Here’s a New York Times report on the eBook buzz at BEA, focusing on Amazon’s Kindle. The Times asks if eBooks have reached the tipping point. But let’s not forget that the Kindle can also be used as an audiobook player , downloading titles through Audible. Perhaps another question to ask might be “What are Amazon’s plans for integrating audiobooks into upgrades of the Kindle?” It seems that there is a pretty clear path: Amazon adds audiobooks to their digital download store. Amazon buys Brilliance Audio, gaining an audiobook production arm. Amazon buys Audible, gaining audiobook download distribution expertise. Amazon hires key audiobook producers - Tim Ditlow from Listening Library and Madeline McIntosh from Random House. This year’s Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year (presented by the Audio Publishers Association), The Chopin Manuscript is an original production (not based on a printed book) from Audible (now owned by Amazon) that is only available as a digital download. What’s next? Perhaps using the Kindle as a display for picture book readalongs or as a way to integrate photos & illustrations for an eBook/audiobook package for nonfiction titles, as in this post? Will the Amazon connection accelerate the move to downloads only, just as CDs heralded the death of cassettes?

An amazing thing happened last night at BEA. The Chopin Manuscript was honored as the 2008 Audiobook of the Year at the Audio Publishers Association’s Audie Awards.

The Chopin Manuscript is an original serialized thriller created exclusively for audio by a stellar list of thriller writers — for a joint project between Audible.com and ITW - a project that Steve Feldber and I only imagined would ever happen back in June of 2006 when we sat down over tepid coffee during a break at BEA to brainstorm how we could work together.

Kudos to each and every author who contributed and especially to Jim Fusilli who edited in addtion to contributing: Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, David Hewson, James Grady, S. J. Rozan, Erica Spindler, John Ramsey Miller, David Corbett, John Gilstrap, Joseph Finder, Jim Fusilli, Peter Spiegelman, Ralph Pezzullo, Lisa Scottoline, P. J. Parrish.

This is amazing and even more special when you consider the competition: Steven Colbert’s I AM AMERICA ; THE BIBLE EXPERIENCE, a star-studded, multi-cast recording of the Old Testament featuring talent like Denzel Washington (the same company’s New Testament recording was last year’s Audiobook of the Year);THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET, a wonderfully creative children’s book; and, last but not least, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS.

As one of our esteemed authors said - beating God and Harry Potter is one thing — but beating Colbert? Now that’s impressive.

In classic Stephen King tradition, this audiobook reminds the listener that even something as ordinary as a stationary bike can have a devious nature to it. After a tongue thrashing from his doctor, Richard Sifkitz turns his addiction to fatty foods into an addiction to a fantasy world created around his stationary bike, spending hours a day pedaling away. But as his obsession grows, the lines between fantasy and reality dim and he believes someone or something is trailing him on his path. Ron McLarty, who previously recorded King’s Salem’s Lot and Faithful, delivers this novella with an excellent pace and easy disposition. His controlled reading creates a much tenser atmosphere with surprises and plot twists made more shocking without the advance warnings of a more dramatic reading. The jazzy segues between chapters lightens the tone just enough to make the listener feel uncertain about where King is taking this story.

http://rapidshare.com/files/118492511/Stephen_King_-_Stationary_Bike.rar

Conor Broekhart is born in a hot-air balloon, framed for murder, and ends up in a terrible island prison. Part adventure and part modern fairy tale-John Keating reads with an Irish lilt that reflects its setting on an island off the coast of Ireland. His character portraits and narrative are equally engaging.

http://www.audiofilepublications.com/media/clips/32990.mp3

June’s free download from Christian Audio is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

Embark on a perilous journey with Christian, the lead character, from the City of Destruction to the luminous safe haven of the Celestial City. The journey will encourage you to set your hope fully on the grace to be given you amidst the obstacles of life.

Enter the code JUN2008 to download the free mp3 file in 9 parts to your computer..

The name of the program is Morning Stories (iTunes - Feed - Web Site). The host is Tony Kahn. And the show is all about presenting great stories from everyday people - stories that get at something deeply human, things that other people can identify with, no matter what their age, background, or nationality. (Hence the reason why the show’s podcast has unexpectedly developed a considerable following in China.)

I figured that there’s no better way to introduce the show than to ask Tony Kahn to highlight some of his own favorite episodes. So that’s what I did, and here’s what he had to say. Once you get beyond listening to his favorites, you can peruse the complete archive here. Enjoy.

1. Over Here and Over There (mp3): Morning Stories Producer and Director catches up with his friend Fatima, by phone from Brazil, and recalls her story of the hopes that once made her flee her homeland for America, and the fears that sent her back.

2. How Can You Say No? (mp3): Jackie Lantry fights time and City Hall in China to give her son a family, and Tony Kahn and Gary Mott discuss their personal experiences with adoption.

3. Family Tree (mp3): Karen Dillon begins the podcast with a report on working with grieving children. Katrina Murray ends it with a mother’s tale.

4. A Lesson in Chinese (mp3): A caller from Xian, China teaches Tony the true meaning of ‘happiness,’ ‘love,’ and ‘volunteer job.’

Right in time for Memorial Day, The Teaching Company has made available a 30 minute lecture, Eisenhower and Operation Overlord (download mp3 here or mp4 here), which is an outtake from a larger course called ‘World War II: A Military and Social History.’ The lecture, presented by Professor Thomas Childers (University of Pennsylvania), delves into the preparations for the largest amphibious assault in military history, the D-Day Invasion (June 6, 1944) that marked the beginning of the end of World War II.

