Ron Does Stuff

Audiobooks, Nicole Kidman, poisonous books, and Edmund White in this week’s edition.

Audiobook sales experienced double-digit increase in 2024

Publishers Weekly reports that 2024 saw a 13 percent increase in audiobook sales, with total sales amounting to $2.2 billion. The numbers come from the Audio Publishers Association (APA) Sales Survey, which was conducted by Edison Research on 1,700 Americans 18 or older.

The survey also showed that general fiction accounted for the largest share of revenue by genre, as it experienced a 16 percent rise in sales. Romance and science fiction and fantasy, on the other hand, experienced a 30 percent and 21 percent jump in sales.

Another figure that the survey found was that 35 percent of audiobook listeners listened to pirated audiobook copies on YouTube, with the fact that these audiobooks were free being one of the reasons readers picked the site. The APA says it’s going to do something about this piracy, which may be a fool’s errand but let’s see!

Now, will this push me to try out audiobooks? I don’t know about all that but I am having a good time listening to the Quinn app’s The Trials read by Jamie Campbell Bower!

Nicole Kidman to star in ‘Girls and Their Horses’ adaptation

People reports that Nicole Kidman will be starring in and executive producing an adaptation of Eliza Jane Brazier’s novel Girls and Their Horses for Prime Video, WHICH RECENTLY CANCELED THE WHEEL OF TIME SERIES.

ANYWAYS, People writes that Girls and Their Horses “follows the newly wealthy Parker family as their daughters enter the fiercely competitive world of competitive horseback riding. The tangled web of secrets, lies and riches on the ranch eventually leaves someone dead, leaving readers to follow along as the mystery unfolds. Kidman, 57, will portray the Parker family matriarch.”

Now for no particular reason at all, watch the video below.

Tool to identify poisonous books developed

I haven’t read Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose yet, but I do remember watching the movie adaptation on freaking VHS a bajillion years ago when the Earth wasn’t burning up. Spoiler alert: a poisoned book was killing the monks. And while that’s fun, it turns out that there are actual poisoned books out there.

The Guardian reports that the University of St. Andrews has developed a new device that “quickly and cheaply” detects arsenic in green book covers. As explained by The Guardian in its report, arsenic used to be mixed with copper to achieve a vivid emerald green color for books, with people back then not knowing that prolonged exposure to arsenic can lead to irritation of the eyes, nose and throat along with more serious side effects.

Researchers found that the arsenic-laced emerald green pigment had a unique reflectance pattern that could be detected by a similar device used to detect minerals in rocks. The University of St. Andrews was able to come up with a portable version and has now used it to identify more than 100 books containing the arsenic-laced emerald green pigment.

Edmund White dead at 85

People reports that esteemed gay author Edmund White passed away on June 3. According to the publication, White collapsed while waiting for an ambulance after experiencing stomach illness symptoms, though an official cause of death has not yet been released.

Gay bookworms will probably recognize Edmund White’s name from the book’s A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony, two of which I was able to buy from Powerbooks when it was still around and sold books. I had plans of reading them a bajillion years ago, telling my self that I’d be able to do it when I had free time, but I’m now living in a tiny cramped space and have had to give away those books without even having read them. Sad.