Relieve Omicron Anxiety with Audible

 

In case you’ve been living in cave for the last two years, we have entered the age of anxiety. Reality has turned a tad surreal and rather scary with this ever-mutating virus in our midst. Just when we thought the COVID vaccines would return our lives into some form of normalcy, up pop these variants. Firstly, we had the Delta [variant], named after the 4^th letter of the Greek alphabet [and used in Chemistry and Physics to signify change]; and now we have the Omicron [aka Omikron Variant] named after the 15^th letter of the Greek alphabet – and this variant appears to be evading our vaccine defensive barriers.

But what has this to do with thriller novels, apart from our perceived reality resembling the title of Robert Ludlum thriller?

Because reading, or listening to audio books can significantly reduce anxiety; the overthinking of our situation, creating existential problems that reside in our mind and keep us from sleep, or focused on the tasks at hand – instead our minds rage with unhelpful thoughts like an ocean in a storm.

What to do?

Bibliotherapy, the reading of fiction / or listening to narrated books are medically recognised and prescribed for the easing of anxiety, and returning the mind to a calmer state.

This article is enlightening –

“During the last lockdown, when my anxiety was high, a friend suggested I tried re-reading books I used to enjoy. While the thought of starting a new book felt somehow daunting, reading something familiar appealed, so I gave it a go. And it worked: I found that I was able to lose myself completely. Absorbing myself in a story I already knew and loved was as good as a mental rest, and now, if I feel anxiety creeping in, I’ll reach for a well-thumbed novel!'

Literature has the power to transport us away from the to-do lists and troubles of life and soothe us with a comforting balm of captivating characters and scintillating storytelling. But how exactly does reading aid our mental health? Here we outline seven of the top benefits”

Read More CLICK HERE

I read in bed to ease me to sleep, but find at times I find reading in itself a challenge because my attention span becomes truncated as my mind wanders from unwelcome thought to troubling thought – but I found a solution. Instead, I listen to a well narrated audiobook.

I’ve been a member of Audible, for some time now and found their thriller range my medication to combat anxiety and worries, both existential and real.  

A number of titles on the audible platform are exclusive, acted as dramas and narrated professionally so they engage and hold the mind captive from those unwelcome worries and anxieties that derail our thinking.

The importance of the narrator’s performance is critical, such as Scott Brick among others such as Stephen Fry.

The market leader in Audio Publishing, is the Amazon subsidiary Audible who not only provide a platform for audiobooks, but also generate their own productions, using actors, vocal artists as well as soundscapes so the reader can become part of an immersive experience.

As reported within the publishing industry –

Even though the availability of audiobooks in digital format is relatively new, their origins date back as far as the 1930s when they were sold as analog cassette tapes and vinyl records and used as an educational medium in schools and libraries. Since the shift to digital, the audiobook market has grown exponentially with new entrants jostling for market position.

The undoubted leader is Amazon-owned Audible, the world’s largest producer of downloadable audiobooks. Since its 1995 launch, Audible’s library includes more than 200,000 audio programs covering all genres – subscribers downloaded 725 million hours of audio last year, almost double that of 2011.

But the market has opened up. Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller argued back in 2014 that audiobooks are “following almost the exact pattern and trajectory as e-books in that we are seeing a massive explosion in response to a switch to digital. But it’s also more exciting because you can do so much more with audio – it’s not just a facsimile of the print book.”

Read More

So, what’s new from Audible?

Well, I’ve enjoyed two particular titles, tucked up in bed and I’d like to share them with Shots Magazine Readers -

Life Sign by Carl Goodman

The second book in the DI Eva Harris series, is a dark and totally engrossing thriller -

In an abandoned warehouse, a schoolboy makes a grisly discovery: ninety-six containers, each filled with exquisitely preserved bodily remains. Detective Eva Harris knows the line between life and death better than most. Having survived a near fatal encounter with the criminal underworld once before, she is still haunted by the repercussions of her actions – and fearful of the whole truth emerging. With the remains showing signs of experiments and modifications, she is forced to contemplate a difficult question: what does the perpetrator of this extraordinary crime imagine themselves to be? Artist, scientist - or something completely new? Her search for answers takes her across Europe, from the upper echelons of society’s glittering elite to the dark and tangled web of the underworld – and finally, to the very limits of humanity.