Despite the many university courses that you can find freely available on the web (see our list of 200+ courses here), I still end up buying a fair number of courses by The Teaching Company. Why? Because they’re generally very informative and the production value is high. And, it doesn’t hurt that they have an extensive catalogue at this point. If you go this route, the trick is to buy the mp3 version (they’re much cheaper) and to wait for your course to go ‘on sale.’ (The Teaching Company runs sales left and right.)

Here at Stanford, a couple of our teachers (Tom Kealey and Adam Johnson) took a novel approach to running a writing class. They wanted to see what happens when 14 students collectively write, edit and illustrate a graphic novel. (A graphic novel is a type of comic book that features a lengthy and complex storyline.) Fast forward a few weeks, and you can see what the class produced. Their novel, ‘a wildly ambitious, emotionally searing story,’ based on a series of true events, is called Shake Girl, and you can start reading it here. Should you want to learn more about the writing of this collaborative novel, you can listen to this podcast that gives you the backstory and also read this section of the Shake Girl website.

Here’s a quick one while I am away on some unexpected business:

Over at the Internet Archive, you can find George Orwell’s classic, 1984, available as a free audio book. As you’ll see, the recording is professionally done. You can download the full zip file here. Or alternatively you can get the individual mp3 files, or stream them, from this page. On a more permanent basis, you can find Orwell’s 1949 work housed in our Free Audio Book Collection along with lots of other free texts.

Perhaps the smallest of the small press ventures, though definitely not the least significant, the English-language chapbook has a history that can be traced back to the sixteenth century, when it was popularized as an affordable booklet containing anything from ballads to folk tales. After all these years it remains a cost-efficient cultural product, and for many contemporary poets especially, it’s a step toward a full-length collection, or a notable self-contained gathering of theme-related poems.

In any case, the chapbook is recognized as a valid and valuable publication, no matter the quality of the production itself. It’s the content that matters, which is why even self-published chapbooks, usually sold and distributed by the authors themselves, are not so easily dismissed if the work has merit.

The chapbook has survived because a number of small presses continue to seek out and publish limited-edition collections by writers with promise (certainly, the exceptionally talent move forward into illustrious writing careers) or by established writers with a small project that may or may not be included in a future book-length volume. The Internet has served these enterprising presses well since any writer looking for a home for a short-length collection can locate the right editor with any user-friendly search engine. And not to be left out, a number of websites and webzines are also now producing e-chapbooks.

A few chapbook publishers of note:

The Backwaters Press, Booklyn Artists Alliance, Concrete Wolf, Finishing Line Press, Main Street Rag, A Midsummer Night’s Press, Pudding House Publications, Slapering Hol Press, and Ugly Duckling Presse. More presses listed here.

A few recent titles of note:

Achiote Seeds/ Semillas de Achiote, Cristina Garcia, Brenda Cardenas, Gabriela Erandi Rico and Emmy Perez, Achiote Press.

Four distinct Latina voices come together in this startling bilingual collection of poems that cover plenty of fertile ground, from history to feminism, from prayer to politics.

Bird Ave y New Mission Poems, Lorna Dee Cervantes, MANGO Publications.

In honor of the critically-acclaimed Chicana poet’s return to her ancestral homeland, the San Francisco Bay Area, these poems move with elegance through the troubled and celebrated landscape of the Mission District.

The Strange Case of Maribel Dixon, Charles Jensen, New Michigan Press.

Emerging poet Jensen takes an innovative approach to the poetics of the paranormal with this imagined journey of Edward Dixon, a physicist/spiritualist who attempts to reach the Ghost-World.

White and Wong, Thaddeus Rutkowski, MuscleHead Press.

This collection of prose pieces by the award-winning Asian American poetry slam champ is full of pick-axe attitude as it explores the touchy subjects of race, class and ethnicity.

Chapbooks may be the noble gems of the publishing world, but, as Rebecca Ellis, the editor of Cherry Pie Press notes on her publisher’s blog, “Chapbooks are only one way to print and distribute your work–don’t forget broadsides, bookmarks, postcards. The possibilities are endless. A small item with a sample poem and contact information is inexpensive, useful, and generous to the reader.”

The Garden of Last Days: A Novel
by Andre Dubus III (Author)
Average Customer Review:
Publication Date: June 2, 2008

Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher Novels)
by Lee Child (Author)
Average Customer Review:
Release Date: June 3, 2008

Eclipse Special Edition (The Twilight Saga)
by Stephenie Meyer (Author)
Average Customer Review:
Release Date: May 31, 2008

Chasing Harry Winston: A Novel
by Lauren Weisberger (Author)
Average Customer Review:
Release Date: May 27, 2008

Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)
by Stephenie Meyer (Author)
Release Date: August 2, 2008

In this first important consideration of the George W. Bush presidency and its profound impact on the state of the world, Jacob Weisberg crafts a wide-ranging portrait that is both balanced and insightful. Weisberg traces the evolution of Bush’s political philosophy from its roots in his early life and his years as governor of Texas through the events of 9/11 and his turbulent two terms in office.

With careful analyses, Weisberg offers an eye-opening assessment of Bush’s deeply conflicted relationship with his father, former President George H. W. Bush, and with major figures in the administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This groundbreaking book of reportage, synthesis, and analysis will stand as the indispensable account of a presidency of enormous consequence.