Armchair Audies Time!

The Audies nominees for 2013 are out - and there are some excellent audio productions included in the finalists list. Of the dozen that I've read (listened to), ten are among my favorites of 2012. (I listened to 149 books last year, so ten is a chunk of them, but not a massive percentage.)

In order to really judge, though, I can't look just at the one or two in a category I've read. And I'm not alone in that - a group of bloggers are, for the 2nd year in a row, taking on a category (or more) each. We'll listen to each nominee in that category and decide which we think should win. It's called The Armchair Audies, and it's quite a fun group blogger project (now with Facebook page!)

(Last year I did this with the Teen and the Narration by Author or Authors categories, and I was right about both my picks. Go, me!)

Anyhoo - this year I've picked 3 categories. That's 14 titles, but I've already heard 6 of them. I'm excited about the rest of them. These are the audiobooks you can look forward to me blathering on about in the near future:

LITERARY FICTION (a.k.a., Two Simons and a Colin, a.k.a. Melanie Heaven)         
REMEMBER BEN CLAYTON Stephen Harrigan Read by George Guidall (Recorded Books) 
HEFT Liz Moore Read by Kirby Heyborne, Keith Szarabajka (Blackstone Audiobooks) 
BRING UP THE BODIES Hilary Mantel Read by Simon Vance (Macmillan Audio) 
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY Kazuo Ishiguro Read by Simon Prebble (Tantor Media) 
THE END OF THE AFFAIR Graham Greene Read by Colin Firth (Audible, Inc.)          

SOLO NARRATION - MALE (a.k.a. Did I Mention the Simon and the Colin? Plus Edoardo!)       
BEING THERE Jerzy Kosinski Read by Dustin Hoffman (Audible, Inc.) 
THE ABSOLUTIST John Boyne Read by Michael Maloney (Tantor Media) 
BEAUTIFUL RUINS Jess Walter Read by Edoardo Ballerini (Harper Audio) 
THE END OF THE AFFAIR Graham Greene Read by Colin Firth (Audible, Inc.) 
THE TAO OF POOH Benjamin Hoff Read by Simon Vance (Tantor Media) 

TEENS (a.k.a. LOVE Green & Bray, LOVE Rudd & Kellgren - The Category of Fun and Tears)         
INHERITANCE Christopher Paolini Read by Gerard Doyle (Listening Library) 
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS John Green Read by Kate Rudd (Brilliance Audio)
ENCHANTED Alethea Kontis Read by Katherine Kellgren (Brilliance Audio) 
THE DIVINERS Libba Bray Read by January LaVoy (Listening Library) 
DODGER Terry Pratchett Read by Stephen Briggs (Harper Audio)