Book Box: The beginner's guide to audiobooks
Six reasons why you should listen to audiobooks, with audiobook recommendations for every mood. Also meet Sagar Arya, the voice behind The Satanic Verses, the Amish series and others.
Dear Reader,
When my daughter was 10, she started to mumble. And when I’d proffer pronunciation advice, she soundly disregarded it.
At my wit’s end, on a visit to the British Council library at Nariman Point in Mumbai, I picked out a set of audio CDs for her.
From then on, all was bliss at bedtime. No more scuffling between the kids, as they listened, enraptured. The mumble magically vanished. And that was how audiobooks entered our house, over a decade ago.
Since then, the audiobook market has risen and risen, and with good reasons.
Why you should read audiobooks
⦁ You will end up reading significantly more
⦁ It’s a great way to liven up tedious times like travelling or doing chores
⦁ Your language fluency, articulation, and pronunciation all improve
⦁ Listening to audiobooks helps reduce screen time
⦁ It can be a good bonding experience for families on road trips
⦁ For children, a combination of audio and print versions of the same book helps them become better readers
A Beginner's Guide to Audiobooks
The Storytel app is a good start, as it offers thousands of titles for an annual subscription of ₹1499. Audible is more expensive, at ₹199 a month; this includes one free book per month and you have to pay separately, for each extra title you listen to. Google Play Books has its own app as well. Here, you pay per title, and most titles are more expensive than Audible.
You can listen to audiobooks for free, on the Librivox app. It has a great collection of classics, read by volunteers. Some of my recent favourites are Letters of a Post-Impressionist by Van Gogh, where Van Gogh comes alive in these letters he writes, some to his brother and some to a friend. They discuss life and art and the magic of colours. I also loved The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, set in the early 20th century New York. It features the intelligent and good-looking Lily Barton, who struggles to survive in a stifling society which stereotypes women.
Spotify has a small collection of free audiobooks too, including The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Here’s a collection of short stories to begin with.
For the holidays and other days, here are nine audiobooks in different genres, to add to your digital bookshelves, for those empty pockets of time.
Audiobook 1 of 9: Memoirs
How luxurious it feels, to hear the former President of the United States, talk to you about his life. Barack Obama does this brilliantly in A Promised Land. A skilful orator, he captures different voices and tones, perfectly. The book is 29 hours long, but packed with analysis and leadership insights and is well worth your while.
Other notable memoirs include Becoming by Michelle Obama and Educated by Tara Westover, narrated by Julia Whelan. There are also actor and entertainer memoirs, wonderfully voiced by the authors themselves, like Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver, and Stories I Must Tell in Kabir Bedi’s heart-stirring baritone.
Audiobook 2 of 9: A true-life political thriller
Red Notice is the true-life tale of a fund manager who antagonises Putin. It’s a mesmerising story — Russia vs the West. I heard this 14-hour-long audiobook over a week of walking; it was so exciting, that I started to take longer and longer walks!
Audiobook 3 of 9: Science Fiction
If you are looking for a short audiobook, try All Systems Red by Maratha Wells. A bot is the narrator of this three-hour-long tale. The bot has been sent to a distant planet along with a team of scientists, when it realises something is seriously wrong. The bot, who has managed to hack his own programming, now finds it has to get to the truth, to keep the team of scientists alive.
There’s something special about science fiction on audio. A talented narrator can make the alternative sci-fi world come to life so vividly. Like the recent Project Hail Mary, a survival story of a young physics teacher stranded in space. Another great sci-fi classic is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. It tells the story of a human being, who travels as an envoy to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose — and change — their gender.
There are also excellent short story collections on audio — explore some of these by the award-winning Ken Liu.
Audiobook 4 of 9: Non-fiction
The plane was late, the car got stuck in a gigantic traffic jam. But time had ceased to matter, as Patrick Radden Keefe spoke to me about his investigations into the Sacklers. Empire of Pain is an 18-hour-long family saga, a history of the pharmaceutical industry, and a journalistic expose, all rolled into one fascinating story.
Audiobook 5 of 9: Family saga
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, is expertly voiced by Tom Hanks. This writer and narrator combination alone was enough to draw me to this engrossing family saga, set around a house. 10 hours long.
If you are feeling adventurous or in need of a change of mood, try The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili. A translation from German, it's 40 hours long, set in Georgia, and traces the life of a chocolate makers clan over the last century. The trauma and tumult of those times and their effects on the chocolate makers' family are beautifully rendered.
