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Danith posted:^ Hah, actually I can drive just really dry eyes the last couple of days is making close-up things blurry. I got some heavier-duty eye drops that seem to help a bit better then the other ones I had. You should no poo poo get the full cast production of Neil Gaiman's American Gods if you want an example of an audiobook doing everything right.
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Apr 16, 2013 13:53
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^^^^^^ YES. American Gods is a great book, and the audiobook of it is very well done. It is one of the first audiobooks I ever listened to and it definitely got me hooked.
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Apr 16, 2013 16:14
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What other audiobooks have full casts? The only one I can think of is His Dark Materials, which was also a pleasure to listen to.
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Apr 16, 2013 16:16
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I'm fairly sure it's been mentioned before, but there is a well done version of Dune with a cast.
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Apr 16, 2013 16:28
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World War Z and Metatropolis has each story narrated by someone different. Most of the "Graphic Audio" productions have at least 2 people. For the most part, I actually prefer one narrator  George Guidall narrated the version of american gods that I listened to.
Bhodi fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 16, 2013 |
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Apr 16, 2013 17:31
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Bhodi posted:World War Z and Metatropolis has each story narrated by someone different. Most of the "Graphic Audio" productions have at least 2 people. For the most part, I actually prefer one narrator The voices of Mr. Wednesday and Mr. Ibis in particular were very good in the full cast American Gods, though (and Czernobog, but come on). Girl Sam was also actually funny in the audiobook where I was kind of annoyed by her when I read her in the book first.
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Apr 16, 2013 19:52
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Wade Wilson posted:The voices of Mr. Wednesday and Mr. Ibis in particular were very good in the full cast American Gods, though (and Czernobog, but come on).
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Apr 18, 2013 23:34
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Words can't express how much I hate it that Audible has different licensing zones. Every time I go to buy an audiobook I find it'a available in the US store, but not in Australia. I'm trying to throw my money at Audible and Brilliance Audio for their recently released version of Memories of Ice read by Ralph Lister, but they are making it extremely difficult to do. How do publishing companies not get that this is what causes piracy issues.
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Apr 20, 2013 04:29
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Reccomendations in 2009 from the first page:Pompous Rhombus posted:I thought American Gods (Neil Gaiman) had a pretty mediocre narrator though. Agile Sumo posted:World War Z Recommendations in 2013 from the last page: Wade Wilson posted:You should no poo poo get the full cast production of Neil Gaiman's American Gods if you want an example of an audiobook doing everything right. Bhodi posted:World War Z and Metatropolis has each story narrated by someone different. Most of the "Graphic Audio" productions have at least 2 people. For the most part, I actually prefer one narrator You guys need to expand your horizons a little bit  I haven't been able to scope out too many non-fiction audiobook reccomendations, does anyone know of anything good? Im mostly interested in ancient history, colonial africa, and pop science.
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Apr 23, 2013 07:40
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Meme Emulator posted:I haven't been able to scope out too many non-fiction audiobook reccomendations, does anyone know of anything good? Im mostly interested in ancient history, colonial africa, and pop science. I buy a poo poo-ton of non-fiction to listen to while at work. Here's what I recommend out of what I bought. I left out stuff I thought was either too boring, or better explained in another book: - The Modern Scholar: Unseen Diversity: The World of Bacteria - Stuffed: An Insider's Look at Who's (Really) Making America Fat and How the Food Industry Can Fix It - Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (read that one ^^^ first)  - Dr. Joe & What You Didn't Know: 177 Fascinating Questions About the Chemistry of Everyday Life - The Fly in the Ointment: 70 Fascinating Commentaries on the Science of Everyday Life - The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't - The Big Lebowski and Philosophy: Keeping Your Mind Limber with Abiding Wisdom - Physics for Future Presidents  - The Modern Scholar: Brewmaster's Art  - Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms - Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil - Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities - Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon’s Army and Other Diabolical Insects - The Modern Scholar: Astronomy I: Earth, Sky and Planets - The Modern Scholar: Astronomy II: Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe - Salt: A World History - The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Consequences of Little Things - In Defense of Food - The Omnivore's Dilemma - The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession - Pity the Billionaire: The Unexpected Resurgence of the American Right  - Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture  - Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power - The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness  - Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger - Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars - Glock: The Rise of America's Gun - The Top Gear Story  - River Monsters: True Stories of the Ones That Didn’t Get Away  - No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller  - 23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism - This is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America  - The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History - Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster  - Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit  - From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbour - I Am the Market: How to Smuggle Cocaine by the Ton and Live Happily - The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York - Emperors and Idiots: The Hundred-Year Rivalry Between the Yankees and the Red Sox - The Modern Scholar: Heaven or Heresy: A History of the Inquisition - The Modern Scholar: Citadels of Power: Castles in History and Archaeology - The Modern Scholar: Behold the Mighty Dinosaur - Empire of Blue Water  - The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine The "Modern Scholar" series has a bunch of good stuff. My preferences are food, science, the 2008 financial crisis, and ancient (Mediterranean) history. I've listened to all of these at least twice, and some of them considerably more than that. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Apr 23, 2013 |
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Apr 23, 2013 08:29
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Mister Macys posted:- Pity the Billionaire: The Unexpected Resurgence of the American Right Pity the Billionaire is the weakest book but the narration is really good. Drift is the best of the group and probably still enjoyable even if you aren't a commie.
