Audiobooks

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IN TOUCH – Audiobooks

TX: 17.01.2023 2040-2100

PRESENTER: PETER WHITE

PRODUCER: FERN LULHAM

White

Good evening. Audiobooks are experiencing something of a boom with the general reading public, an increasingly important part of the book trade. But they’ve always been popular with blind and partially sighted people for pretty obvious reasons, ever since the founding of the RNIB’s talking book service in the 1930s. That service is still there, of course but now supplemented with a much wider range of audiobook services, including online. And this is the programme where we invite a couple of guests to pick out an audiobook which has particularly delighted, intrigued them and to tell us why. I chime in with of my own as well.

We may discuss things other than the books themselves, such as how they’re read, who by and what delights us and puts us off about audiobooks generally.

Well, our two guests tonight have quite a lot in common actually but they’ve chosen two very different books. Jackie Brown and Dave Williams are very adept techies, if they’ll excuse the phrase, they’ve spent much of their working lives trying to help other visually impaired people cope with the fast-changing world of assistive technology and they’ve both ended up working for the RNIB, Jackie as a technology advisor based in Northern Ireland, where she lives, Dave as a customer experience manager, whatever that is. He is also chair of the Braillists Foundation. But they aren’t here because of their jobs or who they work for but as avid readers.

So, Dave – Dave Williams – I’m going to start with you, what have you chosen and why?

Williams

I’ve chosen The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. This book has all sorts of themes but this book is set in 1954, over a 10-day period. It’s written from the perspective of a number of, let’s call them, kids – young people – who have got themselves into trouble. And the story starts with Emmett returning home. He’s been at a penal correctional facility for involuntary manslaughter. And he gets home, basically, to find his younger brother, Billy, and the news that their farm is going to be sold, it’s all about what happens next really.

So, this is a coming-of-age story, it’s a road trip journey, I guess there are parallels with Catcher in the Rye. But I think the reason I chose it, this book, for me, stood out because it really felt like an epic, it felt like To Kill a Mockingbird or one of these really big works of sort of literary fiction but also, because I often can’t stand it when they change narrator, you know when they change point of view, I like to have a kind of a first-person narrative and I just want to stick with that, thank you very much. But actually, it really worked very well and I think the way they cast the narrators in this audiobook was tremendous.

So, we’re going to hear Ulysses now, who is one of the characters who, Billy, the younger brother of Emmett, meets on the train. Just listen to this guy’s voice, it’s tremendous.

Clip – The Lincoln Highway

Ulysses would step back from no man, stepped back from the child. He stepped back so abruptly it would have appeared to an observer that the boy had touched a raw wire to the surface of his skin.

“Do we know each other?” he asked, shaken.

“No, we don’t know each other but I think I know who you are named for.”

“Everyone knows who I’m named for – Ulysses S. Grant, Commander of the Union Army, the unwavering sword in Mr Lincoln’s hand.”

White

It is a fantastic voice.

Jackie, how important are voices to you, I mean, because there are multiple voices in this which, as Dave was saying, can be annoying but clearly didn’t annoy him in this one?

Brown

I like it. I actually quite like books that have multiple voices, either by one reader or sometimes there are books with several readers and they take on a character in the book. But one thing I do like about reading is I have to have the books sped up a bit because when there’s a dull reader, if you like, somebody who’s just sort of not really doing much with the voices, it makes them sound a bit more animated…

White

But hang on, if you sped up Ulysses you’d completely ruin the ambience of that voice, wouldn’t you, you’d lose that?

Brown

Maybe in that case but then I wouldn’t be able to be bothered keep speeding up every character and putting it back to the normal speed. So, you know, there are exceptions. I just think, generally, I like narration sped up a bit. I’m not saying they’ve got to sound like Pinky and Perky but I do like a book that’s got a little bit more animation.

White

Dave, you mentioned Catcher in the Rye, I thought of all sorts of things really, it’s a bit like the Canterbury Tales, in the sense that it’s a way of introducing you to all kinds of people, in this case, 1950s America, it does, it catches this whole sweep of American society at one moment in time.

Williams

Yeah, this is the way I want to learn about history with really kind of powerful stories. A few years ago, I read The Kingsbridge series, the Pillars of the Earth and then spent the next year and a half going around cathedrals because I wanted to experience the architecture and learn all about that.

White

These are the Ken Follett books aren’t they?

Williams

Right, exactly. And so, when we come to The Lincoln Highway, I hadn’t really heard of the Lincoln Highway, apparently this is a route across America from New York to San Francisco, the first route designed for motor vehicles and that’s why the book gets its name. But actually, these kids come from Nebraska, not somewhere that I’d really thought about but those sort of early scenes, those early chapters, in that small town in Nebraska really kind of conjured up an image of a place. So, this is the way I like to learn about history is through these sorts of works of historical fiction.

White

To make this type of book work with individual narrators, didn’t he have to make his characters unrealistically articulate because they’re the voices, they introduce themselves to you, you’ve got three teenagers just out of reform school, as you say, and a ridiculously precocious eight year old, did that not bother you at all?

