Adapting Books to Radio
- Henry Atkins
- Oct 21, 2017
- 2 min read
This will be over almost immediately since the transition has already been achieved so many times before. They're called 'Audio-books' and can be found on many websites and even on cassette tapes in library's.
It's just a person (usually a celebrity) reading the book.

However there is one difference. Much like comic books, Radio invents an interpretation of the sounds of the world.
I find that unless I have heard someone else's voice playing the character (like how I can never not hear Mark Hamill whenever I read the Jokers lines in a comic book) I usually either hear my voice or another celebrity who I've heard reading in an audio-book before.
Some adaptations include extra sounds and effects to build the scene up like with chickens, bush rustles or cars driving by.
What the voices behind audio books do sometimes though, is put on a voice for particular characters. An example that immediately comes to mind for me is Martin Jarvis reading the stories of 'Jeeves and Wooster'.
Men, Women, Butlers and Brutes. He represents them with his own voice. Although this is common, some audio books include other voices as well reading for particular characters. I couldn't find a specific book adaption example of this but BBC's 'The Archers' is a great example of multiple voice actors and sound effects in play to build up the environment for the listeners.
I've gone on enough about what these audio representations mean to anyone who has read the source book in my previous chapter.

A short version is that everybody hears and see's everything described and said in the book differently but these adaptions use their own versions that usually replaces the readers expectations made up in their head.
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