Ever listened to an audiobook and thought, “Reading a book out loud seems pretty cool. I could totally do that, if only someone would give me an opportunity. And man, I could so go for some pie right about now.”
Except for the pie part, you’ve got your chance during the American Library Association’s annual conference here in Washington, DC. Random House Audio will be setting up a recording studio inside OverDrive’s Digital Bookmobile — which will be parked right across the street from the conference site at the Renaissance Hotel on 9th Street NW — and inviting aspiring audiobook readers to come read a passage from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Eventually, the audio clips will be edited together, in a sort of audiobook mashup, to create a “community sourced” audiobook that participants can download. Pretty neat, huh?
Anyone can participate — you don’t have to be attending the conference, though you do have to be in DC. The Digital Bookmobile will be parked outside the hotel, ready for you to step up to the microphone, on June 25, 26 and 27. Start practicing your Tin Man voice now.
For more information, go here.
Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn brings the same pop culture awareness and spry writing style he lavishes on the Boys to Alfred Hawthorne “Benny” Hill, one of England’s most watched and — in public, at least — least admired comedians. You’ll quickly find that Lewisohn’s surtitle — Funny, Peculiar — is entirely appropriate, for what an odd, complicated, and interesting life it is, full of conflict, sadness, success, unrequited love, stage fright, a little luck, and quite a bit of genius.
But as Benny’s fame soared internationally — his agent brilliantly marketed select shows for the new syndication markets in the early 1970s — his interest in even his own material waned, and Hill became a parody of himself, relying on bawdier material and deliberately pushing the censors to their limit.
— was genuinely flattered when I approached her with a hardcover copy of her book I had brought with me from DC. “Thanks for buying the book,” she inscribed on the title page, ” — and in hardback!”
), to whom I owed huge thanks for some advice he had given me on Project Blue Harvest. We chatted over fruit and bagels about our projects (he’s in the midst of edits on his Kurt Vonnegut bio) and he didn’t even flinch when I nearly splattered hot coffee into his lap.
was the result of more than 15 years of writing and research. Strouse talked about learning finance, choosing a subject, and sticking with a project that nearly engulfed her.
— gave the conference several hours of her time and participated in an incredibly useful session on How To Deal With The Family of your chosen subject. While three of the panel’s participants gave valuable advice on how to work with family, friends, and heirs, Kelley told one funny story after another about the hows and whys of covering your ass. (“I ask the hard questions first,” she said, “because I’m always afraid they’re going to throw me out.”)
. Stiles ran point in a session on self-editing, which evolved into an entertaining discussion on a variety of topics, from narrative arcs to the future of publishing (which included a heartfelt tangent on why self-published books, unfortunately, have a tendency to suck). Stiles also reiterated the point — with a funny story about a long digression on Nigerian steamboats in an early draft of his Vanderbilt biography — that not all your research drives your narrative, no matter how interesting you think it might be. “It was like someone had dropped another book right into the middle of mine,” Stiles said. Out it went.
Brian Jay Jones 