The Talking Book

07/19/2024

The TB gang had a great time hanging with our editor this week. This is the woman that makes sure all your audio is perfecto! 🍸🦢👄

07/12/2024

HAPPY 3 YEAR ANNIVERSARY to audiobook SLEEPOVERS! We had such a good time producing this with the author Ashleigh Bryant Phillips and ♥️ You can get this timeless recording by following the Come to Asheville to record your audiobook!

“Hailed by Lauren Groff as “fully committed to the truth no matter how dark or difficult or complicated it may be,” and written with “incantatory crispness,” Sleepovers, the debut short story collection by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips, takes us to a forgotten corner of the rural South, full of cemeteries, soybean fields, fishing holes, and Duck Thru gas stations. We meet a runaway teen, a mattress salesman, feral kittens, an elderly bachelorette wearing a horsehair locket, and a little girl named after Shania Twain.“

07/06/2024

New interview and reading with and his new YA novel The Sword and the Sophomore! Narrated by the great Out July 9th⚔️ 🦢 “Arlynn Rosemary Banson is an atypical sixteen-year-old—the cool, popular outsider, effortlessly straddling the line between divas and dorks. Her forever young mother, Jennifer, is dedicated to making her life awkward by trying to be her friend. Her father, Alan, is a workaholic history professor who barely acknowledges his family’s existence. Her boyfriend, Benz, the quarterback and homecoming king, has just broken up with her, while her best friend, Joslin, bears reluctant witness to Rosemary’s romantic drama. But nothing prepares any of them for a Welsh foreign exchange student named Emrys Balin. Emrys looks like a teenager, but he seems to act much, much older.”

06/27/2024

An old Talking Book poster from a while back. Can’t believe we’ve been doing this for over 8 years already. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. I hope we never stop. Come to Asheville to record your audiobook, or do it with us remotely. 🤎🎙️👄

06/23/2024

Have you listened to Jack Houghteling read from SUNNYSIDE? 🎙️ “In this winningly oblique, slender, and wise-hearted novel, Jack Houghteling puts his finger on febrilely metropolitan human nature as it expresses itself (cerebrally, athletically, familially) in the outer boroughs and in patinated suburbia—and he does so in fleet, uncannily vivid sentences that are summational masterstrokes. Jack Houghteling is a writer of dumbstriking originality and virtuosity, and Sunnyside, his second book, is a dazzlement.” — Garielle Lutz, Author of Divorcer and Stories in the Worst Way

04/26/2024

New episode of the .book podcast with film critic

In Fear Not!, critic Josh Larsen makes the case that monster movies, creature features, slashers, and other fright films artfully reflect our deep worries in a way that resonates with the Christian experience. Combining critical observation and theological reflection, Larsen devotes each chapter to a different horror subgenre, connecting that subgenre to a commonly shared fear.

03/15/2024

New pod ep with reading from his novel FARSICKNESS, out now from ♥️♥️
“Hal, an Afghan war veteran, begins to hear a voice telling him to go “home”—to a castle, in Scotland. But Hal has never been to Scotland. So whose voice is it? What does it want? And why is it calling Hal “home”? What follows is a surrealist road trip story, part Heart of Darkness and part bipolar Guardians of the Galaxy. In Farsickness, Joshua Mohr spins a picaresque, hallucinatory yarn like only he can, as Hal and the reader journey deep into the human soul.”

02/06/2024

New reading from Chase Griffin and Christina Quay. With music by M Kilkullin. 👹 HOW TO PLAY A NECROMANCER’S THERAMIN, out now from “Between the pages of an ever-shifting eternal text known as the Patasphere, a coven of psychedelic fiction fanatics and a duo of agents working for a private intelligence firm known as The Geist, LLC navigate their ways simultaneously through a labyrinthian pilgrimage to the ole haunts of their favorite thoughtform, a cult classic weird fiction author named Rocco Atleby, who may or may not be both creator and destroyer of their world.”

01/07/2024

NEW EP w/ >>>> Violent Candy is a collection of sixteen stories about the the depths we go to find love for ourselves and from others, the trauma we obtain in childhood and carry with us into adulthood, the desperation to find connection in a world determined to tear us all apart.

11/14/2023

NEW EP with 🪐 THICKETS SWAMPED IN FENCE-COATED BRIARS is a visionary evocation of contemporary Appalachian life and labor. Gray draws upon his own experiences-specifically, the effects of the 2008 financial crisis upon his hometown of Jefferson, North Carolina-while also exploring Appalachian history, country music, and the politics of rural extraction.

GET THE BOOK >>>

www.garden-doorpress.com/store/thicke…oated-briars

10/11/2023

Have you listened to the new episode of podcast yet? Claire Hopple’s ECHO CHAMBER is awesome! “A woman wants to be caught stealing people's identities, but nobody is paying attention. A suburban father becomes convinced that he's transformed into a dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget. A hitman's target collapses before he can be killed. The novella and stories in Echo Chamber reverberate, wild and beautiful.” Listen to the ep. Get the book!

09/26/2023

Thank you, Cold Nose College. We love the process!

It was such a challenging decision choosing a voice narrator to record the audio version of my book, The Original Rocket Recall: Teach Your Dog to Come. I never knew what a difficult process it would be choosing a voice that resonated with me and had the narrative emotion I expected. Thanks to The Talking Book for bringing just the right voice to the project. It was exciting listening to Chapter 1 yesterday. I'm thrilled with my decision!

09/22/2023

Talking Book is a modern audiobook publishing house located in the misty mountains of Asheville, NC. It is our mission to record and publish vital literature by innovative writers and publishers.

