one. It was like, there was so little tension. There was so little damage. It just, Ugh. If I hadn’t been doing that one on audio, I probably would’ve DNF it. I found it really disappointing. And I’m was, it was sad because I was really looking forward to it.

[00:10:31] Nicole: Right. Her other book that you had, was it more, did it have like more levity, more

[00:10:35] Gayle: romance? Yes. The other one had more romance, but it had so much more heft. It just like, it was what I loved about the other book was sort of the sadness of it. It wasn’t the romance about the romance was great. I liked the romance and also had baseball in it, which I liked cuz the one, the guy in the other book was AER, but in this one there was, there was a romance angle to it, but it was kind of, I don’t know, it felt, it felt very flat, whole thing felt flat.

Okay. So yeah. All right. So a mixed bag for all of mixed bag. I read some reviews and a lot of people wrote really positive reviews of flying solo. So I felt like I was like out there, I was like, I am off the reservation on this one, but I posted on Instagram and then a bunch of people posted underneath it commented underneath.

And they were like, oh, I totally agree. Totally agree. And I was like, well, where are all the negative reviews? I don’t see them, but I, I have seen a few of them. So I get it. Yeah. That one. Sorry that wasn’t for me. And then the last one, I’m sorry, I’ve been talking so much, but the fourth one is I, and maybe we talked about this the last time we did the show, but I did read this time tomorrow by Emma straw.

I think you liked it. Yeah. Yeah. I liked that one a lot. It was good. It has kind of stuck with me and that was not a disappointment. So those are four authors that I, you know, had been looking forward to and mostly were pretty successful. Cool. How about you? My God,

[00:12:00] Nicole: I haven’t finished a book in this morning.

I finally broke down and I revised my good reads estimate or goal for the year. So I put it to 36 books, which is just three books a month. I’m still four books

[00:12:16] Gayle: behind . You’ll make it.

[00:12:19] Nicole: I’ll probably make that I would not have made. Are you going for 70? I think I was gonna go for 70. Um, it would have to be a fluke.

I’m just like you said, we had so much going on in may and June and like, I just have so much other stuff going on that I am not having the opportunity to read. And sometimes if I do have a commute or if I’m in a car going somewhere. I don’t even have the energy to read. So, but I am happy to report that for our next show.

I will be ready for our book club. We can discuss the Jennifer ha oh boy. You’re gonna probably have to go back and refresh your memory. I have about a hundred pages left. It certainly is timely. Actually. I was gonna remember, I was going to mention this when you mentioned, was it, what were you talking about?

The political moments in

[00:13:04] Gayle: which book? Oh, marrying the catch ups. Yeah. After the tr Trump victory. Right? So

[00:13:09] Nicole: it’s like, we’re sitting in a similar moment where there’s just like so much outrage and a lot of it does, you know, relate back to decisions that were made in November of 2016. Like it’s like all coming full circle in terms of these three justices, having the majority and driving this decision that everyone is, you know, rightfully so losing their mind about a little bit.

So we’re sitting in this similar moment and I’m reading this book. So I have lots of thoughts about this book. Okay. There’s so much that I’ve really like, I mean,

[00:13:37] Gayle: Well, that’s just your reminder for people. This is mercy street by Jennifer ha yes. Which

[00:13:41] Nicole: we will discuss more deeply in our next conversation in our next podcast.

And yeah, so there’s a lot of intricate detail about like the life who works at, uh, at a woman’s health clinic and, and the problems they run into the people they meet. Um, so yeah, it’s really fascinating. I’m reading it from the backdrop of a fascinating time. So I guess I won’t, I won’t say much more. I don’t wanna spoil we’ll we’ll have plenty to discuss.

Okay. Cause it’s made me want to do some research and I’m not sure how I feel about that since it’s fiction. Um,

[00:14:24] Gayle: So, Hey, can I ask you a question? Something you just said reminded me of something. Sure. I saw somebody post that good reads is taking away the ability to leave a review. Oh, is it? Yes. They’ve done away with a whole bunch of features and that’s one of them, which to me is insane.

Oh,

[00:14:41] Nicole: wow. It’s like going straight to Google on that one. Is this something that someone in the know

[00:14:46] Gayle: knows somebody posted

[00:14:48] Nicole: it, a bunch of articles come up about good reads problem with extortion scams and review bombing. Why I’m deleting good reads and maybe you should to, I really don’t post reviews on good reads.

It’s I use it essentially to track what I’m reading or what I might wanna read, because as someone says in deleting the good reads, they’re deleting their good reads reviews. They found that it encouraged them to be competitive and it was taking away from what they enjoyed about reading the books. Mm, but I wonder if it was because I know at one point there was just a lot of this, just with reviews being posted.

And I don’t know, you run into this problem on Amazon too. Sometimes it’s people don’t like the price of the book, so they give it no stars, right. Or one star, whatever. And then you get people who work at publishing companies. And I know that they do this who are posting five star reviews of books that have not come out yet.

So there’s a lot. Do you have manipulation going on manipulation and skewed, but I just, I don’t know why you would. Why is that more problematic on good reads than it is on Amazon?

[00:15:56] Gayle: Yeah, I don’t know. Um, and I’m doing a little research too, and I’m not seeing anything about it. And I feel like I would’ve seen more outcry on like Instagram about it.

Mm-hmm so I don’t know, but she did cut and paste like an email that she had gotten that said it in there. So it wasn’t like, it was just a rumor. I post all my reviews on good reads now, and I just basically cut and paste for my blog. I usually trim it down a little bit and then I just stick it in there and I link back to my blog.

So for me, it’s just like another way to maybe build my community, but I do, I do check good reads reviews a lot before I read a book or while I’m reading the book. Um, and if they got rid of reviews, I would find that to be a big loss. I find good reads a lot better than Amazon in terms of the quality of the.

