Nora Johnson breaking views: Celebrated actor narrates all of my audiobooks!

AUDIOBOOKSare booming in this time­poor, podcast­friendly world! According to the Audiobook Publishers Association, 74,000+ audiobooks were published last year in the USA alone with ‘Mysteries/Thrillers/Suspense’ as one of the most popu­lar genres.

After all, you can multitask while listening: 47 per cent of those who buy audiobooks listen while commuting, about 25 per cent while working at home and 23 per cent while exercising.

And publishers are doing full­scale productions with celebrities to attract new readers (like Meryl Streep reading ‘Charlotte’s Web’, Dustin Hoffman ‘Being There’ and Michelle Obama all 19 hours of her own memoir, ‘Becoming’). Homer’s Iliad was essentially an audiobook before it was ever written down!

All my novels are available in ebook/Apple Book/paperback and audiobook formats. But this wasn’t always so. Imagine my surprise when a well­known and celebrated British actor visiting Spain contacted me. He enjoyed reading my EWN column, and especially my novels and would I like him to record them as audiobooks?

Rayner Bourton, who created the role of ‘Rocky’ in the original London production of ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ and has numerous TV and movie credits to his name, has now produced all my psychological crime thrillers, each one expertly narrated with authentic accents. Listen yourself to the free audio samples on Amazon, Audible etc, including the latest, just released

‘Death in Windermere’!  Additionally, Rayner does considerable ‘voice over’ work, ‘voicing’ The Unseen Elder in ‘Witcher 3’, one of the world’s best­selling computer games. (Catch that, plus Rayner’s own audiobook: ‘The Rocky Horror Show: As I Remember It’.)

I often get similar requests from readers (and arts/book clubs), but not all pan out. Would I, for instance, ‘ghost’ someone’s life story? (This from some retired accountants and librarians. Riveting reading, right?) Another wrote enthusiastically and exhaustively about his project ­ a memoir he’d imaginatively titled: ‘My Autobiography’.

Maybe I missed a bestseller (and a blockbuster movie) there. Anyway, his ‘life story’ turned out to be more OTT bonkers than bizarre…

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with the fairies at the bottom of my garden. Next week, an in­depth memoir about cats ­ their indifference, greediness, sexually deviance ­ presented by the renowned psychologists, Professors Lassie and Fido.

Nora Johnson’s critically acclaimed psychological crime thrillers (www.nora­johnson.net) are all available online including eBooks (€0.99; £0.99), Apple Books, audiobooks, paperbacks at Amazon etc. Profits to Cudeca cancer charity.

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