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Apr 23, 2013 10:16
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Meme Emulator posted:Reccomendations in 2009 from the first page: For the record, I was recommending a completely different production from the first guy. That recommendation was for the original version of the novel, narrated by the author alone, while the Full Cast version relegated the author to only the character of Mr. Ibis and the reading of the introduction and appendices/afterword. "How to Read a book" by Charles Doren and Mortimer Adler was also interesting, but may not be everyone's cup of tea. "Total Recall" (Arnold Schwartzenneger's autobiography, introduced by the Governator himself and then with the rest of it read by Stephen Lang) was pretty fun to listen to. I'll admit to mainly getting various non-lovely urban fantasy (Rivers of London, Dresden Files, etc.), but I'm planning to check out the stuff Mister Macys recommended.
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Apr 23, 2013 15:11
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The Governator also does the epilogue, too.UltimoDragonQuest posted:All of these are good. I love listening to Pity the Billionaire, because as a Canadian, we're rather less exposed to highly polarized cognitive dissonance, what with our multi-party system (3.5 + nobodies), and lower overall party loyalty. It's utterly fascinating to me that The Right™ can believe what they're saying, and not be trolling, in light of history and, you know... facts. Also, as someone who heretofore never knew the details of Beck & co., the Koch bros, or Atlas Shrugged, it's simultaneously comedic and horribly disturbing. And yeah, Thomas Frank is an excellent narrator. I do buy fiction too, but I'd bet it's a quarter or less of my total, unless I throw in Kindle purchases I know to be on Audible. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Apr 23, 2013 |
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Apr 23, 2013 20:16
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Meme Emulator posted:You guys need to expand your horizons a little bit
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Apr 23, 2013 20:28
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(cross-postin') Just Finished: The Human Division #1: The B-Team - John Scalzi Center of Gravity: Star Carrier: Book Two - Ian Douglas Ian Douglas' Star Carrier books are beginning to bother the poo poo out of me. I keep getting unsubtle "American Exceptionalism" and "the streetwise American (pilot) is the best of us" vibes from them, which is sad, because I rather like them, otherwise. And this is coming from an unapologetic Scott Card fan; who can't see any undertones in his books beyond humanity's capacity for secrets, manipulation, and control of information. (though maybe it's because I'm an atheist, and never bothered reading the Mormon bible- the Old Testament is the only one worth reading, anyways  )Human Division is an episodic sci-fi series that I'm gonna listen to more of. I thought Red Shirts was pretty good, and Audible gave out the first ep for free, so I thought, why not, and I like it. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Apr 25, 2013 |
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Apr 25, 2013 10:36
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Mister Macys posted:(cross-postin') Just Finished: If you liked Red Shirts and enjoy the Human Division series so far, you should check out Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades and The Lost Colony by Scalzi. Those three books were written before the Human Division series and take place in the same universe (and will explain just why things are so hosed up in the Human Division series if they haven't already explained it, I haven't listened to anything past the B-Team yet).
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Apr 25, 2013 19:38
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Meme Emulator posted:You guys need to expand your horizons a little bit
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Apr 25, 2013 22:29
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The Human Division ends with nothing resolved. It's like part 1 of some unadvertised trilogy or some bullshit.
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Apr 27, 2013 03:57
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Meme Emulator posted:Reccomendations in 2009 from the first page: I've been listening to Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone, and it's pretty good.
