How Everyone Can Join Your Book Discussion
If you lead a book discussion group or program, you know it can be difficult to round up sufficient copies for everyone to read ahead of the discussion meeting. AudiobookSYNC is a great—and free—solution. Check out the season calendar, find a title that your group will find engaging, and let everyone know which week to get their free download. You’ll want to schedule the title’s discussion two or three weeks after the title’s availability from SYNC so that everyone has the chance to read it with their ears.
Discussing audiobooks has some similarities and some important differences to discussing books the group has read with their eyes. Remember to get your group focused on how the performance, and the performer, adds to the author’s own voice. How does listening bring attention to details fast readers in your group might miss when scanning a page? Is there a new word, or even a language, the group learns to recognize by sound when they listen to the audiobook?
Week 3 of the 2018 SYNC season offers a pair of highly discussable audiobooks your group might want to consider. Abbas Kazerooni’s autobiography, ON TWO FEET AND WINGS will take your group to a corner of the world, and some real life experiences, unfamiliar to them. JOHNNY GET YOUR GUN, John Ball’s mystery, one in his mid-20th century series about police detective Virgil Tibbs, suggests a host of discussion topics for your book group:
Which character does each group member find most like them?
What question would each one ask Virgil Tibbs if they were interviewing him?
What questions about his preparation to read this book would the group ask of professional narrator Dion Graham?
You can download these two audiobooks until midnight tomorrow (May 16!) on SYNC!
