Matthew Rubery is Professor of Modern Literature in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London.
A detailed, lively, and well-peopled history of the technologies,
economies, and organizations that have driven the recording of
novels over the last 150 years...What class and ethnicity are
narrators to have, and how present should they be as personalities?
Is reading mostly for pleasure or education? Do blind people need
books that mention disability-or are these to be studiously
avoided? Should blind war veterans be provided with pornography to
listen to? These are just some of the debates that surface in the
archives Rubery has so elegantly plumbed. -- Christina Lupton * Los
Angeles Review of Books *
As this entertaining exploration shows, the story of audiobooks is
as full of surprising and serendipitous turns as any engrossing
work of fiction-whether read on the page or heard through
headphones. -- Isabel Berwick * Financial Times *
If audiobooks are relatively new to your world, you might wonder
where they came from and where they're going. And for general fans
of the intersection of culture and technology, The Untold Story
of the Talking Book is a fascinating read. -- Neil Steinberg *
Chicago Sun-Times *
Rubery's engaging and important monograph fills a significant gap
in the debate. It asks us to consider what reading, in a literary
context, really means, without falling back too readily on the
physical activity. -- Dennis Duncan * Times Literary Supplement
*
Rubery's book is the more important, then, for rescuing an occluded
story and one that is easily forgotten...The Untold Story of the
Talking Book is lucidly researched and written. -- Paul Keegan
* The Spectator *
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the world's biggest bookseller, Amazon, is
now the largest producer of audiobooks, via its subsidiary Audible.
Whether in future we will be read to by humans or robots appears
immaterial. What is certain is that we will continue to derive
pleasure from it, and Rubery-who sees audiobooks as a distinctively
modern art form-makes a convincing case for why we should. -- Rene
Wolf * Times Higher Education *
This peculiarly fascinating history takes us from the origins of
the talking book, designed to entertain and help to rehabilitate
blinded first World War veterans, through to the competitive big
business of audiobooks today. -- Nora Mahoney * Irish Times *
[Rubery] explores 150 years of the audio format with an imminently
accessible style, touching upon a wide range of interconnected
topics...Through careful investigation of the co-development of
formats within the publishing industry, Rubery shines a light on
overlooked pioneers of audio...Rubery's work succeeds in providing
evidence to 'move beyond the reductive debate' on whether
audiobooks really count as reading, and establishes the format's
rightful place in the literary family. -- Mary Burkey * Booklist
(starred review) *
[A] fascinating cultural and sociological study of the emergence of
talking books from wax cylinders to Audible. -- Jaipreet Virdi *
Technology and Culture *
Matthew Rubery makes good on his title's promise, telling a story
that until now has been boxed up in the archives, and filling in a
key chapter in the history of books and readerships. This book is
more focused and more thorough than any other in the field-as well
as more interesting-and is likely to stand as the definitive
history of audiobooks for some time. -- James English, University
of Pennsylvania
Matthew Rubery has scored a decisive contribution to the history of
recorded literature in this magisterially researched and compelling
book. There is something new on every page, with all the facts and
factoids at once apt, eye-opening, and revisionary. -- Garrett
Stewart, University of Iowa
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