June is Audiobook Month!
Part of Alexander Graham Bell's original vision for recording and playing back words was the idea of making novels for the sight impaired more easily accessible. At 4 minutes at a time, however, the earliest cylinders weren't up to the task. Even the next step of recording onto flat platters only allowed 12, and then 20 minutes of audio. Sixty minute cassettes were developed in the 1970s - I remember those! Very exciting, but still bulky and awkward to keep changing. And then, CDs. Bliss.
"The phonograph at home reading out a novel." Daily Graphic (New York) April2, 1878 - a vision of the future
One way or another, I've spent a lot of time over the years searching for, choosing, collecting and discussing audiobooks. I had an avid reader mum who lost her sight and 3 of my 4 sons are dyslexic book lovers, and audiobooks made a world of difference to their lives. (I've had a few of my own books made into audiobooks,* which has given them continuing life after the all-too-familiar fate of going out of print.)
It took a while for Alexander Graham Bell's phonographic books to beat the tech problems, but it's been worth the wait.
Happy Audiobook Month - three cheers for audiobooks and all who sail in them!
P.S. Hilary Hawkes wrote an interesting ABBA blog back in 2018 about Narrating audio books - have a look!
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* Ely Plot (Wickit Chronicles) and Fen Gold (Wickit Chronicles) are on Audible, and The Night of the Kelpies is available as part of the Ulverscroft/Oakhill Publishing's Read Hear series.
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