I’m thrilled to be nominated this year for the #onevoiceawards2026 in the category ‘Audiobooks - Best Performance - Factual’; it’s lovely to be acknowledged by the industry but I am particularly delighted that it’s this book in THIS category cos it’s a damn hard genre...

The book I was nominated for is: ‘What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing But Cocaine: A Philosophy of Addiction’. It asks why do people with addiction use drugs self-destructively? Why don’t they quit out of self-concern? Why does the rat in the experiment, alone in a cage, press the lever again and again for cocaine - to the point of death? Hanna Pickard’s book proposes a new paradigm for understanding the puzzle of addiction. For many years it has been believed that either addiction is a brain disease or a moral failing. Pickard argues that it is neither, and that both models stifle addiction research and fail the people who need the most help.

Hanna Pickard’s book, although absolutely fascinating and without a doubt one that should be read (or preferably listened to!) by anyone affected by addiction, certainly represented a challenge for an audiobook narrator. Not only was there a lot of tricky neuroscience-specific terminology, but many international scientists and therapists referred to, and reading from a 1st person POV, it was important this flowed naturally and with ease.

Throughout the process, it helped hugely to be connected to the author Hanna Pickard, who was kind and graceful and willing to help as much as she could. This connection is such a bonus for audiobook narrators.

Thanks to Abby Richards, Hilary Eurich and everyone at @tantoraudio @highbridgeaudio @recordedbooks for thinking of me for this important book. Thanks as ever to my amazing agents @harveyvoicesagency and #LouiseBailey and enormous thanks to @gravyforthebrain for nominating me!