Andy Weir’s ‘Artemis’ comes to Audible, narrated by Rosario Dawson

You might be familiar with Andy Weir’s name because of his book The Martian. Now, he’s back with a new crime caper called Artemis, which is set on the dark side of the Moon. The book is now available not just in bookstores but also in audiobook form over at Audible with actress Rosario Dawson lending her voice to the project. The clip above has Dawson talking about her character and the recording of Artemis.

Artemis follows the story of Jasmine Bashara or Jazz, who is described as “another too-smart, devil-may-care twentysomething” who isn’t happy with the life she lives in a small town on Artemis, which is the first and only city on the moon. Life is tough in the city if you aren’t rich so competing petty crimes like smuggling in contraband isn’t unheard of. And when Jazz finds a chance to commit the perfect crime with an extremely lucrative reward it’s hard for her to turn it down. However, in the midst of this she finds herself caught up in a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself.

New ‘Star Wars’ audiobook enlists Hollywood stars like Jon Hamm

Banking on the star power or just the really sultry voice of Hollywood’s elite, an upcoming audiobook about Star Wars: Episode IV has enlisted help from some big stars. Entitled From a Certain Point of View, this Del Rey Books audiobooks will feature the voices of Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, Neil Patrick Harris, and Star Wars Battlefront 2’s Janina Gavankar, to name a few. There will be 40 stories with each tale told by a different author about a character from the movie. Not much is known about who will voice whom but Hamm is confirmed to be voicing Boba Fett and Harris will tell the tale of an Imperial officer who’s aboard the Death Star. Gavankar will voice a different Imperial soldier from the one she voices in Battlefront 2.

The other voice actors include Now on the writing side, the authors contributing to this book include. All the authors have forgone payment for their stories and will have their proceeds go to First Book, a nonprofit that gives new books, learning materials, and other necessary tools needed by educators and organizations that serve children in need. According to Penguin Random House, the publisher has donated US$100,000 to First Book, while Lucasfilm gave 100,000 books to the charity that’s estimated to be worth US$1 million. From a Certain Point of View will be available for purchase starting October 3^rd.

Source: Star Wars

Canadian audiobook listeners prefer Amazon and Audible over iTunes

David Clare/Flickr

A new study from BookNet Canada explores the local consumers’s audiobook listening habits and methods for discovering new titles. It was found in this follow-up to a 2014 study that most users found audiobooks on websites of retailers as well as from recommendations by friends. However, it doesn’t mean these are the top places for downloading. People still prefer to borrow from public libraries or make use of free downloads to acquire new audiobooks.

But for those who do purchase audiobooks from retailers, the popular retailers to turn to are Amazon and Audible. Amazon is used 21 percent of the time this year (compared to 21.5 percent in 2014 and Audible is used to buy audiobooks 20.7 percent of the time (compared to 14.2 percent in 2014). Apple’s iTunes sees a 3 percent dip in use from 2014—they’ve gone from 17.7 percent in 2014 to 14.7 percent this year.

Source: Forbes

Read all you can with Kindle Unlimited

Amazon has officially confirmed rumours that they were introducing a new ebook service that will let you read as much as you want for a monthly fee. The Kindle Unlimited costs US$10 a month and gives you access to 600,000 books and 8,000 audio books as well. Popular titles like Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games, and Harry Potter are available but a lot of the major publishers aren’t fully represented. And we’re not sure how the current struggles with the publishing world would affect this venture.

The Kindle Unlimited comes with a free 30-day trial to make you want to sign up plus a three-month subscription to Audible. However, it is currently just available in the U.S. and there have been no announcements yet when this would make its way to other countries.

Source: Gizmodo