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Apr 29, 2013 04:26
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I'm enjoying the heck out of Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch. http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B009CZNUGU&qid=1367206744&sr=1-1
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Apr 29, 2013 04:40
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jeeves posted:The Human Division ends with nothing resolved. It's like part 1 of some unadvertised trilogy or some bullshit. It's actually something like part 5 or 6 of an existing series (Old Man's War), but serialized instead of a standalone novel. You're getting the fallout from the events of all of the other books that took place in that universe so far. Nothing really ever gets resolved, you just get stories about people doing things in a crazy universe.
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Apr 29, 2013 12:28
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Meme Emulator posted:
I usually alternate between fiction / non fiction audiobooks. Recent non fiction: -Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall -Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger -Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick -Crash Course by Joel Ingrassia Born to Run is my favorite audiobook - just an amazing story and reader. Total Recall was good - he has lived an amazing life. There is definitely some pro-Arnold spin there but overall I really liked it.
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Apr 29, 2013 16:14
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Wade Wilson posted:It's actually something like part 5 or 6 of an existing series (Old Man's War), but serialized instead of a standalone novel. I've read the previous 4 books. I even put up with the fourth book being an unadvertised young-adult re-telling of the drat third book by a teenage different point of view. But at least those books had loving conclusions to their main stories.
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May 1, 2013 05:11
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Neal Stephenson's entire Mongoliad trilogy - including a prequel that Neal didn't participate in writing apparently - is on Audible, probably for a little while now. I try not to just follow the herd but I see I've either read or listened to every one of his books up till now, jeez. VERY pleased to have the Mongoliad ready for me. Also very pleased to see some of Harold Lamb's histories are finally making it to audiobooks too.
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May 1, 2013 06:13
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SnakePlissken posted:
Lamb's Iron Men and Saints history of the Crusades has an awesome narrator.
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May 1, 2013 14:28
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SnakePlissken posted:Neal Stephenson's entire Mongoliad trilogy - including a prequel that Neal didn't participate in writing apparently - is on Audible, probably for a little while now. I try not to just follow the herd but I see I've either read or listened to every one of his books up till now, jeez. VERY pleased to have the Mongoliad ready for me. Is The Big U worth reading/listening to? I know Stephenson doesn't really like it and only had it reprinted to water down the collector's market that had formed around it.
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May 1, 2013 15:48
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coyo7e posted:The National Parks narrated by Ken Burns. Thanks for this recommendation, I just reactivated my Audible account and I am downloading Last Call right now. The reviews look really good. I second the Hardcore History recommendation, especially the Roman history episodes.
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May 3, 2013 14:31
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Strange Matter posted:Is The Big U worth reading/listening to? I know Stephenson doesn't really like it and only had it reprinted to water down the collector's market that had formed around it. I probably feel about the same about it myself. I think you could spend your money and attention more wiserly. Currently finishing the "Children of the Sky" by Vinge, before I move on the the Mongoliad. If I could recommend any science fiction this past year or two, it would be that "Zones of Thought" trilogy. Not that I read that much science fiction. ED: About 2/3 through Children of the Sky I have some misgivings about the book and Vinge's writing skills, but it's still pleasurable. Quick question: My only option for Audible to burn to disc is to use Itunes now? Does Itunes really suck? SnakePlissken fucked around with this message at 04:54 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 4, 2013 09:11
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So apparently, "World War Z: The Complete Edition" audiobook comes out next week. It's not truly "unabridged" (Brooks said one tiny scene between two characters was cut due to actor availability, hence the reason it's called "complete" and not "unabridged"), but it looks to be download only.
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May 9, 2013 21:17
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SnakePlissken posted:I probably feel about the same about it myself. I think you could spend your money and attention more wiserly.