Audiobook 6 of 9: Non-Fiction
If you want to soak up life skills while you walk, listen to Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. The author was an FBI hostage negotiator and taught at Harvard Business School. The book is full of racy stories and narrated in a style that will keep you hooked.
Book 7 of 9: Fantasy
Piranesi read by Chiwetel Ejiofor, is an intriguing tale of a mysterious being, living in a labyrinthine, half-submerged-in-the-ocean building. As his story unspools through his journal entries, we begin to guess what is true and what is not. This seven-hour-long audio version is beguiling. It’s also the winner of the 2021 Audie Awards for audiobooks.
Book 8 of 9: A Millennial Tale
Exciting Times features Ava, a millennial Irish ex-pat, who tells us her story in a distinctive Irish accent. She has moved to Hong Kong, to find some direction in life and gotten entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer. The resultant novel is quite the zeitgeist of the times. It is full of thought-provoking conversations, that show how class, colonialism, and gender differences affect relationship dynamics.
From Hong Kong, travel north to If I Had Your Face, narrated effectively by an ensemble group of Frances Cha, Sue Jean Kim, Ruthie Ann Miles, and Jeena Yi. A novel around five young women in Seoul, this deceptively light Korean Gossip Girl addresses patriarchy, plastic surgery, inequality, art, and celebrity culture.
Book 9 of 9: Satire
Making Money is an 11-hour-long romp through the banking system. It is also uncannily relevant to today’s economy, touching on issues like the underlying value of currency. Add to this, an assassins guild and a dog called Mr Fusspot, all brought to rip-roaring life in Stephen Briggs clipped British tones.
The Life of an Audiobook Narrator
Recording a book is a very intimate process, says Sagar Arya, the voice behind books like A Suitable Boy, The Satanic Verses, and the Amish series.
Edited excerpts of our conversation:
1. How did you start voicing audiobooks
An audiobook producer, Nicolas Soames of Ukemi Audiobooks, heard something I had done for the BBC and got in touch. The first audiobook I recorded was for him, and it was Annihilation of Caste by BR Ambedkar. And then the word spread. I was fortunate because Audible was going to launch in India and needed to record a lot of books read with an 'authentic' accent...so I had a lot of work.
2. Take us through some audiobooks you’ve enjoyed recording?
A Suitable Boy... what an amazing book. And I took a lot of time recording it. Preparation involves reading beforehand so you know what tone you want to take, the pacing, the accents (if any), and also looking after your voice for long sessions. I record mostly at home as I built a home studio during the pandemic. Books usually take 2-3 days to record, depending on the length of the course. Ashoka the Great took 13 days!
3. Which one was the most challenging?
There was one story in Salman Rushdie’s collection of short stories East, West. It was called Yorick, about the court jester in Hamlets fathers Court. I just couldn't get to grips with it.
4. Are you a reader yourself?
I'm actually not a reader. I'm more of a visual person. And I love reading scripts and screenplays. Some books I have really enjoyed are Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
5. Growing up were you exposed to storytellers?
My grandmother and aunts were tremendous storytellers. My favourite was the Hansel and Gretel story which my aunt narrated to me in Urdu... I asked her to tell me that story over and over again.
6. Three reasons to listen to audiobooks?
It's convenient… You can do it on the go, while doing chores, and instead of just listening to music (which is great), listen to an audiobook and enrich yourself.
It's relatively quite cheap!
And what could be better than using your own imagination?
7. What's your advice to people who are looking at a career in voicing audiobooks? And what kind of payment can they expect?
Read first. Prepare. Know the subject so you know how to approach it. Keep it simple. Recording an audiobook is a very intimate process, and even a breath can be heard loud and clear... so keep it natural. I have no idea about payments in India but in the United Kingdom, the payment is in the region of £80-£100 per recorded hour (after the edit, not the amount of time you take in the studio).
8. Lastly, any practical tips for listeners?
Keep listening to podcasts and audiobooks and documentaries and dramas. There is a plethora of them out there, some really good stuff. It's relaxing, enjoyable, and you retain more information than you realise. It's a good use of your time.
That’s all for this week. In the meantime, I’d love to hear about your audiobook experiences.
Next week, we look at some exciting summer reads.
Until then, happy reading!
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading requests or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com
The views expressed are personal
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