TY - BOOK ID - 78643060 TI - The Untold Story of the Talking Book PY - 2017 SN - 0674974530 0674974557 9780674974555 9780674545441 0674545443 9780674974531 PB - Cambridge, MA DB - UniCat KW - Audiobooks KW - Literature and technology KW - Talking books KW - Blind KW - Industry and literature KW - Technology and literature KW - Technology KW - Audio books KW - Books, Cassette KW - Books, Recorded KW - Books on tape KW - Cassette books KW - Recorded books KW - Sound recordings KW - History. KW - Books and reading KW - Book history KW - Sociology of literature KW - audiobooks KW - book history KW - Audiobooks. KW - Hörbuch. KW - Literatur. KW - Literature and technology. KW - Talking books. KW - Technischer Fortschritt. KW - Technologie. KW - Vertonung. KW - Livres audio KW - Littérature et technique KW - Histoire. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:78643060 AB - Histories of the book often move straight from the codex to the digital screen. Left out of that familiar account are nearly 150 years of audio recordings. Recounting the fascinating history of audio-recorded literature, Matthew Rubery traces the path of innovation from Edison’s recitation of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” for his tinfoil phonograph in 1877, to the first novel-length talking books made for blinded World War I veterans, to today’s billion-dollar audiobook industry. The Untold Story of the Talking Book focuses on the social impact of audiobooks, not just the technological history, in telling a story of surprising and impassioned conflicts: from controversies over which books the Library of Congress selected to become talking books—yes to Kipling, no to Flaubert—to debates about what defines a reader. Delving into the vexed relationship between spoken and printed texts, Rubery argues that storytelling can be just as engaging with the ears as with the eyes, and that audiobooks deserve to be taken seriously. They are not mere derivatives of printed books but their own form of entertainment. We have come a long way from the era of sound recorded on wax cylinders, when people imagined one day hearing entire novels on mini-phonographs tucked inside their hats. Rubery tells the untold story of this incredible evolution and, in doing so, breaks from convention by treating audiobooks as a distinctively modern art form that has profoundly influenced the way we read. ER -