[00:16:42] Nicole: Yeah. I mean, I think you, you have to use discretion on, you know, if you see one star after one star after one star, what, what is going on here? Right. And it’s, I just hate this author because of whatever, or, you know, this book was too expensive or right. You know? Yeah. You gotta see if they’ve justified it.

Right. And then there in, and then there are people who just, you know, are overly positive about everything. Part of that is getting to know mm-hmm which reviews you’re reading and from whom? Um, yeah, I think a lot of times you can, you know, you can set who you want your top friends to be in, in good reads, like to kind of wait more whose reviews you’re seeing.

[00:17:23] Gayle: Right. Well, I don’t know why I’m not seeing more about it. Um, I don’t, it could have been like, if you go to good reads. Here, I’m going to

[00:17:32] Nicole: where I don’t even know what features have disappeared. I think there was something that I thought was annoying. That probably is no longer here anymore.

[00:17:39] Gayle: It says as of July.

Okay. So if you go to good, Read’s help Uhhuh as of June 15th, it says as of July 5th, good reads will no longer support the ability to create new content for the book reviews, recommendations, recommenders section, which to me sounds like getting rid of reviews. It says these features will no longer be available on the site.

On September 1st, we will no longer include the options of who recommended a book and who to recommend it to. We are simplifying how you stay updated on authors, you whose books you love. They’ll removing the favorite authors list. Uh,

[00:18:14] Nicole: well the favorite authors list I find helpful, cuz it always sends you like an email of who has

[00:18:20] Gayle: published books.

Who’s got a new book coming out. It says, who’s

[00:18:23] Nicole: got, if you’ve read one of their books and they have a new book coming out, it’ll list

[00:18:27] Gayle: it for you. It, well, it says we encourage instead encourage you to follow your favorite authors. This will ensure you get updates on new books and news from the authors you’re interested in.

So I guess that’s what you’re supposed to do is just, they’re just changing how you, uh,

[00:18:38] Nicole: eh, but I don’t wanna follow. I don’t want news. And I just wanna know when they have a book coming out, that’s changing it to be more author

[00:18:44] Gayle: friendly, right. Or maybe they’re charging them for the ability to push content out.

But the thing about to improve their review creation page on desktop,

[00:18:53] Nicole: that really confusing. Cuz I don’t know if that’s just certain people won’t have access to post anymore. It, it doesn’t seem clear to me that that’s regular users. Well, this thing

[00:19:05] Gayle: about’s very coy will no longer support the ability to create new content for the book reviews, recommendations, recommenders section.

[00:19:14] Nicole: Yeah, because I think that that is like, people can say so, and so is recommending this. I would get these blasts from everyone. Like sometimes publishers do it, independent authors do it. It’s just like, Hey, we’re recommending that you read this book. Maybe that’s what

[00:19:29] Gayle: is going away. Yeah. So that’s what it sounds like

[00:19:31] Nicole: too proven.

I can imagine that review. I mean,

[00:19:34] Gayle: what would that reviews would go away? And then, then what’s the site about then the whole, that’s the whole point of the site to improve the review creation page on desktop, we will no longer include the options of who recommended a book and who to recommend it to. Yeah.

I don’t care about that. Okay. So that’s not so bad.

[00:19:47] Nicole: Cause I got all these blasts all the time from people’s just like I would, you know, it’s like anyone and their mother, if my friend just wrote a book, then I could blast it to, I don’t know. However many people follow me on good reads and say, Hey, you should read this book.

[00:20:03] Gayle: Okay. So that seems a lot less alarming than what I thought. Okay. Well. Glad that we invest her. Right? Not rumor Mon the investigation. All right. I feel a little better now. All right. So what are you reading now?

[00:20:18] Nicole: Okay, so I’m finishing mercy street. I’m still reading strangers on a train by Patricia high Smith.

Okay. So I will just say, okay. So I revise down to 36 books, you know, that I’m trying to read books. I’m trying to read books by authors. I’ve read before, and I’ve been somewhat successful with that, to the extent that I have been reading. Like I don’t count audio books because I just don’t read enough audio books to put that kind of restriction on myself.

Um, and I have finished a couple of books that I started in 2001 and in 2001, 2021. So those books, um, I haven’t counted, but mercy street is a repeat author. I’m reading this book called just like mother and I’ve read, um, one of Anne he’s books before. And strangers on a train and I’m like, really, you know, like I’m the last 150 to a hundred pages of all three.

So it’ll be one of those. I’ll read these and then I’ll be caught up for my goal to read three books in July and be fine. Okay. So I think we’re gonna have to make our book club quarterly because I can’t have a

[00:21:23] Gayle: book a month. yeah, exactly. and one of them be,

[00:21:27] Nicole: yeah, I agree. Be out of my control. Yeah. I, and I’m just not eating that fast.

So it’s taking me what, three months to read mercy street. I think I was saving it for this moment. I, it was a good timing on

[00:21:37] Gayle: my part. Yeah. You get all fired up about it. um, okay. All right. So I

[00:21:44] Nicole: have been watching, um, I have to watch the last episode of the time Traveler’s wife. I’ve been watching the HBO adapt adaptation.

I really, I like it. I really do like it. I don’t know. I mean, the casting is great. I think so it would be hard not to like rose Leslie and. What is the dude’s name? Theo. James, I think so. I have one episode to finish of that. And I also last night, just binge watched the new adaptation of Jenny Han’s book.

It’s on Amazon prime. Mm-hmm it was really good. The summer I turned pretty. Huh? Okay. So it had like the teen triangle romance going on, but it was also the adult. Like, um, basically the plot is this, this girl belly has spent every summer growing up, you know, every summer she goes to her mom’s best friend’s beach house in this place called cousins cousin beach, which is somewhere in new England.

And the summer she turned pretty is about the summer. She goes, she’s 15, she’ll turn 16 over the summer. And of course. Everyone is looking at her in a different light. Like, you know, the braces are off. She has gotten taller. She’s, you know, a young woman and she has always had a crush on one of the, the boys that she’s grown up with.

