Acting with the Voice: The Art of Recording Books (Limelight)

Met all my expectations - worth the $$

great resource

I'm rating this a bit higher than I might otherwise in an attempt to make up for what I take to be an overly negative review by someone who faults this book for being very different in scope from the many, MANY other books on voiceover work out there, which devote the majority of their pages to discussing more commercial varieties of voice acting. Even James Alburger's excellent book barely mentions the audiobook trade. I agree that Mr. Blumenthal may be somewhat limited in his tastes and scope, but this book definitely does fill a gap between vocal books aimed at stage and screen actors, texts aimed at oral interpretation in the speech/communications discipline, and those aimed at commercial voiceover acting. He has useful observations and suggestions, and addresses aspects of long form narration that simply aren't covered in most VO texts.

I have read many books on the topic of Voice-Over acting. I can't think of any even close to as awful as this one. The only thing I can compare it to is perhaps if your were interested in singing and bought a book that turned out to be 100% devoted to telling you how great Opera is, and how beneath contempt all other forms of singing are. Note, I said telling you, not even teaching you, as there is no attempt to teach anything in this book. In between the totally condescending and insulting text are pages and pages of scripts to practice that are simply useless at best. The words "pulp fiction" appear countless times, and every time in a more derogatory and insulting manner. To this author, the Robert Ludlum's, Dale Brown's, and Tom Clancy's of the world are on the same level as ax-murderers and child molester, and if you don't agree you are an idiot.After the first few pages it is practically unreadable. Since you will learn nothing if you do, don't force yourself as I did. I have always found some small redeeming value in every book I have read. This is the exception that proves the rule.