About Us

WELCOME

By words the mind is winged. Words are the blood of our lives. Audiobookradio its heart.

Words form the thread on which we string our experiences.

Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?

AudioBookRadio is the world’s first free internet radio station devoted to a varied range of compelling spoken word content. It took us time to get where we are but now we broadcast each and every day of the year with a stripped and stranded schedule which consists of 8 separate strands that are repeated 3 times a day. The 8 strands include poetry, short stories, author readings and interviews, real people telling real stories, New Voices, Alternative Radio, Laurence Olivier in classic plays, vintage Hollywood stars in radio versions of their movies and lots more. Each strand has a wide range of content so the poetry could be Derek Jacobi reading Tennyson, a contemporary award winning American/Scottish/Irish poet or a London slam.

We hope there is something interesting for everyone but would welcome any ideas or content that you think our listeners might be interested in. We are collaborative and flexible but having no advertisers or sponsors is limiting although we like to punch above our weight so do contact us with audio, feedback, ideas or anything at all. We hasten to add that suitable sponsors or advertisers can be easily accommodated! Join us on the journey.

SUNDAY 28th April

13on & 8pm & 4am

PLAYS/DRAMA

The Great Detective by Roger Johnson

This play, by prominent Sherlock Holmes Society of London member Roger Johnson, offers the Holmesian another perspective on the beloved Canon. From a surrealist perspective, we find here a different and refreshing approach. We are transported to another time through the warmth of an English public house and immediately transfixed by the fascinating voices of those who contributed to the name Sherlock Holmes. This is a must listen for all those worshipers of the great detective.

 1pm & 9pm & 5am

IN CONVERSATION…..JAMES HEFFERNAN

James Heffernan, Professor Emeritus from Dartmouth College, has written extensively on JAMES JOYCE, and particularly Ulysses.  In this episode of In Conversation he focuses on the novel and in particular Leopold Bloom & his relationship with his adulterous wife Molly.  Bloomsday is an actual day – 16th June in Dublin which is when and where the novel is set. So an obvious day where James Joyce is celebrated & commemorated  & the events of the novel are re-lived.

2pm & 10pm & 6am

POETS & POETRY featuring Robert Hass

Robert Hass is a Pulitzer prize winning Poet Laureate born in San Francisco and raised by an alcoholic mother, both facts that feature in his concise and lyrical verse.  He is one of the most celebrated contemporary American poets and also known for translations of the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz and Japanese  Haiku masters who he has paid tribute to for their inspiration.  In the mid-1990s, Hass promoted ecoliterarcy through the River of Words, an organisation he co founded to provide a multidisciplinary, interactive curricula to young students.   He currently teaches at Berkeley and lives in California with his wife the poet Brenda Hillman.    Thanks to the Lannan Organisation we now bring you Robert Hass reading his own poems followed by his being interviewed by NY poet Jorie Graham.

3pm & 11pm & 7am

ALTERNATIVE RADIO with ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ on The Other Side of Thanksgiving

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother. A distinguished scholar, she has been active in the international Indigenous movement for many years and is known for her commitment to social justice issues. She is the recipient of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize. Her 1977 book The Great Sioux Nation was the fundamental document at the first UN conference on Indigenous peoples of the Americas. She is the author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, winner of the 2015 American Book Award, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, All the Real Indians Died Off and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans and Not a Nation of Immigrants.

 4pm & Midnight & 8am

The Damon Runyon Theatre

New York has given rise to many authors who record and memorialise its streets and people.  Damon Runyon is one such author who brings the New York story and its cast of characters to vibrant life.  His tongue-in-cheek tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, gangsters and dolls appeal to our sense of what we think we know.  Their colorful monikers; ‘Big Jule,’ ‘Harry the Horse Thief,’ ‘Good Time Charlie,’ or ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ immediately give life to his sparkling words. And life is bigger, exuberant; better.

The veteran Radio actor John Brown voices the recurring ‘Broadway’ character so central to every episode which today are Blonde Mink and Leopard’s Spots

5pm & 1am & 9am

THE PODCAST HOUR – THE JO SHOW

Audiobookradio is delighted to launch a new strand, namely the Podcast Hour.  Our first podcast is the Jo Show presented by silky voiced Jo Sands and features a wide range of creatives with plenty to say….she calls it soul sipping maybe because her guests do some soul searching as Jo always gets to the parts that other interviewers don’t reach as you are about to find out.  Today her guest is Marcel Post a young Writer, Director, and Actor, residing in the ’new Hollywood mecca’ better known as Atlanta. He can be described as bold, brash, and at times controversial. However, his goal is to continue to create great stories bringing people of different ethnic groups to the forefront.

6pm & 2am & 10am

HOLLYWOOD STAGE

Hollywood is indelibly printed in our minds as a go to place for entertainment and has been for decades. We take you back in time as producer Irving Cummings unveils…KING SOLOMON’S MINES starring DEBORAH KERR and STEWART GRAINGER

7pm & 3am & 11am

SHORT STORIES

The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce read by Christopher Ragland

A gothic horror short story by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer Ambrose Bierce. It first appeared in a 1907 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, illustrated by Charles B. Falls. This story is presented in three parts and relates the tale of the murder of Julia Hetman from the perspective of her son, a man who may be her husband, and Julia herself, through a medium.

A Thousand Deaths by Jack London read by Christopher Ragland

This is an 1899 short story by Jack London, his first work to be published. It is about the experimentally induced death and resuscitation/resurrection of the protagonist, by a mad scientist who uses multiple scientific methods for these experiments.  The story was adapted to film in 1939.