Audiobook Sample
Listen to the sample to experience the story.
Please wait while we verify your browser...
- Title: Choice
- Author: Nicholas Sparks
- Narrator: Holter Graham
- Length: 08:41:24
- Version: Abridged
- Release Date: 24/09/2007
- Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
- Genre: Romance, Fiction & Literature, General, Contemporary, Family Life
- ISBN13: 9.78E+12
As I settled into my favorite armchair with a cup of jasmine tea – the same one I’d sipped while grading papers during my Tokyo fellowship – I pressed play on Nicholas Sparks’ “Choice”, narrated by Holter Graham. The opening chords transported me instantly to coastal North Carolina, where Travis Parker’s waterfront life unfolds with such vividness that I could almost smell the salt air mingling with barbecue smoke. This sensory immersion exemplifies why audiobooks have become my preferred medium for contemporary romance – they allow the emotional cadence of relationships to resonate more deeply than silent reading ever could.
Through my cultural lens as a comparative literature scholar, I’m fascinated by how Sparks constructs this love story between medical student Gabby Holland and commitment-phobic Travis. The narrative arc follows familiar romance tropes yet subverts them through its profound examination of free will versus destiny – a theme that reminds me of my graduate seminar discussions about magical realism in Haruki Murakami’s works. Where Murakami uses surreal elements to explore choice, Sparks employs medical ethics and family dynamics to pose his central question: How far would you go for love?
Holter Graham’s narration deserves particular scholarly attention. His performance captures Travis’s easy Southern charm without caricature, while Gabby’s more measured tones reflect her Boston upbringing. Graham’s mastery of emotional pacing shines during pivotal scenes – like when Travis first kisses Gabby during a thunderstorm. The narrator’s slight pause before the kiss, the quickened breath afterward – these audio nuances create what we in literary theory call ’embodied reading,’ where listeners physically experience the characters’ emotions. It’s a technique I’ve only previously encountered in full-cast productions of Shakespeare.
The novel’s middle section, transitioning from courtship to marriage, benefits tremendously from the audiobook format. Graham subtly ages the characters’ voices, adding a gravelly warmth to Travis as he becomes a father. This aural transformation mirrors what I observed when comparing text versus audio versions of “Cloud Atlas” – how voice acting can convey temporal passage more viscerally than written description alone.
Yet from an academic perspective, the story’s medical crisis plot device warrants critique. While Sparks handles the ethical dilemma with sensitivity, the narrative leans heavily on what my Berkeley students would call ‘trauma porn’ – using suffering primarily to catalyze emotional responses. The Japanese literature I studied during my fellowship often approaches similar themes with more nuanced restraint.
For listeners seeking comparable audiobook experiences, I’d recommend Jojo Moyes’ “Me Before You” (similar medical ethics theme) or Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” (equivalent emotional depth). Both benefit from exceptional narration that, like Graham’s work here, elevates the material beyond its genre conventions.
What makes this audiobook particularly compelling for literary study is how Sparks’ prose – sometimes criticized as sentimental in print – gains gravitas through Graham’s interpretation. The narrator finds emotional truth in even the most melodramatic passages, much like a skilled actor redeeming problematic Shakespearean monologues. During Travis’s climactic hospital vigil, Graham’s restrained delivery transforms what might read as maudlin into genuinely moving drama.
In scholarly solidarity and shared love of stories well-told,
Prof. Emily Chen
