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George Guidall (born June 7, 1938[1]) is a prolific audiobook narrator and theatre actor.[2][3][4] As of November 2014, he had recorded over 1,270 audiobooks, which was believed to be the record at the time.[5][1]
| Video George Guidall narrates | |
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Guidall is from New Jersey.[1] His family name is Shapiro, his stage name is Guidall a permutation of Gedalyah, his Hebrew name.[1] Guidall's father was a pharmacist, and his four brothers also went into the medical profession.[1] Guidall bucked the trend and went into theater.[1] He received a master's degree in social work in his 50s, going on to provide counseling during the day while acting at night.[1] He heard about audiobook narration through a fellow actor.[1]
Guidall lives in White Plains, New York and narrates his works in a small basement studio in nearby Irvington, New York.[1] He typically takes 3 to 4 days to complete a book.[1]
His narrations include Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow in 1986, and then again in 2014 as a new recording.[7] Guidall said the book took about 1 month working full-time daily and was one of his most difficult works.[5]
Guidall says he reads all his books beforehand and seeks to understand the book, not to just impart information but emotion and performance.[5] Guidall says many narrators are "just reading out loud. They don't have an emotional underpinning. There’s a rhythm to speech in terms of what's implied. If it's raining in the book, there’s got to be something about the voice that evokes the rain."[1] Guidall says audiobook narration "expands the author's intent, brings it into an immediacy. I am the author when I'm doing it. I'm a literary hermit crab finding a home in someone else's imagined truth."[1]
Guidall provides occasional presentations at libraries called "The Art and Artifice of Audiobook Narration".[1]
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- Off-Broadway Theater Award (Obie) for his performance in the Off Broadway play Cinders[1]
- Audie Award for John Irving's A Widow For One Year
- Audie Award for Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True
- Audio Publishers Association Special Achievement Award (lifetime achievement).[8]
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