Audiobooks (3 Viewers)

[saint_drago]

Do you have a preference between Muller and Guidall?

That's a tough one. If I have to pick I guess I'd give the nod to Muller.

 

[urzombiefood]

Whom ever said Ready player one.....This should be next on your list. Make sure it's the Will Wheaten version.
I'm listening to it now and enjoying it.

Also this book is nothing like the movie but I understand why liberties have to be taken when making movies. It has to flow to keep interest but the premise is still there. Honestly I can't wait to re watch the movie again.

Also to add to the list:

J.L Bourne-
Day by day Armageddon- 3 books... zombies
Tomorrow war... and just about anything this dude writes.

Scott Sigler -
Earth core & Mt. Fitzroy... This this and more this
Infected series
His Alive series is just ok ... try the first book the cliff hanger get ya.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Whom ever said Ready player one.....This should be next on your list. Make sure it's the Will Wheaten version.
I'm listening to it now and enjoying it.

Also this book is nothing like the movie but I understand why liberties have to be taken when making movies. It has to flow to keep interest but the premise is still there. Honestly I can't wait to re watch the movie again.

Also to add to the list:

J.L Bourne-
Day by day Armageddon- 3 books... zombies
Tomorrow war... and just about anything this dude writes.

Scott Sigler -
Earth core & Mt. Fitzroy... This this and more this
Infected series
His Alive series is just ok ... try the first book the cliff hanger get ya.

I loved Sigler’s Galactic Football League series

 

[urzombiefood]

I loved Sigler’s Galactic Football League series

What's fun about Sigler's books it most of them have some sort of tie together.... mainly alien species

 

[Sandman]

Some books I have recently listened to on audiobooks that I recommend:

1. Song of Achilles
2. The Disposessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns
4. Dungeon Crawler Carl. All books. The dialogue of Princess Donut is worth the price alone.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Glad I found this thread. I started reading and read "cassette player in your car" and then noticed the date. Yikes!
I find them indispensable on my commutes. I used to listen to Dan Lebatard then I moved into podcasts ANd I still do both of those, but I also started Audiobooks via audible and the library and I LOVE it. I drive into Toronto each day - 45 mins-1 hr - and I can chew through books. This is what I have read so far

Two years worth:

1. The Fellowship of the Ring - The production I listened to was amazing - phenomenal quality. Love the story and the narrator did an amazing job.
2. The Two Towers
3. The Return of the King
4. Rebecca - Never read the book, but decided to give it a shot because of the Netflix series. It was amazing! The writing was actually incredible.
5. The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged so like 55 hours!) - this was so much FUN! I was riveted the entire time. It's a master class in Serialized Writing (as opposed to Crime and Punishment which... is not). The narrator also pronounced the names in French and it made a huge difference. I would not have pronounced them correctly. Loved it!
6. The Grapes of Wrath - I mean, solid. Not as good as East of Eden, but there is something about driving while listening to John Steinbeck
7. Indian Horse - moving story about an Indigenous kid growing up, learning hockey while learning how to navigate a world that discriminates against him and abuses him. We thought about teaching it this year.
8. The Color Purple - amazing voice acting!
9. In Cold Blood - This. Was. Sublime! The writing is some of the best writing I have ever read - the structure built in parallel form in a way that I had never quite come across. It simmered the entire time without ever really boiling over. I will listen to this again.
10. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Stephen Fry narrates and he's wonderful. But I didn't like the book nearly as much as I remembered liking it when I was younger
11. Matrix (Lauren Groff - not the Wachowski Bros) - do not recommend. I LOVED Wonder (by Emma Donoghue - who wrote Room) and thought The Wonder was one of the best books I've read the last five years. This was recommended to me because I liked that one so much. It was not good.
12. The Sandman Act I - Listen. To. This. NOW! I know others have mentioned it. Ensemble cast. Phenomenal production. Neil Gaiman narrates and he's better at that than writing. I will listen to it again - the story comes alive in a way the graphic novel doesn't (which I also love)
13. The Sandman Act II
14. The Sandman Act III
15. The Handmaid's Tale - I was very snobby about this book. Thought it was trite and reductive so I didn't read it. Finally needed to read it for a class and listened to the Clare Danes version. Writing is amazing. Story incredible. Narration was quality.
16. Sapiens - meh.
17. East of Eden - Wonderful story with the richest cast of characters I have ever read. I love good characters and this covered the scope of human emotion and complexity (specifically of good vs. bad polemics) in a way that only Shakespeare has done for me. Sooooo good.
18. Shadow of the Wind - terrific book. Engrossing story. Narration was very strong - it really helps with books that have accents, foreign words, etc
19. Crime and Punishment - oh god. Oh God. OH GOD! WHY?!?! WHY LORD WHY?!?!?! Dude got paid by the word and you can tell. Is it genius? Yes. But it really didn't need to be this long. I thought East of Eden actually explored this better.
20. The Bluest Eye - narrated by the author and I love it when I get the chance to hear the author read their story when I also love the book so much.
21. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents - Meh. Excellent sources and bibliography and notes. Writing was pretty bad. Figurative language was strained. Narrative voice was nothing to write home about.
22. Vox - futuristic dystopia in the US when a theofascist autocrat takes over and puts word limits on women, enforced by an electrified bracelet - 100 words per day. Very Handmaid's Tale. But not really very good. Interesting story but it's entirely plot.
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God - I love this book. I listened to the version with Ruby Dee and she was amazing. She made every character come to life. My Canadian students really struggle with the dialect and listening really helps. But this one is genuinely a pleasure to listen to.

