This summer, SYNC provided two free teen audiobooks each week from May 5th to August 11th. Each week focused on a specific theme, pairing a classic YA title with a more modern YA title. This week is our last, and it starts Thursday, August 11th with Bone Gap by Laura Ruby and Classic American Short Stories by O. Henry, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Kate Chopin, James Fenimore Cooper.
Prepare for the extraordinary. Narrator Dan Bittner does an exceptional job guiding listeners through this compelling novel of love and beauty, identity and power. His narration flows like a river, interweaving the stories of brothers Finn and Sean; their Polish immigrant boarder, Roza; and the small town of Bone Gap, where they live. When Roza suddenly disappears, Finn is the only witness to her abduction. Telling the story mostly from Finn and Roza’s points of view, Bittner skillfully voices characters of all ages and backgrounds. Of special note are Roza’s soft-spoken Polish-accented English and the kidnapper’s unctuous voice, which is 50 percent charm, 20 percent oil, and 30 percent very disturbing. This is a must-listen—a consummate blend of text and voice. The library owns this title in many formats: book, CD, ebook, and eaudiobook.
This is a collection short late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century works by American writers Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Mark Twain, Jack London, and O. Henry. William Roberts is an excellent reader, and given a true classic, like Bierce’s “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” or Twain’s “Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” he achieves the subtlety and concentrated dramatic force that are the hallmarks of the American short story. The library does not own this particular title, but it is owned by other libraries in our system, and we would be happy to request it for you.
These titles will be available to download for free during this week only (8/11 to 8/18) at the SYNC website. The theme for this week is “Beautiful storytelling, brand new and classical.”