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Unabridged audio book

W. F. Howes are making the unabridged audio book version of The Undercover Scientist. One week ago I went into the studio and saw what it was like to record the audio for an audio book. I discovered quite how important that word “unabridged” is… They tell me the book will be about 12 to 15 hours long - that’s rather more time than I want to spend in front of a microphone, trying to sound interesting and exciting. So we’ve come to a compromise - they’ll use an actor called Roger May to read it, and I’ll record an interview to be used at the end, and for publicity.

Peter Bentley (December 28, 2008 12:11 PM):

Thanks for your nice message, Maria. I am slightly bemused by the enthusiasm people seem to be showing in that video! Anyway, I'd recommend reading the books if you can - even if I wanted to, there's no way I could read out "The Book of Numbers" because of its content. If you really want to listen to stuff, I'll be on the radio in a few days - check out the later entry on the blog.

Maria (December 26, 2008 3:50 PM):

So I am thinking that at one point you might have had the fleeting thought that this incredibly nifty iPhone application might become a vehicle to introduce people to your work. I am writing to let you know that it has worked beautifully!

I’ve just finished reading “A Whole New Mind” by by Daniel Pink and have been giving the a lot of thought to the importance of intelligent design. Then I came across your app… Then your books… Saw the adorable video… Emailed the link to all my friends… Now I want to read everyone of your books… By tomorrow. So I was hoping that you had at least one of them in audio with your voice. I can understand not wanting to sit for 15 hours for this book. But I hope you’ll reconsider for future books. I say that because I’ve listened to other books which were not read by the author. I don’t know how good of an actor this guy is, but however good it is unlikely that he will be able to match your passion on the subjects of evolutionary computation.

Personally, I am a school administrator and a painter and although I find the subjects of your work evolutionary (no pun intended) I might not have made the decision to actually purchase them had I not listen to you speak about it in the BBC interview.

Ok. So what started as a brief message oddly became a stream of consciousness marathon… On my iPhone no less!

Keep up the great work. You have a new fan on the other side of the pond.

Maria

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