Williams

Well, it is a work of fiction, of course…

White

Yeah, I know, I know, I know…

Williams

…so I recognise that these people didn’t actually exist. But, you know, it’s exploring perspective as well about how children sometimes see things that adults don’t, how – there’s this phrase, you know, there’s three sides to every story isn’t there – yours, mine and the truth. And so, there’s lots of that going on.

White

It’s actually quite sad in places but it’s also very funny, which is quite a good trick to pull off in a way. I hadn’t heard of this author, so thank you very much for introducing me to Amor Towles.

Okay, Jackie, you were greedy, you wanted us to read 18 books, as far as I can see. This is…

Brown

And a lot more besides.

White

This is a series, explain your choice to us.

Brown

Okay. I was introduced by my husband to the author Peter James about 10 years ago and my husband read a book called Dead Simple. It’s the first in 18 books we’re at, number 18 now and I have now read them all and this is a detective superintendent called Roy Grace. I’ve chosen the first book because it’s a really, really good place to start with Roy Grace. The storyline is about a groom who is about to get married and he goes on a stag night with his friends in a transit van. Apparently, the groom is the biggest prankster of them all so they want to get their own back on him. So, they decide to put him in a coffin and bury him…

White

Lovely.

Brown

…just for a few hours. But, unfortunately…

White

It goes horribly wrong.

Brown

…it goes horribly wrong.

Clip – Dead Simple

So far, apart from just a couple of hitches, plan A was working out fine. Which was fortunate since they didn’t really have a plan B. At 8.30 on a late May evening they banked on having some daylight, there’d been plenty of the stuff this time yesterday when four of them had made the same journey, taking with them an empty coffin and four shovels. But now, as the green transit van sped along the Sussex country road, misty rain was falling from a sky the colour of a fog negative.

“Are we nearly there yet?” said Josh in the back, mimicking a child.

“The great Ungar says: wherever I go there I am,” responded Robbo, who was driving and was slightly less drunk than the rest of them.

White

So, we’ve set the scene. The problem always with talking about detective novels is the danger of spoilers, isn’t it?

Brown

Yes.

White

We had to be so careful about what we tell people but it does all hinge on this idea that they think it’s a rather clever idea to bury a bloke in a coffin in a grave. And it’s not giving away too much to say that they have this horrendous crash and they’re all killed, so nobody knows he’s there.

Dave, what did you make of Roy Grace?

Williams

Well, it was a romp, just old fashioned detective fiction, a bit of a whodunnit, a few nice sort of twists and turns later on in the book that kind of changed things up but it gets a little bit dark in places…

White

I’ll say.

Williams

… but I actually enjoyed it because it isn’t the sort of thing I’ve read for a while.

White

Did you think you’d grown out of it then, Dave?

Williams

Well, I did a little bit, yeah. I didn’t come away from the book thinking I want to read the next 17 of these, you know…

Brown

Oh yeah.

Williams

…so, I enjoyed it and I’m glad you recommended it but I want be reading all 18.

Brown

I’m getting to the stage now, I think that the earlier books of the Grace series had you on the edge of your seat. I’m just wondering, now, if he should really be killed off or if he’s coming to the end of his sell by date.

White

But they should bury him in a coffin somewhere.

Williams

Well, look, I also like the Cormorant Strike novels…

Brown

Ooh I do as well.

Williams

…right, exactly. And you would love to go for a pint with a Cormorant Strike because he’d have all kinds of fascinating things to tell you about and I wasn’t that bothered about these characters. And for me, the thing that really makes a good book is characters…

White

Oh – oh no I cared about the poor bloke in the coffin buried…

Brown

Oh, I did.

White

…and the trouble is there are so many twists and turns. I reckon if an author can actually make you feel frustrated when the mistakes happen then he’s succeeded to some extent.

I’m interested you chose this Jackie because it’s raunchy – well, I’m not necessarily surprised about that – but lots of foul language, lots of very negative and aggressive attitudes to women, I thought, some intentional, depicting what maybe were the police attitudes at the time and may still be, some I thought almost unthinking by the author. Did that not worry you at all?

Brown

No, absolutely not. For me it’s got to be the story and if it’s got a good plot then that’s the most important thing.

White

I’d like to read the second one anyway.

Okay, my choice. One Summer – America in 1927. It’s non-fiction this, not fiction, but oddly there are some real parallels with Dave’s book, I think, because it is a picture of the United States at a moment in time. There’s a war hovering in the background, which has just ended, in my book’s case the First World War, still a lot of resentment, people have come back who haven’t got decent jobs, lot of people with war caused disablement. There’s a kind of mass hysteria present. And in Bill Bryson’s picture because it’s a Bill Bryson book, America is full of obsessions and one is the huge growth of flying – he focuses a lot on Charles Lindbergh and his non-stop flight from New York to Paris, which caused wild excitement and hero worship of the fliers, especially Lindbergh, which catches Bryson’s attention. But there are lots of other things, people seem to need spectacle – huge crowds turn up for events. Baseball is huge at the time, the film industry – first the silents then the talkies. And just to give you one more view of this book before you tear it to pieces – not loads of politics but a lot of fascinating anecdotes about some very weird and eccentric presidents. He focuses, particularly, on Calvin Coolidge who was as president noted mainly for his laziness, he avoided work as much as he possibly could, for his glumness and for the fact that he never used one word where no words would do.