Read about 20/20, the first in the DI Eva Harris Series CLICK HERE

Read more about Carl Goodman’s writing of LIFE SIGN Click Here

To download LIFE SIGN written by Carl Goodman and Narrated by Louise Brealey then CLICK HERE

To download the first in the DI Eva Harris series 20/20 written by Carl Goodman and Narrated by Louise Brealey then CLICK HERE and search [“20/20 Carl Goodman”]

A Perfect Stranger by Shalini Boland

A troubling and all-engrossing domestic thriller from the dark imagination of the prolific Shalini Boland.

Annie comes home from a market trip with her young son George only to make a gruesome discovery. Could the perpetrator be the new lodger she and her husband David just rented their spare bedroom to? Emily dreams of one day owning a house where her son Josh and the little one on the way can grow up, but when her husband Aidan insists on leaving his lucrative job as a luxury car salesman, she senses something more is afoot—even while she harbours a secret of her own. What is Aidan hiding and will it jeopardize their young family’s future? Meanwhile, Aidan’s boss, Marcus, finds himself caught between placating his wife Dani’s all-consuming desire to get pregnant and managing the less than savoury group of associates now helping to run his car dealership. How far is Marcus willing to go to prove his love for Dani? Or will his business come first?

The production values of this audible original production are extraordinary, with vocal talents of Alison Campbell, Tamsin Kennard, and Ciaran Saward who bring this thriller to life.

Highly recommended

To download A Perfect Stranger by Shalini Boland or any of the authors’ previous audiobooks, Click Here and put ‘Shalini Boland’ into the search box.

Images © 2021 Audible Studios

 

Audible’s Sarah Denzil: Relief from Lockdown

 

Many of us have been relying on Audible during the long nights where sleep can be elusive, with all this Covid-19 lockdown business. When travel is prohibited [unless an emergency], and shops remain closed [with exceptions], then health and economic damage weigh heavily on one’s mind – dominating our thoughts. When the solitude becomes a claustrophobic vacuum that is hard to escape – then it’s time to consider bibliotherapy to confront the loneliness and anxiety of this age.

A dear friend of mine, an avid bibliophile would often say to me, “you’re never alone if you have a novel, because books are your friends,” and I would concur, recalling my own bouts of reflective solitude.

Reading for promoting mental health has been shown to be an effective tool, against the black dog [as Winston Churchill described his bouts of depression]. Though there are times it becomes hard to concentrate, to actually read. My strategy is to listen to audiobooks when I can’t read, with a mind all fuzzy with existential angst; thoughts knitting together to create anxiety. There’s much comfort in being read to, especially if the work is sufficiently immersive and hypnotic. It recalls our childhood; of being a developing mind being read stories before bed, as we struggled to understand our world and the scary reality around us.  

Recently, audiobooks have become a crucial part of my mental rampart, to keep negative thoughts at bay, to prevent them linking together to create weird [and disturbing] scenarios in my head, in my thinking, because negative and frightening thoughts are not helpful for our mental well-being.

In 2019, I was fortunate to become obsessed by one such immersive [and hypnotic] reading experience – it was Cari Mora by Thomas Harris. Despite receiving a lukewarm [at best] reception, I found it helped control my mind [in a personally difficult year] from becoming derailed by problems that started to grow worryingly in my mind, and developing beyond ‘the blues’ – and I don’t mean John Lee Hooker, or Howlin’ Wolf.

Bibliotherapy is not purely distracting your mind from the troubles in your head, though the distraction, the corralling of one’s thoughts – is important. Bibliotherapy is more than that. It is helps channels one thoughts, by following a narrative, which at its core is viewing the world [aka reality] through someone else’s eyes. Reading books [or listening to them, via Audible] can help with ‘the blues’ and assist in preventing ‘the blues’ from getting worse, as the black dog’s bark can be heard in the streets, echoing inside the minds of people - as they tackle this Covid-Lockdown business, becoming fearful for the future, and that of our children’s and friends’ future.

