True Grit

Since the original Book-of-the Month Club was founded in 1926, book clubs and reading groups have been an integral part of print publishing and a consummate advocate of the writing craft. And yet, this type of advocacy has never found its way into the audio medium ... until now. Recorded Books Unabridged is proud to introduce the Author Pick book club, an exclusive stand alone audio series in which best-selling authors handpick and oftentimes actually narrate their favorite books. The first title in The Author's Bookshelf series will be True Grit by Charles Portis, as narrated by Donna Tartt. True Grit is Portis' most famous novel. First published in 1968, and the basis for the movie of the same name starring John Wayne (for which he won his only Academy Award), it tells the story of Mattie Ross, a fourteen-year-old girl from Dardanelle, Arkansas, who sets out in the winter of eighteen seventy-something to avenge the murder of her father. Since not even Mattie (who is no self-doubter) would ride into Indian Territory alone, she convinces one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshall, to tag along with her. As Mattie outdickers and outmaneuvers the hard-bitten types in her path, as her performance under fire makes them eat their words, her indestructible vitality and harsh innocence by turns amuse, horrify, and touch the reader. What happens-to Mattie, to the gang of outlaws unfortunate enough to tangle with her-rings with the dramatic rightness of legend and the marvelous overtones, the continual surprises, of personality. True Grit is as eccentric, cool, straight and unflinching as Mattie herself.