EarLit audiobook snacks for the Christmas Countdown: Mouths, Open by Lisa Moore

Preparing for Christmas can be hectic.  Sometimes one needs a quick shot of distraction. Here's one that won't break the bank.

We suggest an EarLit snack for your ipod or other listening device.

What is an EarLit Snack? It is a piece of short fiction in audiobook format from the Canadian audiobook publisher Rattling Books.  No calories. Just literature to listen to.

Try this one from Lisa Moore read by Mary Lewis. Mouths, Open was originally published in the collection entitled Open from House of Anansi Press.

Get Caught Listening: June Is Audiobook Month

If you're wondering about the world of tales told out loud, check out the audiobook collection at your local library. Or explore an online audiobook community, such as the Audio Publishers Association's (click here).

Already a fan of the spoken word? Browse Rattling Books' website for fine Canadian and Newfoundland literature read by talented narrators: true adventure, history, short fiction, poetry and more.

Listen: a way to read more

Riddle Fence and Rattling Books Host Short Fiction Competition

Riddle Fence, a journal of arts and culture based in St. John's, Newfoundland, and Rattling Books are holding a short fiction contest. The winning entry will be published in Riddle Fence, and recorded by Rattling Books. Its author will receive $500, a publishing fee and audio royalties. Click here for details.

Anita Best Has Never Met A Liar She Didn't Like

Now that Valentine's Day is over, and all the heart-shaped boxes of chocolates are on sale for a fifth of their former price, it's time to embrace love less artificially and commercially. And who better to do that with than Ron Hynes and Anita Best, neither of whom will ever be in the running for a Slick and Void Award. "I Never Met a Liar I Didn't Like" was written by Ron Hynes (and his ex-wife, Connie Hynes), and is sung by Anita Best in this video. (If you think you have no use for liars, here's a song that just might make you run right out and acquire one.)

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Rattling Books has been fortunate to have both Anita Best and Ron Hynes as narrators.

Rattling Books audio books are available as audio or MP3 CDs, and as MP3 downloads. Single stories are available as MP3 downloads.

Freedom To Read Week, February 20 - 26

This week is Freedom to Read Week. Think Canadians are free from the worst excesses of censorship? Click here for a list of some of the books (including Huckleberry Finn and Kevin Major's Hold Fast) and magazines people have recently tried to get banned from our country's libraries and schools. Sometimes successfully.

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Feel free to sample Rattling Books' fine audio productions. Follow this link to listen to excerpts from great poetry, fiction, non-fiction, short fiction and children's literature, available as MP3 downloads and audio or MP3 CDs.

Happy Valentine's Day From Rattling Books

Ophelia's Valentine's Song

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber- door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

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Give your love (or yourself, or both) the gift of literature to listen to in honour of the day: download a story or audio book from Rattling Books. Click here to sample our wares.

Valentine's Day 2011: War And Love

Listen to e.e. cummings' poem "My Sweet Old Etcetera," in which the author muses upon war and love.

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Click here to listen to excerpts from some of Canada's finest poets musing upon various things. Rattling Books' poetry audio books are available as audio CDs or MP3 CDs, and MP3 downloads.

Today In Meteorological History . . .

On January 20, 1943, Lead, South Dakota, recorded a temperature of 52 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same day, Deadwood, South Dakota, a mile and a half away from Lead, recorded -16 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here in Newfoundland, we know how they felt. Sort of, anyway. But there are a few things that can distract us from being consumed heart and soul by aberrant weather patterns. Small children and good literature are pretty effective at focusing the heart and soul, and Rattling Books "talking books" - unabridged audio books available as CDs or downloads - allow you to watch your children gambol, say, in the kitchen, while, with your back to whatever is happening against the window, you listen to great writing from some of Canada's finest authors and narrators.

Take that, Jack Frost and Jill Flood.

Redefining New Year's Resolutions #4: Kathleen Winter

Kathleen Winter

By every gud and bawk marling over drung, bawn and blue drop, I resolve to shive four hours off the night and keep writing long past midnight, no matter what lewerdly boo wants to whisper pishogues in my ear or pelt me with guilty waddocks, this angishore is sick of early to bed and early to rise just because she's mothered a brood of merrybegot nuzzle-tripes wailing all day long at her that they're hungry and she's supposed to find a fish in the droke and fry it up for them when what she should be doing is getting her yaffle of stories ready for the next bloody Pulitzer.

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The above resolution was an entry from Kathleen Winter to our 2008 New Year's Resolution Contest which originated from the Rattling Books facebook group/game REDEFiNE iT: Dictionary of Newfoundland English.

REDEFiNE iT was a tangent indulgence of Rattling Books' which was inspired in part by Mary Dalton's collection of poems entitled Merrybegot. The unabridged audio edition is available as an audio CD or Digital Download from Rattling Books. It is performed by Anita Best with Patrick Boyle on trumpet and flugelhorn.

Margaret Atwood: Hockey Night In CanLit

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Canadian poet, novelist, critic and all-round literary icon Margaret Atwood mentioned that she'd accepted an offer earlier this year from Rick Mercer of the Canadian comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes to suit up as a goalie. "Atwood whispers an aside: 'He's from Newfoundland,' as if this explains everything."

Watch the result of the Mercer/Atwood collaboration:



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Being from Newfoundland may not explain everything - why the sky is grey (hereabouts, anyway), for instance - but it's self-explanatory when it comes to comedians and other people who like to express themselves in strange and wonderful ways. Writers, for instance.

Rattling Books has an ocean of Newfoundland literary talent on tap. Mainland Canadian talent too. Visit the Rattling Books website and sample some.

Canadian audiobooks from Rattling Books in Newfoundland and Labrador