This article from The Huffington Post explains more –

Whether or not a book can single-handedly tackle a person’s depression is difficult to determine, but positive thinking has been proven to help. According to a Psychology Today article titled “Depression Doing the Thinking,” “One of the most powerful actions you can take in combating depression is to understand how critical the quality of your thinking is to maintaining and even intensifying your depression—and that the quickest way to change how you feel is to change how you think.” The article goes on to explain how negative thoughts can enter one’s mind subconsciously, and therefore seem more raw or true to the depression sufferer than their own moods and feelings.

Read More HERE

So, what am I reading currently that is sufficiently immersive that it can help quell the barking of the black dog?

Actually, I’m ploughing my way through [actually listening to] the dark and disturbing novels of Sarah Denzil from Audible

I was only aware of this writer of dark and complex thriller novels, from an interesting article from the New York Times in 2019 –

Last year, while promoting his debut thriller, “The Woman in the Window,” Dan Mallory praised the tradition of literary mimicry: “It is often said that ‘good writers borrow, great writers steal,’” he said in an interview with The Guardian, borrowing a phrase from T.S. Eliot.

In retrospect, his choice of words was surprisingly honest, a rare acknowledgment in a medium that prizes originality of how deeply he was influenced by other popular thrillers.

Mr. Mallory — who was recently the subject of an exposé in The New Yorker that detailed his past as a habitual liar who feigned fatal illnesses and fabricated a tragic family history — has acknowledged that the plot of his novel, which became a best seller, owes a debt to several famous works, including Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” and Paula Hawkins’s blockbuster thriller, “The Girl on the Train.”

“The Woman in the Window” is also strikingly similar to a novel by Sarah A. Denzil, “Saving April.”

Read More > HERE

So, who is Sarah A Denzil and which books of hers should I listen to and why?

I would urge you to look out for these two interlocking novels, dramatized by Audible studios - SILENT CHILD first and then the upcoming STOLEN GIRL [Release date: 1 March 2021]

Performed by: Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey, Liar), Rosalie Craig (Company, The Queen's Gambit) and Gerran Howell (1917, Catch-22).

The sequel to SILENT CHILD’s dark narrative -

When Emma Price’s daughter Gina is snatched, it is every parent’s nightmare. But Emma has lived the horror before. As the clock ticks, and Gina is still missing, a dark game of cat and mouse begins. Emma and Aiden must piece together the kidnapper’s puzzle, to discover who has taken her – and why.

Emma, Aiden and Gina stand on the brink of a new life. After the trauma of Aiden’s abduction and return, they are slowly healing and returning to a fragile normality. Emma is desperate to protect her children, but the world is fascinated by Aiden, the silent child who is finally learning to speak for himself.

Against her better judgment, Emma allows her son to attend a talk show. Her worse nightmare comes true when her daughter, Gina, is snatched from the studio and a chilling game begins.

Emma is convinced the answers lie in the darkest corners of the family’s past, and that Aiden must be able to work out the puzzle, if only he dare reach into the horrors of his memory.

Silent Child written by Sarah A. Denzil and narrated by: Joanne Froggatt

It became Audible’s 2017 Thriller of the Year

Ten years after witnessing the tragic loss of her son, Emma Price is finally rediscovering the joy in life… until Aiden returns. Too traumatised to speak, he raises endless questions and answers none. Named Audible’s Thriller of the Year in 2017, this exclusive production is the first in an unmissable series by Sarah A. Denzil, performed by the exceptional Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey, Liar). As one Audible Editor commented, ‘it will make your heart beat, your mind race and your spine tingle’.

If you want to read about extraordinary events in the lives of ordinary people, Denzil’s work may provide comfort in this lockdown and the ubiquity of Covid-19.

More information on Audible and their £7.99 / month membership CLICK HERE

More information on the work of Sarah Denzil CLICK HERE

All images © 2017 – 2021 Audible apart from AJ Finn cover of The Woman in the Window © 2017 HarperCollins

Shots Magazine wish to thank Edwina Boyd-Gibbons and Audible studios for their help in this feature article.