So she feels like this is her summer. This is her, her opportunity to finally make something happen with him. Um, her mother is an author, so she has a new book out that isn’t doing very well. So there’s like a subplot there. And then the friend who has invited them over has a big secret that she has been keeping, um, from her family.

It seems like her friend is in on it, but there’s definitely, you know, some strange things, her husband, isn’t gonna be coming home for July 4th celebration that he usually would. And, but these families have just grown up together. So this summer, this there’s just like a bunch of things that are, um, not, not as idyllic as they would’ve been, but it was, it was so good.

I watched the whole thing yesterday. So now I have to wait for season two.

[00:23:49] Gayle: Okay. How many episodes are there? Seven.

[00:23:52] Nicole: Okay. Ranging from like 45 minutes to 50 minutes. So, um, two great adaptations based series based on books. I also went back and watched the Eric ban time. Traveler’s wife, cuz I couldn’t resist.

I was just like, what is gonna happen to this guy? I had no memory of it and uh,

[00:24:15] Gayle: yeah, I think I remember what happened to him. You do? I think so. Okay. I think so, but I’m not sure. You know, this book

is

[00:24:23] Nicole: probably like how old is the time Traveler’s wife? Is it like 20 years old? Oh,

[00:24:27] Gayle: easily. Yeah. I’m curious

[00:24:30] Nicole: now it can’t be that old if it did.

I didn’t read it when it first came out cuz 2013. Oh 2013. Yeah, really? Wait, no this wait, hold on a minute. I’m even in the movie came first published 2003. Yeah, almost 20. Okay. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. All right. So why don’t we get into the audio books? All right. Deep dive. I’m gonna let Gayle take the lead on this because as you know, she is our audio queen , um, she reads them more regularly.

I’m kind of like hit or miss with them. Sometimes I will listen to a bunch and sometimes not at all. Um, so I will chime in where I can, but I do have a few favorite authors or favorite, favorite narrators.

[00:25:17] Gayle: Narrators. Yeah. Um, alright, well, there’s so much to cover with audio books. There’s the narration, the performances, there’s the type of books you like to have on audio.

There’s the way that you listen to audio. I’ll start with talking about just how just the mechanics of audiobook. So I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Audiobook apps on my phone that I I’m sitting here with

[00:25:47] Nicole: pen and paper ready to be

[00:25:48] Gayle: schooled. . Okay. Um, what is your preferred method? Like? What, which app do you usually use?

[00:25:56] Nicole: Um, I have had, I think I had an audible account for a, it’s like my oldest account and I use Libro FM. Um, my audible account is not active anymore, but of course I can still, I’ve still sure. Bought, you know, like, I don’t know how many, I probably have a couple hundred books there. Right. And then my Libro FM account was active most recently, but I had to put it on hold.

Cause I’m just not listening, reading. I just don’t have the time anymore. Right. So those are my two main and I think at one point I had

[00:26:31] Gayle: tried out script. Okay. All right. Well, those three are three of my six, so. Because I’m a book blogger, podcaster. I do get a fair amount of review copies of books. So sometimes I’m listening to review copies and sometimes I’m listening to borrowed copies from the library.

And then of course there’s always the ability to buy audio books.

[00:26:54] Nicole: Oh, of course. In

[00:26:55] Gayle: the library. Yeah. Yeah. So we’ll start with the ones that you can pay for. So those, um, are audible script and Libro. So audible is owned by Amazon and it’s the type of thing. I think you can pay monthly and get a certain number of credits and or you pay monthly and get one book.

I, my audit, my audible, I is dormant. I’d never use it. So that’s the one I know the least about, but, um, it’s probably the dominant player in audiobook apps. I think they,

[00:27:24] Nicole: they do have like a 9 95 and you get one credit where you can read anything, but audible has like an, a huge library of books, right. That are included in their plan.

So it’s kind of. at this point, it’s morphed into sort of like a combination of SCR, right? Just in terms of like, there are always books. If you have a subscription, there’s always books that you can read Noma, listen to no matter what,

[00:27:49] Gayle: listen to, no matter what. Right. So audible has the advantages of audible is huge library disadvantages.

You, it’s not unlimited. Like you only get certain numbers of credits and I’m not gonna, well, anything unlimited script is unlimited. Well, yeah, but they have restrictions. They do have restrictions, which is why I ended up dropping them. I think. Yeah. Script has restrictions and script also doesn’t have a lot of books.

Like they have a lot of books, but there’s also a lot that are not on there. So sometimes with script, I’ll sort of cast around and script for people who don’t know is spelled S C R I B D. No E just S C R I B D, but it’s, it’s decent. So like, if you are willing to kind of, if, if you’re not like necessarily have your heart set on a particular book, but there’s a, you know, a long list of books, you’d be happy to read.

Script is pretty good and you can also just download them. So like some myself come up with four books on script. I want, then I just download ’em and they’re there. So it’s not like, it’s not like they doll them out over, you know, it’s not like you can only do one at a time. Like you, I, I do think you eventually hit a limit, but I’ve never hit the limit.

I think that they

[00:28:54] Nicole: too have more of restrictions on newer titles, like,

[00:28:58] Gayle: okay. So

[00:28:59] Nicole: new releases, how right. How many of those you have out at a time, or I think that factors into your limit there. I don’t know. There was something restrictive about script that, like you said, it makes it sometimes you really have to look for something that you want to

[00:29:14] Gayle: listen to.

Then I have overdrive, which is how I listen to borrowed books from the library. So I have my overdrive account linked to like four different library systems. There’s that’s one benefit of living in DC is you’ve got DC, Maryland, and Virginia, all right here. So I’ve got, or are you being, is that well, there’s multiple Virginias.

