2007 Audies – Two Excellent Books
This year I was very proud of the two books I had in the running. I loved recording The Prestige – on which the film made this year was based, and The Warden was the first of the Barsetshire series by Trollope which has been a great favorite with listeners.
The Prestige by Christopher Priest
From AudioFile Magazine:
Priest’s remarkable novel won the World Fantasy Award in 1996. Now it’s been produced as an audiobook every bit as remarkable. Simon Vance provides the voices of two late-nineteenth-century warring professional stage magicians: Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier. The entire novel is told through journal entries by these two prestidigitators. Hearing Vance mellifluously pronounce words like “prestidigitator” as if they were part of his normal speech makes the book worth the time, but there is so much more. These characters are shrouded in mystery from the very first minutes, and Vance expertly portrays these two men as their lives (and their tricks) are slowly revealed. S.D.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2007 Audies Award Finalist © AudioFile 2007
The Warden by Anthony Trollope
From AudioFile Magazine:
The incomparable Simon Vance parses Anthony Trollope’s famously circumlocutory, phrase-filled style with aplomb in this first of the Barsetshire novels. In it, we follow Mr. Harding, the kindhearted warden of an old men’s poorhouse, who is caught between his ambitious, conservative son-in-law and a reform-minded young man who wants to become his second son-in-law. Trouble ensues when the hapless Mr. Harding tries to avoid unpleasantness by agreeing with everyone. Vance’s narrative skills help modern listeners hear the elegance of Trollope’s writing and understand the writer’s skewering wit. And his ability to create character-revealing accents, from the illiterate grumble of a local farmer to the nasal bray of a highborn clergyman, makes the nineteenth century live in our ears. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2007 Audies Award Finalist © AudioFile 2007
