Audiobooks roundup

“Word by Word” by Kory Stamper, narrated by Stamper, Random House Audio, 9:48

Kory Stamper’s voice is full of nerdy energy, and it is one of the lovable things about Stamper’s “Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries.”

Stamper is a lexicographer for Merriam-Webster, determined to explain how dictionaries are created, which is another lovable thing about this book. Hers is a refreshing “throw out those certainties” view of our ever-evolving language, surely a frustrating approach for those who like to declare that a few good lessons in sentence diagraming would be the salvation of American literacy.

Stamper’s writing is as clever and fun as her voice is charming.

Here she is on language acquisition: “It begins with someone’s explaining the universe around them to a rubbery blob of drooling baby, then progresses to that blob understanding the connection between the sound coming out of Mama’s or Papa’s mouth — ‘cup’ — and the thing Mama and Papa is pointing to.”

Rather than pin the butterfly of English to the specimen board, Stamper presents the language in its natural habitat, full of contradictions, breaking the hearts of pedants everywhere.

Maybe it would be best if you didn’t know that Rachel Atkins, the narrator of Claire Fuller’s “Swimming Lessons,” was the voice of the miserable female gargoyle in a “Harry Potter” video game. It might mislead you into skipping the sensitive reading Atkins gives to this heartbreaking book of fractured hope. On July 2, 1992, Ingrid Coleman wandered away from her novelist husband, Gil, and two daughters. And although Gil searched frantically for his missing wife, she is never found. To say her disappearance upended her daughters’ lives isn’t quite fair; their lives were already unbalanced, as Gil wandered away from his family whenever it suited him, disappearing for long periods without a word or forwarding address. While he was gone, Ingrid wrote him letters. “I am a writer of truths, a factualist,” she tells him. “No more lifting of carpets or turning of blind eyes; what we’ll have here, in these letters, are bald, bare facts.” She tucks each message inside books in Gil’s burgeoning book collection. Each chronicle the story of their love, marriage and, too soon, the gradual collapse of Ingrid’s belief in her future. When “Swimming Lessons” opens, Gil, now an old man, has finally begun to discover the letters. Atkins’ simple performance and the musicality of her voice add a fine shading to the depths to Fuller’s graceful prose.

“Swimming Lessons” by Claire Fuller, narrated by Rachel Atkins, Audible Studios, 9:23