So there’s Arlington and Alexandria. So at one point, I think during the pandemic, I just signed up for a whole bunch of other library cards. the Virginia ones. Sometimes they lapse and like, you know, sometimes the library makes you actually come in physically to renew your library card. And I don’t feel like driving to Alexandria to do it.

So the months I use the most are DC and Montgomery county, which is where I live, right. Two blocks from DC and I’m in Montgomery county. So, um, I use those accounts a lot and they’re linked to my, um, My overdrive account. So when I borrow a book from the library, I can listen to it on overdrive. Um, there are often time limits, especially if it’s a new release, like you can only have it for 21 days.

Sometimes 14 days depends on the book, but it’s great cuz it’s free and you’ve got access to a huge library, but of course they’re limited by how many they can lend out. At one time Libro FM is the independent bookstore version of audio books. They have, um, you know, a huge selection, but I think it’s pay as you go.

So I tend to use Libro FM almost entirely for review copies. If you’re a book blogger or podcaster or a book influencer, you can sign up for their influencer program and they send, I don’t know, six or seven books every month and you get one credit and you can download that book for free, which I use a lot cuz it’s usually something I can almost always find something I wanna read.

And then sometimes li. Are you in that

[00:31:04] Nicole: program? I’m in that program, but you can, I thought it was, they usually send a list anywhere from six to nine books a month that you can download for free. Right. There’s no limit on it, but you don’t get any credits unless you sign up for the membership.

[00:31:20] Gayle: Well, credit, I mean, you get a credit to download that book.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I didn’t. I thought it was only one. Okay. Maybe yeah, you can do as many can do any of their review. Okay. Yeah. And then some of the publishers work when they work with bloggers or podcasters, they use Libro FM. So like they’ll send out review copies and the way that you, the mechanics by which you listen to it is through Libro.

So they’ll send you like a Libro code, then you download it on Libro FM. So, um, I like using Libro because it supports independent bookstores. Uh, they have a good selection and it works well for the reviewing community. and then another one that is great for reviewers is the penguin random house audio app.

So it used to be called volumes and they most recently updated it. It’s now called P R H audio, which stands for penguin random house audio. So the volumes app is gonna go away in September and they’ve morphed everybody over to the PRH audio app. So it’s kind of a bummer cuz I had a whole bunch of books saved in the, um, volumes app.

In fact, I’m listening to one of ’em right now because it’s, I have it in volumes and I don’t have it in PRH audio. And I have found with the new one, you’re supposed to like email them. If there’s a book you want to listen to and they’re supposed to give you access to it. And that process has not really kicked in yet.

So I have I now on their mailing list. So now the new books that are coming out on PRH audio, I have like I’m preapproved for the new ones, but this whole back list of audio books that I had. Is gonna go away in September. So it’s kind of annoying. And I, haven’t noticed a huge improvement between volumes and PRH audio.

And I’ll get into that in a little bit about like features and what I think a good audio book app should have. And I do think that they haven’t, a lot of them are still missing in the PRH audio app, but they are a huge publisher of audio book. So to get on their list is a good thing. So, um, that’s helpful.

And then the final one, and this is one that no one’s ever heard of or used is, but I love this app is called bound. And the reason I love bound is that is the way that I listen to review copies that I get as a digital file. So for a very long time, I was getting, I forgot which publisher is at Harper audio.

There’s one of the publishers. I get all of them, you just download them. And then I was sitting there and I was like, I don’t know how to. I would have all this trouble figuring out how to translate the downloaded file into some way that I could actually listen to it. And it wasn’t until I discovered this app called bound that I, I could use it, but now it’s great.

What I do is I’ve linked my bound app with, um, my a drop, my Dropbox account. I just stick all those files in Dropbox. And then when I’m ready to listen to one of them, I just, I connect the two. I download it, um, from BA, from Dropbox into bound. And then I listen to it inbound. So like, this is a lifesaver for people with review copies.

So for, you know, if you’re not getting review copies on files, then you probably wouldn’t want this app, but I love it. So those are the six that I use on a regular basis. And then I feel like. There’s also Libby, which is owned by overdrive. I don’t really understand the difference between Libby and overdrive, but Libby, you can use to listen to audio your library books as well.

So many people use Libby to do audio from the library. It’s basically the same company as Audi as overdrive. I think it’s just maybe, maybe it’s more user friendly. So these all have pluses and minuses and you know, this whole audio for me, it’s always complicated. Like, well, what book do I wanna listen to?

And who’s the publisher and can I get it at script? And because with SCR script is usually my first, um, choice, just because it I’ve already paying for it every month. And it’s, it’s like, I don’t have to worry about an expiration date and I like the interface, but so it’s always a dance of like, what’s available.

What am I in the mood to read? Who has it, what format is it in. Can I get it? Is there a wait list? Do I have to request it? You know, these are like the multiple things I go through, but then once I get it, you know, there’s certain ones that I think are better than others. So the things that I think of an audiobook app absolutely have to have.

Um, first of all, I, this is a pet peeve, but I hate when I open an app that I’ve been listening to over the course of a few weeks and it doesn’t go right back to the book. And this is a problem with the, the penguin random house one. Oftentimes I have to navigate to the library, scroll down till I get to the book and then open the book.

Thankfully it saves my place. So it’s not like I have to, you know, start over again, but it should remember what I was reading from the last time and just go right back to it, cuz otherwise I it’s just a waste of time and it’s annoying. And then yeah. Are there any that don’t do that? Yeah. The penguin random house one doesn’t oh yeah, that’s right.

And I just gave them, they asked for feedback and I sent like a bulleted list. I was like, you’re gonna be, sorry, you asked me, but here are like six ways you could improve your app because they should be competitive with the other apps out there. If they wanna, you know, if they want people to, to choose to go to the penguin random house site, then you shouldn’t have to compromise.

