Cynthia Erivo and Hilary Swank have signed up to read classic novels for Spotify listeners as platform bosses aim to cash in on the lucrative audiobooks market.
The actresses will read Jane Austen's Persuasion and Kate Chopin's The Awakening, respectively, while other big names pulling out their literary favourites include YouTube star David Dobrik, who will tackle Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Forest Whitaker, who will read from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, a memoir of slave trade abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
Other titles included in the first rollout of nine books are Jean Toomer’s Cane, narrated by Audra McDonald, Charles Dickens classic Great Expectations, read by James Langton, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, told by Sarah Coombs, Nella Larsen’s Passing, from Bahni Turpin, and Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, by Santino Fontana.
The new collection is now available for free worldwide.
