Listen: Library of America makes rediscovered genre masterworks available in audio, digital formats

Library of America e-book editions of
The Horizontal Man and Fools’ Gold.

What’s old is new again this fall, when The Library of America simultaneously releases two rediscovered mystery-suspense novels—The Horizontal Man (1946) by Helen Eustis and Fools’ Gold (1958) by Dolores Hitchens—in both audiobook and e-book editions. The two works mark The Library of America's first foray into the audiobook medium.

The Horizontal Man and Fools’ Gold are part of the new LOA two-volume collection Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s, which restores to print eight unjustly overlooked or neglected noir novels of the mid-twentieth century. Surveying the Women Crime Writers set last month in the Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout singled out these two books for particular praise: “Each of them is smartly plotted, tautly written, sharply characterized and not at all dated.”

The Library of America has drawn on established talent for its inaugural audiobook productions. The reader for The Horizontal Man is veteran actress Barbara Rosenblat (Orange Is the New Black), an acclaimed reader with hundreds of titles to her credit, while Fools’ Gold is read by Scott Brick, another experienced narrator whose résumé includes literary classics like In Cold Blood and Light in August. Patti Pirooz, the former publisher of audiobooks at Penguin, produced both The Horizontal Man and Fools’ Gold.

As a special bonus feature, both audiobooks include commentary by Sarah Weinman, editor of Women Crime Writers and an authority on mystery-suspense fiction.

Listen to an excerpt from The Horizontal Man:

Buy from Audible • Buy from iBooks

Listen to a Fools’ Gold excerpt:

Buy from Audible • Buy from iBooks

Meanwhile, e-book editions of The Horizontal Man and Fools’ Gold arrive in response to ongoing demand for Library of America books in electronic form. Click on the relevant links below for specific e-book platforms.

The Horizontal Man
Kindle • Kobo • Google Books • iBooks • Nook

Fools’ Gold
Kindle • Kobo • Google Books • iBooks • Nook

Watch Reader’s Almanac for information on new Library of America audiobooks and e-books in the months ahead.

Visit the Women Crime Writers companion website for complete information on The Horizontal Man and Fools’ Gold and their authors, along with appreciations by contemporary writers and related contextual material.

Related posts:

• Listen: Lost suspense masterwork returns to life in second Library of America audiobook
• Orange Is the New Black star is the voice behind first Library of America audiobook

Orange Is the New Black star is the voice behind first Library of America audiobook

Back in mid-May, Library of America staff members paid a visit to Merlin Studios in New York City for a behind-the-scenes look at an exciting new project: the recording of The Library of America's first audiobook.

The Horizontal Man by Helen Eustis,
collected in the forthcoming anthology
Women Crime Writers: Eight
Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s.

The work in question is The Horizontal Man, a 1946 novel by Helen Eustis (1916–2015) that will be included in Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s, a two-volume set coming from The Library of America this fall. (Click here for a list of other titles in the anthology.)

Centered on the murder of a philandering professor at a small Connecticut women’s college, The Horizontal Man allegedly drew on Eustis's own experiences as an undergraduate at Smith College. It won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for best first novel, and the eminent scholar and mystery-suspense aficionado Jacques Barzun named it one of the Fifty Classics of Crime Fiction, 1900–1950 in a ranking he published with Wendell Hertig Taylor in 1976.

Actress Barbara Rosenblat.

The Library of America is drawing on veteran talent for its initial foray into audiobooks. Patti Pirooz, the former publisher of audiobooks at Penguin, is producing The Horizontal Man, and the reader is Barbara Rosenblat, a veteran of stage, film, and TV who is perhaps best known for her role as Miss Rosa on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. What fans of Rosenblat's work on Orange may not know is that she has also been hailed as "the Meryl Streep of audiobooks"—i.e., a versatile and widely acclaimed reader whose hundreds of credits range from Bridget Jones to classics and numerous mystery series.

Watch Reader's Almanac in the months ahead for more information about Women Crime Writers and our Horizontal Man audiobook, both of which will be released in September.