Um, I also don’t like when an audio book doesn’t remember your speed from visit to visit. Like, I listen to all my audio books at 1.2 or 1.2, five speed. So it’s sped up a little bit. And many times I will reopen the penguin random house app and it puts it right back at one. And when you’re used to 1.25, one just sounds painfully slow and it also takes longer.

So the audio book should remember. I mean, even better, it should just allow you to save preferences, but at a minimum, it sh when you’re listening to the same book, it should. Remember your speed. And so you don’t have to reset it. I really don’t

[00:37:16] Nicole: think they care about that app as much just because it’s not a consumer app.

[00:37:22] Gayle: Well, but I think maybe they wanna make it into a consumer app. Uh, thank you. I mean, you can buy books through it. It’s, you’re probably right. It’s a low priority, but if they want reviewers doing their audio books, like make it, make it competitive. I don’t know. And I’m also like if you just came out with a new version of it, why didn’t you fix any of that stuff?

Um, I also don’t like when books don’t have chapters, so like in an audio book, it it’s sometimes I read, I do tandem audio and print. And so like if I’ve read the print for an hour and I’m now a chapter ahead, I just wanna skip to the beginning of that chapter. And some books treat it as one long file. So you can’t, you can’t skip around like on a CD where you can go from track to track.

If you can’t just hop to the beginning of the next chapter, you spend a lot of time wasting, like trying to navigate, to figure out where you were or if you wanna go back to something, just having it as one big long amorphous file is kind of annoying. Um, what else? I much prefer when you can set the speed at a custom thing, like some apps you could do.

One, 1.2, five, 1.5 and some apps is just a continuum. So you could do 1.17 if you wanted, or 1.3, two, and I’d like that a lot better.

[00:38:51] Nicole: Well, mind blown who knew. Yeah.

[00:38:53] Gayle: So let’s see. What else can I say about these apps? Okay.

[00:38:56] Nicole: So your favorite, your number

[00:38:58] Gayle: one is script, or I think my number one is script or Libro.

I think that those are just the most. Audible’s probably fine. I just try not to use audible cuz it’s Amazon and try not to support it. But script and Libro are generally the best and bound I love because it lets me access my own content. I don’t have to download it from a publisher. Um, so those would be my favorite.

And then over, I think the overdrive app is pretty good as well. Um, I think it has fewer bells and whistles as the other ones, but it’s pretty solid. And uh, it’s, it’s a, I think the process of linking it to library accounts and sort of designated, oh yes, I’m ready for this book. I wanna download it now and listen to it.

Auto drive overdrive. Sometimes that can be a little clunky, but it generally I can, I can get it done. So those are my, um, those are the apps that I use and I’d love to hear from our listeners, like what, which are their favorites. Maybe there’s ones out there I’m not using that. I should be trying out, you know, what are the features that they like to, to have in their apps?

Because it’s, you know, it becomes kind of a little bit of a way of life. Like when you’re, if you’re a heavy audiobook user, it’s these things, these little things make a big difference. So that would be my, those would be my recommendations. What would you say

[00:40:13] Nicole: is the best one in terms of search function?

Like if you

[00:40:19] Gayle: just wanna see what’s out there probably Libra. I mean, um, script cause script has tons of other content. That’s not even just books. So I think that is good. Although the downside is script. When you’re dealing with script and overdrive, you’re also dealing with digital content. Actually, I should mention that you can, you script and overdrive for, um, eBooks.

So if you like to use, um, if you like to read and you’re not, you know, if you’re not necessarily using a Kindle, I think those are good interfaces for that Libro. FM is just audio. Libra Libra FM. I find actually to be all around a really good site, it’s really easy to use. It’s nice too. When the app gives you the opportunity to bookmark, because sometimes you wanna come back to something.

I mean, it’s harder on audio to bookmark things, but you can drop a little, a little tag at a place where you might wanna remember just as you would do full, you know, doggie or page or stick in a post-it or a bookmark or something with a print book. It’s nice. When you have that option with an audio book, can we talk about like pet peeves with audio performances?

Sure. Okay. Multiple, multiple narrators can be good or bad. It can be really helpful if you’re changing around multiple perspectives, but sometimes it can be confusing because you’re like, wait, what who’s talking, you know, if it’s too many different voices and or if the voices aren’t distinct enough, then it can be hard.

I also really, really hate sometimes when men, when male narrators do female voices and they do it in a falsetto. or when female narrators do men’s voices and they make ’em sound really low and kind of sound like Duss that seems like it happens a lot. I’d almost rather they just used a normal voice and just, you know, didn’t try to necessarily sound like the other gender.

Right. But the falsetto thing makes me crazy and it happens all the time. Okay.

[00:42:13] Nicole: So, no Falsettos of, for any gender?

[00:42:18] Gayle: No, Falsettos yeah, those that’s like a, a major pet peeve. I don’t really have other global pet peeve because I think it’s such a personal thing. It’s so dis it’s so subjective and it’s also so dependent on the performer.

I, I love books narrated by the author if the author knows how to perform a book, but sometimes that can backfire terribly, cuz some authors are just not good performers. I mean, that’s not, you know, that’s not their skill set. . And so sometimes when the author reads their own book, it just, if they can’t read, if they’re not good at performing, it just, it, it can be very detrimental to the reading experience, the listening experience.

[00:42:58] Nicole: I’m glad to hear you come around to that. Cause I know before you love books, usually narrated it by the author. And I know some people feel like that gives them. I just don’t think that that necessarily makes them the person to read the book just because they wrote it or they know it because yeah.

Sometimes they’re just not the one. Yeah. Don’t have a good voice. Um, cuz you really do have to command someone’s attention for a long time. Yeah.

[00:43:28] Gayle: For an audio book. Yeah. And sometimes it’s just not good. I can think of a few. I mean, I don’t wanna like name any names, but I can just think of books that I read that were narrated by the author, that it was just like, this is not good.

