AudioBook SYNC Blog

September is a lot of things, including National Library Card Month and Hispanic Heritage Month. It’s also World Kid Lit Month so we took a look back at the 10 years of free audiobooks we’ve offered to see how many came from beyond the US. With just 10 days left in the month, you still have time to go back through your collection and listen to some World Kid Lit:

Our host, AudioFile Magazine, is featuring the vast array of day jobs audiobook narrators hold, or have held, beyond their work in the booth. We think teens will be amazed by some of the possibilities for their own pursuit.

Thank you to the nearly 4,000 SYNC participants who took the time to provide us with responses to our 2019 survey! We use this information to build a better program each year so be assured that your opinions are noted. We heard from teen listeners, librarians and teachers, parents and grandparents, and adults who might be teenless but have a deep interest in audiobook listening.

By now, you may be in possession of as many as 28 new audiobooks for your listening enjoyment. SYNC's 2019 season of free audiobooks has run its course. However, we don't disappear when the season ends. What can you expect until the free audiobooks start up again next spring?

We make assumptions about other people in our lives all the time—and yet, we also know that assumptions others make about us can be way off base. This week’s pair of audiobooks explore just such situations and let listeners consider both sides of the assumption trap.

This week’s two free audiobooks share some paranormal—and humorous—highlights. Just right for late night listening, they provide enough suspense to keep listeners in thrall and enough romance to satisfy anyone who would rather spend time with human affairs than apparitions.

This week SYNC participants meet characters from the past as they appear in new short stories and a novel. Be prepared to discover how changes in perspective can inspire and delight!

What we assume about others can miss the truth about their situations by so much that we can become blinded to their reality. The pair of audiobooks available for you to download and keep for free this week, one an #OwnVoices title and performance and the other adapted from a Western classic, may put a check on our being too quick to assume we know how to value the intentions of others.

From 1961 to 1989, a barbed wire-topped concrete wall divided Berlin, Germany, preventing free movement of family members, friends, and anyone engaged in daily business from crossing the more than 800-year-old city. Our audiobook pair this week bookends the night that wall was built with the call for its destruction in a speech by a U.S. President. With the topic of border wall building frequently in today’s news, we think this visit to the recent past is in order.

Mythology, fantasy, and #OwnVoices authors and casting—it’s a richly rewarding week on SYNC! Thanks to Recorded Books and HarperAudio for sharing titles that make such a dynamic pair.