Dear readers, I’m almost embarrassed to admit the extent of my naïveté about audiobooks. Not just their positive attributes (I was a print-only holdout for far too long), but the sheer amount of time and talent involved. It is so much more than an actor reading aloud from a PDF. Mea culpa, audiophiles. This spectacular piece showed me the extent of my ignorance. My colleagues followed the making of an audiobook (specifically “Switzy,” by Emma Cline) over months, from the casting of the narrator to the quibbles over inflection during recording sessions. It’s rich and immersive, and well worth your time. Separately, R.F. Kuang shared five of her favorite spots in Taipei; her time there helped shape her latest novel. And the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke to The Times about the death of her toddler son, and how her perception of her home country, Nigeria, has changed in the aftermath. Finally, you might remember a book that our critic Dwight Garner, not usually prone to superlative, considered one of the funniest novels (if not the funniest) ever written: J.P. Donleavy’s “The Unexpurgated Code.” When he wrote about it last year, copies were rather hard to find. Fortunately, an Irish indie publisher has reissued it. That’s the critical apparatus at work, kids. Show me a bot that can bring a book back to shelves, I dare you. See you next time. Like this email?
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