This author cannot perform. There’s so many amazing narrators out there too. But on the other side, I love memoirs that are, that are performed by the other one of my favorite ones this year was the Jennifer Gray memoir. And it certainly helps that she’s an actress, um, and knows how to perform, but that was that her narration was wonderful.

And I loved that it was so personal. Uh, and I just, I loved, you know, listening to her, talk about it. And especially when they get to something that’s traumatic or that was very emotional time for them. Um, I was reading, somebody was interviewing her about it and I, I, there was something I hadn’t thought about that sometimes authors of memoirs don’t want to read their, their books.

They don’t wanna perform them themselves. And it’s because I hadn’t really thought about this before that the experience of reading it just is, is traumatizing again. Right. That sometimes it’s just really hard on them. and having somebody else. Oh, I think it was, oh, I know where I read that. Um, I heard it, I was listening to Sarah’s bookshelves interview of Julia Whelan.

I have a, I have mixed feelings about Julia Whelan, but she was talking about narrating, um, educated, cuz she was, did the narration of educated. And I think one of the reasons that Tara west ever didn’t do her own performance, it might actually have been timing or logistics or something, but she did mention that it is retraumatizing for the person who wrote the book to also then have to speak the words so that, you know, sometimes I think I that’s understandable why somebody might not wanna read their own book, but in general I think like I remember I, the John Taylor memoir music memoir is Phil Collins, Bruce Springsteen, just hearing their own voices say them.

It just, it’s kind of, there’s something kind of magical about it. So I really love it. are you a Julia Whelan narrator fan or have you not read it listened to enough by her to have a strong opinion? I don’t think I have

[00:45:37] Nicole: a strong, I don’t think I’ve listened to her. If you don’t mind sharing, what’s your strong opinion for Julia Waylon?

[00:45:43] Gayle: She’s like a beloved narrator. She did Malibu rising. She did educated. She did, um, some the Kristen Hannah books, which I’ve never read any of the Kristen Hannah books. She’s I find that her delivery is an angry delivery. There’s something about her tone. That’s feels very stern and angry, and that worked beautifully and educated because it’s a very angry book.

You know, somebody had a very traumatizing life, very difficult upbringing, and she has every right to be angry and that came through. Um, she narrated the one, I just read the Linda Holmes book and maybe I would’ve liked that book better because her narration. Conveyed a seriousness that the book didn’t, uh, merit.

And so there was a mismatch in the tone of the audio and the content of the book. And, you know, maybe I would’ve, maybe I would’ve enjoyed the book more. If she hadn narrated, it just seemed like a bad, a bad fit. Sh um, Malibu rising, like I didn’t love Malibu rising. And maybe part of it is the narration, like Maur rising felt kind of silly to me and this big party and this family.

And it could also be that because it was narrated by Julia Whelan and it conveys this gravitas, this kind of like, like tragedy that didn’t also didn’t fit with Maur rising. So I think I’m, I’m, I might take a little break from her. Like I, I’m sad to say that, cuz she really is. I think she’s very skilled and I people love her narration and people, if you ever read like a survey, like who’s your favorite audiobook narrator?

They’ll say Julia Wayland, but I think I’m just gonna, I think I’m gonna avoid her for a little while.

[00:47:19] Nicole: See, this is the really interesting thing to me with audiobooks and that I feel like this is why I cannot commit to them. Um, I can’t really commit to audiobooks with any real consistency I have to read.

When I listen to an audio book, it has to be something that really is not gonna leave much room for interpretation. Like I feel like literary fiction with different characters, how you read them. I think part of reading is just so personal and once you let a narrator in, they are coloring mm-hmm, how you listen to the book, how you experience the book.

So that’s why I feel like I have enjoyed nonfiction and I stick with like mystery something that there’s really usually no interpretation in, you know, like the characters are not as fleshed out. Maybe it’s more about the plot or, you know, maybe they’re books that are relying on characters, I guess I’ll say not.

St. Not stereotypical, but more archetypal, you know, like mm-hmm, the silent detective, the whatever, whatever, something that if I’m listening to it, that I can listen to it in a pretty straightforward way. And that I know that the delivery probably is not coloring the material very much. Mm that’s so interesting with other things like that.

I just, yeah, I don’t want to, because I think that there is a conversation that happens between who’s reading the book and the material that, yeah, you, I think you have your ideas and your thoughts, but once you put it in the hands of someone else, I mean, then you’ve got how the narrator is interpreting this.

You’ve got how she’s delivering the character saying that, which, you know, maybe in their voice, it sounds bored. It sounds angry. Maybe you would’ve read it as sad or something else.

[00:49:10] Gayle: That’s a great point. Maybe that’s why I’ve been gravitating more towards memoir. um, I don’t read a lot as you know, I don’t read a lot of non-fiction.

So for me, I think if I did non-fiction on audio, my mind would wander more, but memoir is definitely, uh, an exception to that. Right? I would trust the authors, especially if it’s narrated by the author. Then I trust that interpretation as opposed to worrying that I’m leaving it to chance or to someone else’s

[00:49:38] Nicole: interpretation.

If I’m gonna listen to an audio book, sometimes I’m going to veer on the side of something that is just straight performance, where you have eight different narrators. It’s like listening to a play and I’m just gonna enjoy it in, in that way. Like when they have a full cast narration where everyone. Um, then it’s just like, okay, so it’s almost, look, I’m not one of these people who does not think that audiobooks are reading.

I do think right. You experiencing, right, right, right. Written word or whatever. I

[00:50:08] Gayle: think we’ve, I think we don’t even need to get into that argument cuz you and I both think

[00:50:12] Nicole: it’s so silly, but yeah. But there is a, there’s a different layer in there and you just have to be aware of, you know, people’s interpretation, you know, um, especially when you’re dealing with actors experienced audiobook narrators or whatever, mm-hmm , I don’t know how they generally have not had much time with the material.

You know, sometimes it’s just like a quick read or whatever, but they are making, you know, they’re making their own judgment decisions that are influencing the story in, in ways, you know, that is according to what’s going on with them as opposed to what’s going on with you.

