Beginning June 5, Sacramento’s Arden-Dimick Library will host “Hearing Voices – Author, Character and Narrator in Audiobooks,” a summer book club sponsored by the Sacramento Public Library and the California Center for the Book.

At the first meeting, participants will meet the Audie and Audiofile Earphones award-winning Simon Vance, narrator of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and King’s Speech audiobooks. Vance will discuss his experience of what makes good literature and what makes good audio and how those two may differ. Registered participants will receive audiobooks and series materials, including author biographies and discussion questions.

At each of the four remaining meetings, participants will hear from experts on what to listen for in audiobook narration, the future of audio and book technologies, how the brain processes stories you hear versus those you read, and more.

Participants will also discuss how a particular audiobook performance of a well-regarded print novel affects the reader’s perception of the voices of the author, the narrator and the characters.

The series will focus on four audiobooks, beginning with Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, a classic treatment of urban, turn-of- century, American class and gender relations, in which narrator Lorna Raver implies the angst bubbling below buttoned- up New York society. This audiobook was the winner of a 2009 Audie Award.

Participants will also discuss Bloody Jack, by L. A. Meyer, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery and The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett.

The first meeting will be held from 2-4 p.m. in the community room of Arden-Dimick Library, 891 Watt Avenue, Sacramento.

Interested listeners can register to reserve copies of the audiobooks by calling (916) 264-2920 or by visiting www.saclibrary.org.