Clip – One Summer

When the nation awoke in August 1923 to find that Harding was dead and the obscure Coolidge was president, most were dumfounded. Some had stronger feelings. Oswald Garrison Villard, Editor of the Nation, wrote: “I doubt if it (the presidency) has ever fallen into the hands of a man so cold, so narrow, so reactionary, so uninspiring, so unenlightened or who has done less to earn it than Calvin Coolidge.” Yet most people found themselves quickly warming to Coolidge, almost in spite of himself. The nation grew fond of his peculiarities and often exaggerated them in anecdote. His most celebrated trait was his taciturnity. An oft told story, which has never been verified, is that a woman sitting next to him at dinner gushed: “Mr President, my friend bet me that I wouldn’t be able to get you to say three words tonight.” “You lose,” the President supposedly responded.

Which I think is very clever, although perhaps he doesn’t make the most of the joke. One more thing, particularly fascinating for me, lots of fake news, mainly generated by the newspapers, the wish to believe almost anything with the minimum of evidence or even just downright lies is there. And we tend to think of this moment in time as a rather hysterical moment with social media but I was really struck with the feeling this ain’t new at all, it’s all happened before.

Jackie, what did you make of it and what did you make of Bill Bryson reading it?

Brown

Some authors are not great at reading their own books but I think that was quite well read by Bill Bryson. Again, I did speed it up. But…

Williams

Look it’s interesting, clearly the man has done just a prodigious amount of research into this period and clearly knows his subject very, very well. I mean some of the stuff about Henry Ford is fascinating, what a man full of contradictions.

White

Yeah, as many disasters as successes, especially later on.

Williams

Well, indeed and parts of this are quite gruesome, I’m pretty sure the body count is higher than Jackie’s Dead Simple. Do you know, it was like reading a list for me, finding my mind wondering and having to…no, no concentrate David and trying to bring myself back to it. I have to confess, I had to speed it up a little bit as well. I just found that there were some really fascinating stories but not really delivered with any kind of sort of sense of drama. And again somebody else you’d like to go for a drink with but as a book it just – it went on a bit. And it felt like limbo was in every chapter, wasn’t he?

White

Well, he did pop up quite a lot, yeah. But I think you’re being a bit harsh. It’s a very light voice actually, it’s almost too light perhaps for reading, you know, you need a voice with a bit of body, don’t you? It almost sounded like having written it he was bored at having to read it.

Williams

Yeah.

White

But I’m still surprised you say, Dave, that it’s a list. I mean yeah there are lists in it but there’s also a lot of wonderful anecdotes in it, some really good stories…

Williams

Oh there are, wasn’t there a guy who worked in a mortuary who also played baseball and it was said that he would occasionally have a cadaver in his car while he was playing the game?

White

That’s right, there was a view of baseball which was completely new.

One quick question to you both. You’re both braillists, I’m just wondering what makes you choose in what form to read something, especially if it’s available in other formats. What does the audiobook do best is perhaps what I’m asking?

Williams

Well, drama, isn’t it, so I think Bill Bryson, I probably would like to read that in braille and I might get more from it…

White

Which I did actually, part of it – I listened to it because that was my job but I read it in braille. You can then put your own interpretation on it of course.

Williams

I think so and I think that might hold my attention more. The reason I chose The Lincoln Highway is because I really felt the narrators brought drama.

White

You’ve introduced me to Amor Towles, who’s written two books before that one, so I’m going to go and find them now.

Brown

For me, I used to read them in braille and I used to have to lug these big heavy books or get them collected, whatever. I started to listen to audiobooks and I found that I just got engrossed and I really, really like them, so I’ve never looked back for the last, what, 10-12 years.

White

I’m sure Dave and I will both insist there is room for both, very much…

Brown

Oh absolutely, there is.

Williams

One final note from me is it’s really interesting that a lot of the big tech companies are researching ways in which they can use artificial intelligence and synthetic voices to try and deliver audiobooks at scale. And, of course, those of us who love the human narrator are clearly a little bit concerned about what that experience will be like. So, watch this space.

White

We are actually thinking of doing a programme on this, certainly on the development of speech and speech recognition and all that sort of thing. So, watch this space on In Touch as well.

That’s it for today. Many thanks to Jackie Brown, who stood in at the last minute, so thank you for that, and Dave Williams and thanks for introducing me a. to a new author, Dave and Jackie, for someone who’s books I’m going to read in the right order now. We’re going to have details about the books on our website – bbc.co.uk/intouch.

From me, Peter White, my guests, producer this week Fern Lulham and studio managers Amy Brennan and Phil Booth, goodbye and good reading.