[00:50:47] Gayle: Right. What was the one that you and I loved the, um, Justin Ward.

[00:50:53] Nicole: Oh, um, it wasn’t Savage.

[00:50:56] Gayle: It was, um, it wasn’t Psalms and bones. It was, um, just blanking on the title for some reason. Now I’m trying to look on my shelf. It was the one about the woman

[00:51:05] Nicole: sing unburied

[00:51:06] Gayle: sing. Yes. And that was a wonderful audio book, but kind of fits into what you’re saying. It had three different narrators.

It was like an ensemble performance. That was a wonderful audio, but yeah, it was. Yeah.

[00:51:21] Nicole: And, and so sometimes that’s the question that I have and I, and I know it, there’s some things that I listen to that I listen to on purpose, like therapy stories that I’m attracted to. And I look at the writing, it’s just like, oh, I would hate reading this, but listening to it is a completely different and enjoyable experience.

And I’ll say, look, I didn’t know if I would’ve liked this book if I had read it because it was too light. It was too, this, it was too that, but to have that in your ears and to just kind of listen to a lighter story, It’ll work for me in audiobook in a way that I might not have the patience for. I might think it’s too simple if I read it.

Right. So, yeah. And it just, it really all depends. Like there’s just so many facets. That’s up to, you know, each individual listener and reader in, in kind of navigating how they like it and what they want.

[00:52:14] Gayle: Yeah.

[00:52:16] Nicole: I do best with thrillers, I think on audio. Um, there is another book that we both read that I think I’ve listened to.

That was, um, that was a thriller. Can’t think of it right now. Okay. So who are some of your favorite narrators you’re giving Julia Whelan a bit of rest.

[00:52:38] Gayle: Yeah. Well, I will always go back to Terre plumber. She’s one of my all time. Favorite narrators. Um, did we. Yes. She came on our show. Once we did a whole show with her Torres was actually in a horrible car accident about a year ago.

Um, she was hit by a drunk driver in New Jersey, and she has been recovering from that accident ever since. Um, but I know she is done some narrating and I think as she gets stronger and stronger, she will hopefully go back to it full time. Cuz she’s just a fantastic narrator. And it was amazing when she, there was a GoFund to me for Torres after the accident.

And there were so many people who I was just sort of like reading through the people who had, you know, were leaving her comments on her page and just people like I’ve never met you, but your books are, your performances have moved me so much and people were donating to her. Like it’s just a Testament to how much of a connection she creates with her.

Audience. So I don’t know if she listens to the show or not, but if she does Tara, um, so happy that you are doing better, um, she’s had a lot of surgeries, but she’s really she’s come a tremendous, um, way since the accident. But she is really one of my favorites. She’s narrated some Jennifer hay novels that, um, I read earlier, like I think she did faith.

She’s just the master of kind of sprawling family dramas, good, you know, deep, juicy family relationship books. Uh, so she’s one of my all time favorites. Another narrator that I really like is Maron Ireland. Uh, she just did the golden couple on audio and it was funny cuz after I finished that, I read another one by her and I’m gonna have to look up which one that was.

And sometimes I find if I read too many or list too many by the same author. Yeah. She did this time tomorrow, which is a pretty different tone of book. From the golden couple, very different book. And sometimes if I read, if I listen to the same narrator too close together, it it’s confusing. It feels like whip blush because the, if the books are really different, then you almost go in expecting one book when you’re getting a different book, because you’ve got the same voice in your ear.

Right. It just blends together. Yeah. Or it just feels weird. So, um, I like her a lot as a narrator. I just wanna spread her out. And then Rebecca Loman is another one that I’ve listened to a fair amount. I think she does a nice, very good like precise. She did, uh, the girls from Corona Delmar, which I did on audio.

And I really liked, she did the ensemble American housewife by Helen Ellis. She did landslide by Susan Conley. So she seems to be kind of in that literary fiction corner. Um, so she’s, I like her a lot as well. So

[00:55:23] Nicole: I will say Torres plumber and Julia Whalen narrated a book that I listened to Emma in the night by Wendy Walker.

Mm. But that was just really funny cuz we’re, you know, just had this detailed conversation about the, both of them and the fact that they, um, narrated this book, it looks like Torres has narrated a couple of

[00:55:43] Gayle: Wendy Walker books. She also does a lot of, of like romance books. I think like, I think she’s hooked in with a series maybe.

Like it seems like she has done a whole bunch of very similar genre books. Yeah. And I think the way

[00:55:56] Nicole: that they cast audio books is changing. Like now I think there’s probably more who get a chance to, you know, make choices about who they feel would be the best voice for people who are gonna be reading their books.

Yeah. Dylan Baker, who’s an actor does a lot of audio book narrations. I like his narration.

[00:56:14] Gayle: How do you feel about. Stunt casting. So casting actors who are not people, who’ve made a name for themselves in audio book narration, but have like when Tom Hanks did, I didn’t do, he did the Dutch house. I didn’t listen to it on audio, but like, so sometimes people who have have

[00:56:32] Nicole: names, I think anything it’s hit or miss, because Tessa Thompson was just in that movie, um, passing, which is based on a novel that I really liked.

I tried to listen to it. It was it’s I think she’s like a terrible narrator. got it. She was really, it was just really boring listening to her. Um, so it’s just kind, it’s just kind of like one of those things, are you suited for the book? Is your voice suited for the book? I mean, I think at minimum, like I look at the way I view audio books is.

Either one of two ways, it’s either I’m all in for the cast experience. And then, you know, you want the voices that go along with, you know, the characters and, and they kind of fit. And then I am the other part of me gravitates to books where it’s story time, you know what I mean? And so I feel like with books where I’m just listening to them, because they’re being read to me, the bar is different just because it’s almost like you just, can’t not mess it up in a sense, you know, like if you’re reading someone a story you want there to be certain emphasis someplace, you don’t want there to their voice to be so soothing that it just like puts you to sleep automatically or right.

