Hayao Miyazaki "Legends" Biography Now Published on Audiobook

NEWARK, NJ - August 19, 2013 - Author Jeff Lenburg's revealing biography, Hayao Miyazaki: Japan's Premier Anime Storyteller ($34.95), has been published as an audiobook. Produced and read by Mark Douglas Nelson, the unabridged edition, based on the illustrated hardcover edition, is part of Lenburg's eight-book Legends of Animation series published by Chelsea House. The downloadable digital audiobook ($14.95) sells exclusively online at Audible.com, an Amazon platform company, Amazon.com, and iTunes.

Lenburg's book offers the inside-story of one of world's most respected Japanese animation filmmakers, known for creating compelling characters, engaging stories, and breathtaking animation that have earned him international acclaim while setting box-office records. Miyazaki began his career in 1963 as an in-betweener for Toei Doga studio. Soon after, he found his true calling as an anime and manga artist, working on classic Japanese features and television series and writing the best-selling manga, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. In 1985, he co-founded Studio Ghibli, and in 1989, wrote and produced its breakthrough hit animated feature, Kiki's Delivery Service. Since then, Miyazaki has directed some of the most successful and popular anime features of all time, including Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, and Spirited Away, entertaining audiences around the world and raising the bar for the art of animation.

An experienced and talented voice over artist and narrator, Nelson, a huge fan of anime in general and Miyazaki in particular, has narrated more than 30 audiobooks, primarily sci-fi and fantasy, including works by H.P. Lovecraft, Andre Norton, Robert Sheckley, and Frederick Pohl, as well as classics, including Moby Dick and Frankenstein, in addition to other voiceover work.

Lenburg's Hayao Miyazaki: Japan's Premier Anime Storyteller is available in print as well through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and most major booksellers. Critics hail his Legends of Animation series as "...well researched...will introduce readers to the individuals who were responsible for creating some of the most memorable characters on film."

For more information and to play a sample of the audiobook, please visit: http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_2?asin=B00EKLMW2O&qid=1376934090&sr=1-2

To learn about the hardcover edition, click on the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Hayao-Miyazaki-Premier-Storyteller-Animation/dp/1604138416/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376934170&sr=1-1&keywords=hayao+miyazaki+jeff+lenburg

Jeff Lenburg is an award-winning author of 30 books, including celebrity memoirs, celebrity biographies, entertainment histories, popular references, and two national bestsellers. He is also a foremost authority on animation cartoons, having written seven books about its illustrious history, among them The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons, Third Edition, the definitive source on the subject chronicling every animated cartoon--some 3,100 in all--ever made, and Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, the first-ever biographical reference on more than 300 award-winning and legendary animators in animation's 100-plus year history.