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May 10, 2013 18:26
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Strange Matter posted:I gave up on Children of the Sky before the end of the first Audible download. A Fire Upon the Deep did an excellent job at exploring the Tines' civilization, and it clearly wasn't necessary to go back to it again. I'd rather have seen Vinge explore a different civilization the way he did with A Deepness In the Sky. Ish, I'd agree. Few audiobooks I've had that seemed more laborious to finish. Maybe I'll change my mind later, I don't know. On a more upbeat note, I made this cool thingy to put my mp3 player in so I can listen in the pool as I do laps, and I took it on its first test run today, listening to the first book of the Mongoliad underwater. I was thinking of buying something, but just found a waterproof pill bottle that fit my geegaw and bought some cheap waterproof earbuds and I'm good to go. I usually do a pretty long swim and it's been getting boring. Mongoliad seems to benefit hugely by Stevenson's imagination and brains, yet even more hugely by the improvement to the prose and dialogue provided by Bear and the other guys, names I can't recall at the moment. This writer team appears to be pretty fricking spot on. About half into the first book and I'm pretty elated about it, underwater and all. Offhand I hope they do even more stuff like this. ED: And I'm not a big fan of dramatic audio productions of books; my philosophy is at least in theory that I just want the reader to be transparent, and to deliver the words to me and leave all the imagination and interpretation to me, but I have to say this one is a pretty fabulous reading so far. Love the audio is all I'm saying'. SnakePlissken fucked around with this message at 07:01 on May 26, 2013 |
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May 24, 2013 05:45
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I know that I have said this before, but I love audible's customer service. They have a policy of not refunding books after a year, but they did two of my six books that I returned anyway. It stands to reason that eventually you're going to get lovely books. I have around 200 purchases from audible. I have dumped about 5% of them with a 100% success rate. So now I have six bucks back on my credit card and five extra books that I can listen to with their book credit system after dumping a series of books that I either hated or couldn't finish. I'm currently working through The Laundry Files series and I turned in the abridged version of World War Z (which was almost half of the book) and got the updated version of it (which is missing only a few minutes of audio). I also got Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks. I have never read one of his books before, but I heard that it is fantastic so I'm giving it a shot. I'm glad that I switched to audio books. I still have a bookshelf, but it is sadly near empty. It feels strange not to have rows upon rows of books lining it, but all in all I'm happy now that there is more space in my room for other things.
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May 27, 2013 12:11
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Ice Phisherman posted:
You will not be disappointed, Use of Weapons instantly became my favorite novel. Well, I'm here to recommend Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature. It is a sweeping, interdisciplinary study of violence a part of the human condition. Pinker's thesis is that, despite how war torn our world has been over the past century, violence has declined dramatically over the course of history, and that we are living in an utterly unprecedented era of peace and respect for human rights. You know what? He proves it. He uses tons of methods, drawing on history, statistics, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and zoology. At 36 hours long, this one has kept me hooked for an entire semester, more or less, and I can't recommend it enough.
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May 28, 2013 21:11
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Hardcore History just released a new episode about religious mania in medieval Germany. I don't think I ever sat slaw-jawed for so long. Its absolutely chilling. Highly recommended.
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May 30, 2013 00:15
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bpower posted:Hardcore History just released a new episode about religious mania in medieval Germany. I don't think I ever sat slaw-jawed for so long. Its absolutely chilling. Highly recommended. Cool tanks! That's one fascinating episode in history. Pretty good timing too, what with me listening to the Mongoliad right now. Underwater. 
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May 30, 2013 01:31
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SnakePlissken posted:Cool tanks! That's one fascinating episode in history. Pretty good timing too, what with me listening to the Mongoliad right now. Underwater. Throughout the episode I kept thinking "this is insane, it can't possibly get any worse", I was wrong.
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May 30, 2013 01:44
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bpower posted:Hardcore History just released a new episode about religious mania in medieval Germany. I don't think I ever sat slaw-jawed for so long. Its absolutely chilling. Highly recommended.   or anything however, that was released on 4/22/13. I got it last month via BeyondPod and the RSS feed.
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May 30, 2013 03:33
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Syrinxx posted:Yep, being able to return books I hated is one of the best things about Amazon owning Audible. Amazon treats their customers like kings and this is another example of that. I doubt you can constantly return all your books when you're finished with them but it's pretty awesome when you get a dud. I returned Cyteen since i was never been able to finish it, each time it bored me to death. So now i have extra credit, and just in time, as i have nothing to read or listen at the moment!
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Jun 4, 2013 15:33
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Ashendar posted:Wow, i didnt know you could return books. Awesome feature!  ones night so I'd have something to fall asleep to, barely made it to twenty minutes in, it's that loving bad.
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Jun 5, 2013 05:59
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Just finished 14 by Peter Clines. Was a fun and entertaining story. Enjoyed it. Kind of a Lost, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King sort of thing. Recommended as long as you aren't looking for something deep. http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B0089Y7K0M dema fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Jun 5, 2013 |
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Jun 5, 2013 20:20
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