Makes you think about different things or whatever. Um, so I think in that, in that respect, it just really depends on the actor. You know, is this someone like, what kind of material is it? Are they dynamic enough to listen to. Are they someone who usually plays sleepy characters and they’re, you know, so maybe that’s not well suited to a book.

I mean, Tom Hanks is such a masterful actor and he’s played so many different parts that I can’t imagine that he would give a terrible performance. Um, I’m trying to think because there was a book, I think Daisy Jones and the six was narrated by actors. Um, I wanna say, I can see her face. I wanna say Jennifer bees.

[00:58:41] Gayle: Oh, I think you’re right. Did that

[00:58:43] Nicole: one. And it was really good. I mean, Daisy Jones in the six, like that is one of those books that I’m thinking, you know, if I read this, would I even, but, um, Daisy Jones in the six was all stunt casting. It’s Jennifer BES, Benjamin brat, Judy Greer and Pablo Schreiber. Oh, interesting.

And it, and it was fantastic. but yes. Well, another one of those things where I feel like I am, you know, I was just along for the ride, listening to this movie, you know, listening to this series or whatever. Um, I liked the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and I read that, but there’s something about Taylor Jenkins, Reed, her premises always just kind of like, I don’t know if I would

[00:59:26] Gayle: like this yeah, I hear you.

Okay. I’m gonna raise one last thing. And I know we’re headed towards the end of our show here, and this is like, this could be an entire episode, but I just wanna issue spot it. And I’m not sure where I come out on it. How do you feel about, or do you have an opinion about when the race of the person narrating is different from the race of the character?

And like, for example, trace, you talked about this. I thought we talked

[00:59:53] Nicole: about this with a guest too. I feel like someone was on our show and we talked about this because I don’t think. if you’re, if you’re reading me a story, I don’t think that race, like, I don’t care who you are. right.

[01:00:07] Gayle: Well, the reason I raised it has a specific thing.

So the narrator of Tracy flick can’t lose is Lucy, Lou mm-hmm . Um, and, but did she just read the whole book? No. She only read the Traci flick character Uhhuh. Right. I know when we talked about this, we talked about it with that book that I read that was about a white kid who went to an all black high school.

And it was all about how he felt being an outsider in his own school. And then the narrator was black. So it was confusing

[01:00:40] Nicole: because, and we talked about that

[01:00:42] Gayle: again. Yes. I feel like with someone with the best. Yeah, I think you’re right. I think that’s right. And I don’t remember who it was, um, because we didn’t never talk to the author of that book.

That book was green by, and I forgot the name of the author. Um, oh, green by Sam Graham pson but I just thought the, the Lucy, Lou casting was interesting because she’s famous. Um, she wasn’t even, she wasn’t a particularly great narrator, I didn’t think for the role. And first of all, when you have Traci flick in mind, you have Reese Witherspoon, just that’s just who comes to mind because she made the character famous, but then to choose Lucy, Lou who’s Asian and also famous, it just was a, it was a strange combination, I guess.

I

[01:01:29] Nicole: just, I just, I just do not think about race in that way with something that is auditory mm-hmm as opposed to visual, like. She’s lending her voice as part of a performance. So, uh, yeah, I don’t even care about that or think about that or find that strange, just like with the Sam PSEN book, if he’s reading the story and he is black and it’s about a white character, then he’s, he’s reading the story.

Like, I don’t know. The princess bride old dude is reading the story to the, the young guy. So I just don’t, it’s just always fascinating to me when that is like, when it’s not a visual thing, that that’s something you zero in on. If it’s not, especially, I mean, with Lucy, Lou, it’s a character, but it’s also a female voice.

So I wouldn’t find so much of an issue there. And it would be different if I think in green, if like, if the black actor were only voicing the character of right. White protagonist, as opposed to he is reading the entire story. So

[01:02:39] Gayle: yes, I think it’s an interesting, I think you’re right. That sometimes it doesn’t make any difference, but that sometimes it can, it can be a complicated choice of casting.

Well, yeah. And

[01:02:50] Nicole: it just depends. How, how are you getting into this story? And are you thinking I’m listening to a black person, but the story’s about a white person. Like if that’s something that’s kind of popping for. Then I can see how that would be distracting, but if it’s, yeah, like I’m saying, if it’s not for a particular character, I’m just kind of like, well, I, I can’t see it, any of them anyway.

Right. What does it matter? Cause then we get into all of this thing. Like whose voice sounds like what you sound white, you sound black, you know, like, right. What does that even mean?

[01:03:21] Gayle: Right. All right. Well that was, I had a lot of opinions. Sorry. no,

[01:03:26] Nicole: that’s, that’s great. Your opinions help us figure out what we think about audio books.

And you’ve given us food for thought where to look and hopefully you all can better judge. Like when you’re listening to books, like what’s important to you. What’s distracting for you and listening to these stories because it is, you know, it’s reading, but it’s definitely a different experience. So it just depends on.

A whole host of things. right. If you can speed it up if you would like that book in, in audio or not, you know, like, that’s always a question that I ask myself with audio. Would I like this better if I had read it, you know, and sometimes you can tell, like, sometimes I can tell right away, like, Hmm, I don’t think I’m gonna like this as an audio book.

And it could be just the fact that that particular book I need to hold it in my hands and turn the pages and have that more intimate experience or, you know, is it just because it’s not the thing I can listen to? Or, you know, like you said, you can’t really focus on non-fiction, so there’s so many different nuances and just kind of exploring what particular formula works for you with audiobook.

So we hope we have given you a little direction and food for thought when figuring those questions

[01:04:38] Gayle: out for yourself. So next time we’ll talk about among other things, we will talk about, um, mercy street by Jennifer haue and until then, happy reading.