AudioFile, The Magazine for People Who Love Audiobooks.

AudioFile, the only magazine devoted to audiobooks, is indispensable for anyone who enjoys spoken-word audio. We review more than 100 audiobooks in each issue and award exceptional performances with AudioFile's Earphones Awards.

AudioFile reviews unabridged and abridged audiobooks, original audio programs, commentary, and dramatizations in the spoken-word format. Our focus is the audio presentation, not the critique of the written material.

AudioFile reviewers are professionals in the information, education, and performance fields. Each issue of AudioFile lists the reviewers of the month's titles. All reviews are signed.

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Editor's Notes:

The Fast-Paced World of Audiobooks

Our culture moves so quickly, and we all want to know what’s new, newest, or the next best thing. For audio fans, developments in formats and listening devices are so fast-paced that changes since last issue’s feature, “The Future of Formats,” are happening before we get the chance to report on them in print. So, we’ve added a new section called Digital Central to the AudioFile Web site to keep you fully up to date. In this issue, we’ve also included some cool digital gift suggestions (along with great audiobooks) to our annual “Gifts for  listeners” feature (see page 24); and don’t miss the newest leap in technology—the Playaway audiobook and player in one tiny package (page 11).

We also want to keep readers fully informed of audiobook releases even before they show up in our print edition. So you don’t miss the latest from established authors or surprise bestsellers or celebrated first novels, check online for New Releases. This comprehensive listing of new audiobook releases—exclusive to AudioFile—is proving invaluable to both our consumer and professional subscribers. Note also our “Hot Title” reviews posted on our home page as soon as they are written. We don’t want to preempt the print edition, but did anyone really want to wait until October 1 for the review of the latest Harry Potter?? Even if you’ve read it online, however, check out the review in this issue (page 33), which has been embellished with notes from the audio’s producer, Orli Moskowitz, and with an audiography for narrator Jim Dale.

While the new books get all the buzz and technology rushes forward, it’s comforting to realize that many audiobooks have a perennial nature, and we can go back to them again and again. So, if there’s a run on your library for John Irving’s latest title, Until I Find You, you could probably find Cider House Rules or A Widow for One Year (or perhaps these would be your next audiobooks after you listen to Irving’s new one). Classics are the ultimate perennial titles. Not only can we enjoy beautifully done performances more than once, but we can savor each new recording of, say, Nicholas Nickelby or a Sherlock Holmes adventure. (See Nicolas Soames’s “AudiOpinion,” page 14, for more on this theme.) Shakespeare recordings are perhaps the ultimate evergreen programs, and as audio dramatist Yuri Rasovsky suggests in our feature, beginning page 26, the
“nakedness” of audio may prove the perfect medium to enjoy these classics. Certainly, the depth and breadth of audio works by and about Shakespeare will tantalize you.

Robin F. Whitten
Editor and Founder

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