There are a few others I am forgetting at the moment.

Currently listening to:

24. Cloud Cuckoo Land (Anthony Doerr) - I am about 15% into it, and enjoying it. Like All the Light We Cannot See, this has multiple character perspectives that I assume will converge into a single timeline or moment. But right now, it's pretty chaotic as it bounces past through present to the future from diff character perspectives and places in the world.

I think that's enough for now. I guess.

Yeah Gaiman narrates his own stuff and he’s got a really good voice

I enjoyed my time with Dostoyevsky but am in no way compelled to dig back into him

 

[superchuck500]

I wouldn’t have thought to put McCarthy in audio format
His writing is so idiosyncratic with sparse punctuation esp quotation marks- and that’s part of the beauty of it
A narrator would have to make choices that aren’t really on the page

But you’re saying it works?

When you listen to McCarthy before you have read it - and then go read it, it becomes obvious that it's not only that McCarthy works in audio format notwithstanding the idiosyncratic and sparsely punctuated style, it's that McCarthy is fantastic in audio format because that very style, almost a campfire storytelling of the highest literary order, is actually better suited for being listened to from a talented reader, than read.

At least with The Border books (the campfire thing, that is).

Example: the passage below is quite mundane and ROS - but heard rather than read is seamless. Reading the page, your mind knows to read it as if it is hearing it, because it's not proper writing but it's fine for speech. In audio format, you go straight to hearing it. Your mind's voice is replaced by a professional narrator with nuance and inflection, and it's very pleasurable.

“He put his toothbrush back in his shaving kit and got a towel out of his bag and went down to the bathroom and showered in one of the steel stalls and shaved and brushed his teeth and came back and put on a fresh shirt.”

And maybe a few minutes later you get:

“He said that men believe the blood of the slain to be of no consequence but that the wolf knows better. He said that the wolf is a being of great order and that it knows what men do not: that there is no order in this world save that which death has put there.”


It's just outstanding to listen to.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

When you listen to McCarthy before you have read it - and then go read it, it becomes obvious that it's not only that McCarthy works in audio format notwithstanding the idiosyncratic and sparsely punctuated style, it's that McCarthy is fantastic in audio format because that very style, almost a campfire storytelling of the highest literally order, is actually better suited for being listened to from a talented reader, than read.

At least with The Border books (the campfire thing, that is).

Example: the passage below is quite mundane and ROS - but heard rather than read is seamless. Reading the page, your mind knows to read it as if it is hearing it, because it's not proper writing but it's fine for speech. In audio format, you go straight to hearing it. Your mind's voice is replaced by a professional narrator with nuance and inflection, and it's very pleasurable.

“He put his toothbrush back in his shaving kit and got a towel out of his bag and went down to the bathroom and showered in one of the steel stalls and shaved and brushed his teeth and came back and put on a fresh shirt.”

And maybe a few minutes later you get:

“He said that men believe the blood of the slain to be of no consequence but that the wolf knows better. He said that the wolf is a being of great order and that it knows what men do not: that there is no order in this world save that which death has put there.”


It's just outstanding to listen to.

Heck of a recommendation
I’ll check it out

 

[Optimus Prime]

June is Audiobook Appreciation Month, a time to celebrate the great art of audiobook narration in this, the Golden Age of Audiobooks — as it will be remembered once AI takes over.

This month, AudioFile magazine honored three narrators — Dominic Hoffman (“Homegoing,” “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store”), Robert Petkoff (“Barkskins,” “The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore”) and Kate Reading (“A Conspiracy in Belgravia,” “Dust”) — with the Golden Voice honor, for their contribution to the “audiobook art form.”

It is wonderful to see voice actors, who are often snubbed at the Grammys in favor of celebrities, recognized for their work. As audiobooks have evolved, narrating them has demanded more and more creativity and skill.

Transforming the pages of a book into a listening experience goes beyond simply reading aloud, and some people are better at it than others.

Audiobooks began their reign in 1975, the brainchild of former Olympic champion rower Duvall Hecht, founder of Books on Tape. He was specific in his requirements: no abridgments, no emoting, just straight, traditional reading aloud — which still has, for me, an old-fashioned appeal.

Soon enough, other companies and products entered the field for better (Recorded Books) or worse (abridgments). Thanks to CDs, and especially streaming, abridgments are now comparatively rare.

But the most momentous development has been narrators’ increased engagement with the text, especially fiction, moving from simply reading aloud to an active rendering, akin to interpretation.

Just how a narrator affects the ambiance of a story can be heard in comparing the two audio versions of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series (both from Pottermore Publishing).

Jim Dale’s rambunctious, supercharged delivery is what most Americans have heard — and, indeed, is so closely identified with the books that his narration of other high-adventure fantasy novels makes them sound like supplements to the Potter canon.

This is startlingly so in his narration of Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s “Peter and the Starcatchers” (Brilliance, 8⅔ hours) and John Stephens’s “The Emerald Atlas” (Listening Library, 11⅔ hours).

In Britain and Ireland, however, a more restrained Stephen Fry narrated the Potter series (now available in this country). His manner leans toward the snobby, giving more play to the social comedy that arises from the English obsession with social class…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/06/22/best-audiobook-narrators/