In this bonus edition of Behind the Mic, host Jo Reed speaks with actor Courtney B. Vance. His shelves are lined with awards—two Emmys, a Tony, a Critics Choice Award, and several NAACP Image Awards. Vance is also a dedicated audiobook listener and occasional narrator, nominated for a Grammy for his performance of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s and Avis Lang’s ACCESSORY TO WAR. Vance’s latest project is a monumental one—narrating historian David Levering Lewis’s two-volume Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of W.E.B. Du Bois, available as an audiobook for the first time. But it’s a recording that might never have happened if Courtney B. Vance hadn’t picked up the phone and called the author.

Read our review of W.E.B. DU BOIS 1868-1919: Biography of a Race:  

Courtney B. Vance photo by Matthew Jordan Smith

Discover thousands of audiobook reviews and more at AudioFile’s website  

Support for our podcast comes from Dreamscape, the publisher of The Intruder by bestselling author Freida McFadden. The Intruder is a deadly tale of survival that explores how far one girl will go to save herself. — on-sale 10/7.

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