A Book for the Chore Doers
Spurred by the return of soldiers blinded from service in World War I, the American Foundation for the Blind was established in 1921. The organization quickly set about the work of becoming a wellspring of knowledge, research, and advocacy for the visually impaired. It ushered in important standardization in English Braille, pushed for universal design in manufacturing, and encouraged considerations of accessibility.
How audiobooks got their start. American Foundation for the Blind, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsAnd in 1932, led by AFB Education Director Robert B. Irwin, and with the lackluster support of Helen Keller who thought there might be more important priorities, the foundation established a recording studio for the purpose of putting books on vinyl records.
A year later the Library of Congress got in on the action. Soon audio performances of the Constitution and the writings of William Shakespeare became available in 15-minute segments on vinyl. The Bible also made the cut, as did many of the works of Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry, and Helen Keller, who finally decided she was pretty much on board with that.
In the ninety years since, the audiobook has grown up quite a bit alongside some pretty impressive advances in technology, to become the fastest growing segment of the publishing market for going on twelve years now. The consumers of audiobooks have expanded beyond the visually impaired to include the commuters, exercisers, and household chore doers.
I’m just glad we no longer have to change the record every fifteen minutes. Image by sindrehsoereide from Pixabay
Like Helen Keller, I was a little bit of a latecomer to the audiobook, but over the last few years, I have listened to more and more of them. It’s still not my preferred method of book consumption, but as much as I would like to sit and read books all day long, I do occasionally have other things I need to get done. When that happens, it’s nice to have someone read to me while I work.
About a year ago, I set out to put one of my own books into this format. I have started with Gentleman of Misfortune, my first published novel, which you can learn more about here if you like. The project took a little longer than I expected, primarily because of slow communications with distributors, but finally, the audiobook is available in enough places that I feel like I can start to tell people about it.
For when you just want to read a book, but you really need to clean your house.If you are into audiobooks, I hope you will consider checking it out at whatever link below would make you the happiest. Also, in case this is important to you here at the murky dawn of everything AI—and I really do hope it is—the reader for Gentleman of Misfortune is a real live human being with a real live voice. His name is George Sirois and he is a talented voice actor, podcaster, and writer, who I think did a pretty bang-up job bringing my story to life in this way.
At this moment, Gentleman of Misfortune is available on audio in the following places, but platforms are still being added, so if your favorite isn’t listed, you still might find it there.
