Can we put summer on pause, please? It's going by way too fast. But with summer comes the SYNC Young Adult Listener Program. They recently announced the list of audiobook pairings up for grabs this summer, and today kicks off the 12th week of the program for 2015. Here's what you can grab through Wednesday of next week...for free!
This week's YA title is March by Geraldine Brooks, performed by Richard Easton for Penguin Audio.
As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the war, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously researched, March is an extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history. From Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, who has gone off to war, leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. To evoke him, Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father—a friend and confidant of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In her telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through. Spanning the vibrant intellectual world of Concord and the sensuous antebellum South, March adds adult resonance to Alcott’s optimistic children’s tale to portray the moral complexity of war, and a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism—and by a dangerous and illicit attraction. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks’s place as an internationally renowned author of historical fiction.
This week's classic title is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, performed by Kate Reading for Listening Library.
Little Women is one of the best loved books of all time. Lovely Meg, talented Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons of poverty and of growing up in New England during the Civil War. Through their dreams, plays, pranks, letters, illnesses, and courtships, women of all ages have become a part of this remarkable family and have felt the deep sadness when Meg leaves the circle of sisters to be married at the end of Part I. Part II, chronicles Meg’s joys and mishaps as a young wife and mother, Jo’s struggle to become a writer, Beth’s tragedy, and Amy’s artistic pursuits and unexpected romance. Based on Louise May Alcott’s childhood, this lively portrait of nineteenth- century family life possesses a lasting vitality that has endeared it to generations of readers.
I lovedlovedLOVED Little Women when I read it as a girl…what seems like eons ago. :P It ranks up there with Anne of Green Gables as one of my favorites. I've never actually listened to it, though. And I never went past the first book. :( I also didn't know that a story about the March patriarch existed, so I'll definitely be grabbing both of these audiobooks from SYNC this week.
Will you be picking up either of these titles? Remember, they're only available through Wednesday, and new titles will be put up on Thursday for download. To download this week's titles, just click here to be taken directly to the SYNC download page.
I hope you take advantage of this program. I've been doing it for the last few years, and I've had the opportunity to listen to a ton of great audio for free. If you've never tried audiobooks before, it's a great opportunity to do so without the obligation of buying one that you might not enjoy. And if you love audiobooks, well, it's a great time to stock up on some titles you may have missed or discover new ones. Win/win. =)
Happy listening!
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