09/12/2023

NEW READING ON THE POD! .buxton is a writer and social worker from Texas. His debut short story collection So Much Heart was released in July by With His work has been featured in Joyland, The Drift, Electric Literature, Witch Craft, and Vice among other publications. Find him at drewbuxton.com. Episode

08/11/2023

Had a blast with 103.3 FM's hosted by . Here's the spot. Readings from the studio by and ❤️❤️❤️

08/01/2023

New excerpt on the podcast!Recorded in our Asheville Studio with the author ❤️ "Heaven Is a Place on Earth is many things at once: part history, part ethnography, part travelogue and part philosophical memoir. The book, at its core, is intended to question the very pursuit of utopia . . . [which] is a living, breathing, imperfect thing that expands and grows with us." —Carly Willsie,

06/07/2023

A new reading by Alice Kaltman from her book “Almost Deadly, Almost Good,” out now from Get the book! Listen to the EP!!!Episode ♥️

alicekaltman.com/almost-deadly-almost-good

Alice Kaltman is the author of the story-collection STAGGERWING, the novels WAVEHOUSE, THE TANTALIZING TALE OF GRACE MINNAUGH, and DAWG TOWNE.

05/23/2023

🚨Are you an author, publisher or university press? Want to record your books for the audiobook market? Call (or visit) thetalkingbook.org. We’ve been producing professional audiobooks since 2015, right here in Asheville, NC. Also, we are the original indie audiobook studio!

05/13/2023

Talking Book History: Caedmon Records was founded in New York in 1952 by college graduates Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney.

The label was started in 1952 when the two young literature loving women discovered that Dylan Thomas was due in town to deliver a couple of recitals, and wondered if it would be possible to get him to record a reading. Despite Thomas’s wayward nature, they succeeded. Lawrence Olivier was also in New York, and they persuaded him to make a recording the same day. The first two Caedmon albums were born.

The B-side of the Dylan Thomas recording contained A Child's Christmas in Wales, which was added as an afterthought; the story was obscure and Thomas himself could not remember its title when asked what to use to fill up the LP's B-side. However, this recording went on to become one of his most loved works, and launched Caedmon as a successful company.

The original 1952 recording was a 2008 selection for the
United States National Recording Registry, stating it is "credited with launching the audiobook industry in the United States".

The company went on to record other notable writers reading their own works, such as W. H. Auden, Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and many more.

05/09/2023

A reading from PURE COSMOS CLUB by 🔥 “In this biting satire, Matthew Binder takes surreal aim at the poses and pretensions of high art and fashion. With ruthless wit, Binder chronicles the struggles of Paul, an eccentric artist, and his companion dog, a disabled, quiche-obsessed terrier-mix named Blanche. Together they negotiate hilarious scenes of bad parties, bizarre couture, deranged friends, shady deals, unrequited love, sabotage, and inscrutable art. But there may be a way out for Paul when he meets James, a New Age guru and leader of a secretive cult: the Pure Cosmos Club. Yet, every time Paul believes he’s ready for the “Ultimate Level,” James raises the price of entry. Just how far will Paul go for love, for art, and to attain cosmic oneness?

03/16/2023

Alyson Sinclair and Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn discuss the literary magazine's rich history and their plans for collaborations with Asheville's writing community.

03/15/2023

New reading on the podcast that’s REALLY good. Do not miss .fasano narrating an excerpt from SWALLOWS OF LUNETTO on today’s ep of The Talking Podcast.

“From Joseph Fasano, the acclaimed author of 'The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing', comes 'The Swallows of Lunetto', the powerful story of a young couple's escape from Italian fascism at the end of the Second World War.

GET THE BOOK!
shop.maudlinhouse.net/ -swallows-of-lunetto

"As essential as Hannah Arendt in understanding history and the heart."
—Pietro Federico

03/10/2023

Thanks so much to for the shout. Grab a copy of the new spring issue when it drops. We’ll be here recording all the audiobooks if you need us.

03/10/2023

Thanks so much to for the shout ♥️. We’re here recording all the books.

01/30/2023

New book from is out! Narrated by the great Melissa Connell.

Desperate to learn the truth about her mother’s su***de, to tease fact from family lore to weave her own personal narrative, Luna embarks on a pilgrimage from her family’s farm in the pines of eastern North Carolina to England, to search for the man whose music her mother held sacred, Jimmy Page.

12/16/2022

How a Great Audiobook Narrator Finds Her Voices...Robin Miles was looking for stage and screen roles when she began reading books for the blind. She’s become one of the country’s most celebrated narrators.

Robin Miles was looking for stage and screen roles when she began reading books for the blind. She’s become one of the country’s most celebrated narrators.

11/28/2022

New reading from on the pod! 🖤THE ENHANCERS follows three teenage friends as they encounter the pleasures and alienation that accompany coming of age in a techno-pharmaceutical society. The Enhancers questions who we are when valued most for our ability to process information. With mental augmentation as a baseline: how do we come to know ourselves and what does it take to break free? Get the book from ♥️

10/31/2022

Happy Halloween from PumpkinHead, The Talking Book Cat. 🎃🐈

10/23/2022

New ep with reading from ANYBODY HOME? Out now from 💀 “Examining the sanctuary of the home and one of the horror genre’s most frightening tropes, Anybody Home? points the camera lens onto the quiet suburbs and its unsuspecting abodes, any of which are potential stages for an invader ambitious enough to make it the scene of the next big crime sensation. Who knows? Their performance just might make it to the silver screen.”

09/21/2022

MOTHERTHING is a darkly funny take on mothers and daughters, about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husband and herself from the vengeful ghost of her mother-in-law

is the author of the YA novels The Lonely and The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated). She lives in Canada with her husband, kids, and little dog.