Books are great to read - but there are times, driving, commuting on a very very crowded train etc. when reading isn’t always as easy as it should be.

 

So, more and more publishers are now producing audio CD versions of their books.  

 

This month we have a special feature on the best audio books as voted for by ‘you’. And the first on-line Audio books festival that you can download and listen to as a series of podcasts.  

 

We are featuring the shortlist of 12 books - and you can listen to an extract of them all. You can find out more about the whole longtlist of 40 titles at www.40bestaudiobooks.co.uk/reviews.htm  

 

The online literary festival was set up to get expert opinion and dicuss the hot areas in the audio book market.  

Click on any of the links below to listen to the podcast.     Podcast 1 Theme: Abridging  Audio abridger and producer Tamsin Collison and Shaun Sibley, CEO of Whole Story Audio Books - a company specialising entirely in unabridged audio - discuss the abridging process with Alison Flood.   Podcast 2 Theme: Audio Acting  Alison is joined by Hugh Fraser and Kerry Shale, two prolific audio actors who have also appeared in a variety of television and radio plays: Hugh playing the Duke of Wellington in Sharpe and Captain Hastings in Poirot; Kerry playing Mr Beaver in the legendary BBC Narnia series. Hugh and Kerry discuss how they prepare for an audio role and how this might differ from stage or screen.   Podcast 3 Theme: Audio books in Education  Audio publishers Ali Muirden and Phil Viner talk with Honor Wilson-Fletcher,the director of National Year of Reading, about the educational potential of audio and some fascinating projects currently being piloted in prisons and the army.    Podcast 4 Theme: Downloads Author Robert Rankin joins Alison Flood, Peter Crawshaw the Co founder and director of Lovereading.co.uk and Rebecca Williams, marketing manager for Go Spoken. An animated discussion of downloads and their place in the future of audio and the issues of piracy, royalties that arise from internet content.   Podcast 5 Theme: Comedy & the BBC Panellists: Dirk Maggs, Barry Cryer       We have also made a change to our Search Engine where we have added a new function that allows you to search just for Audio books. It's very easy just type in some text choose Author or Book title, then choose Audio book from the format list!