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There's always this classic of American literature (just ask the category):
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Jun 1, 2014 07:38
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Kraps posted:45 hours? I almost always listen at 150% speed anymore, though.
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Jun 1, 2014 19:39
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Yeah, my wife got mad at me for listening at 2x and said it was impossible for her to understand anything.
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Jun 1, 2014 22:58
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mastajake posted:Yeah, my wife got mad at me for listening at 2x and said it was impossible for her to understand anything. Good lord was it tough to listen to NPR at 2.5x speed in a thunder and rain-storm! 
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Jun 2, 2014 03:01
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Thanks for all the suggestions! I've been meaning to try Sanderson, so I think I'll try that 45 hour monstrosity to start. I'll uh pass on spending lots of time in a car with Ayn Rand
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Jun 3, 2014 02:00
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I'd recommend taking into consideration that you'll probably rewind a lot as well, because it's easy to stop paying attentiont o the audio while you're occupied with other things. Sometimes it'll take me almost twice as much time to get through, because of my falling asleep 15 minutes in while listening on a 60 minute sleep timer, or reading something or driving, etc.
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Jun 3, 2014 23:01
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Stop worrying about book length. Honestly, every like 2 months you can return a book and get a free credit back no questions asked. Audible tacitly said they don't care if people do this unless they abuse it. So in essence, with one long audiobook every now and again filled in with 10-20 hour books here and there you can never catch up to your credits. Speaking as an App Master and what not 
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Jun 7, 2014 08:03
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Are there any audiobook services worth getting that would allow me to listen to an unlimited number of books during any given time period? I don't care about owning the audiobook, so if it goes away when I cancel, that's no problem. Also, I'm just fine with being able to listen to only one book at a time, if that matters. It would be preferable to be able to load them to a device for offline listening (either Android or Windows), but if it was strictly streaming, I could deal with that. The reason that I ask is that after spending all day reading crap for work, I'm finding that I'm having increasing trouble at night with my eyes just not wanting to focus properly. I want to read, and my brain is up for processing the information, but my eyes are not cooperating, and I'd like to read for more than just work. I've also got an hour commute that books make much better. Lately, I've been checking out audiobook CDs from the local library, but I've been moving through them at 1-2 books per week and I'm fast running out of things they have available that I'd want to listen to. However, with Audible offering 1-2 books per month and then having to buy more from there, I'm thinking I would tear through the included credits and be spending quite a bit if I got Audible or a similar service. If that's the only option, I'm willing to do it, I was just wondering if an unlimited alternative exists.
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Jun 7, 2014 18:47
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Azathoth posted:Are there any audiobook services worth getting that would allow me to listen to an unlimited number of books during any given time period? When you say audio book CDs you mean physical copies? My library has a ton of titles online that I can check out and download through an app. I am also a member of surrounding libraries and do the same.
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Jun 8, 2014 00:27
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lady flash posted:When you say audio book CDs you mean physical copies? My library has a ton of titles online that I can check out and download through an app. I am also a member of surrounding libraries and do the same. I am in a rural area and although our library is part of a larger local system, their purchasing decisions in regards to speculative fiction tend to be very "lowest common denominator", which is why I am seeking out a pay service.
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Jun 8, 2014 01:58
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Why not try audible for a bit before tossing it out? The only other audio book service I know of is for disabled and e!dearly, and they used tapes and specialized in bodice rippers and Clive cussler.
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Jun 8, 2014 04:57
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Azathoth posted:Are there any audiobook services worth getting that would allow me to listen to an unlimited number of books during any given time period? You say spending more on Audible like it's a bad thing... I buy the "three extra credits" offer all the time and I make poo poo for money. At ~$13 per credit for almost every book they have, from a few hours to fifty hours; it will never not be worth it.
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Jun 8, 2014 05:09
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Azathoth posted:Are there any audiobook services worth getting that would allow me to listen to an unlimited number of books during any given time period? Is something like this more palatable? http://www.booksfree.com/rent-audio-books-on-cd-mp3.html
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Jun 8, 2014 05:23
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Kraps posted:Is something like this more palatable? http://www.booksfree.com/rent-audio-books-on-cd-mp3.html
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Jun 8, 2014 14:38
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Azathoth posted:My library has some available that way, though next to nothing they have available is of interest to me. For some reason, the SF/fantasy titles they have available tend to be in the "paranormal romance" or "urban fantasy" subgenre, and that holds little interest for me. I could listen to untold hours of hot, hot werewolf on vampire on mage sex or listen to mages and werewolves and vampires fight crime, but I'm poo poo outta luck if I want the more literate parts of speculative fiction. Tell your library staff to start stocking The Dresden Files and books by Micheal Connelly, stat. Also, the iphone and android devices have a free audiobook app where you have access to unedited recordings of horrible narrators working their way through public domain books (with options to pay a one-time fee of like $5 to have access to the edited versions of these audiobooks). I used that app for the longest time before breaking down and subscribing to Audible. I think it's literally titled "Free Audiobooks" with "Free Audiobooks Premium" being the one that gives you access to the edited books.
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Jun 9, 2014 12:23
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Azathoth posted:This is closer to what I was looking for, yes, but after seeing recommendations, I think that Audible is going to be the best option (once I start getting some 3 for 1 credits anyways). I appreciate the recommendations.
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Jun 10, 2014 05:34
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Sorry for double-post but: Your other option for being a cheap bastard is to pore through "podiobooks" which tend to be old podcasts where an author serialized their new books chapter-a-week style. I really enjoyed Seth Harwood's "Jack Wakes Up" (coked-out has-been action star runs into real criminals and has to scramble around trying to survive and make a buck,) and "A Long Way From Disney", and Scott Sigler's "Galactic Football League" (love this series even though I mostly didn't understand/enjoy American football until I began listening to it) along with some of his other stuff (which tends to lean toward gore-porn, imho), as well as the "Seventh Son" series by dude-I-forgot-and-don't-wanna-look-up (7 clones have to save the world from the guy they were cloned from, except he's fuckin' crazy and can body-snatch people!) I also recall one named "The Failed Cities Monologue" which was a pretty okay standalone in the vein of Dhalgren meets graphic novels, and another one I liked which was more of a Hitchhiker's Guide/Neverwhere thing named "The Chronicles of Salmon and Dusk", the first of which is 'How to Disappear Completely' (I am pretty sure the author wrote a couple and/or some short stories with the same characters as well.) Also "Crescent", which was a sci-fi/horror type thing which was pretty fun. Unfortunately a lot of these podcasts are years old and they may not be archived in a great format - I have listened to a couple on my phone's web browser, playing the audio track and then just avoiding letting the phone go to sleep mode or I'd lose my spot, for instance.. This one for instance, is for sale all over the web but it's totally floating around free in the ether: How to Succeed In Evil - a really sharp lawyer-for-the-archvillains gets fed up with everyone else being incompetent, and starts being a villain himself, with a dwarf sidekick and the whole nine yards. Gets pretty dark later in, and I don't remember how far I got because it was still in progress, I believe I listened to at least 20 chapters or more and it was one of the better super-people-in-tights things I've sat 'all the way through,' as it were. Pretty much everything in this post can be found, downloaded, and listened to with a little bit of googling and checking lovely author websites, itunes podcast archives, etc. I am pretty sure that there'a a lot of public domain stuff around as well - I know I downloaded The Lord of the Flies with a rather quality narration, for free in some podcast-serial format, as well as other older stuff. The downside to most of the indie authors' podcasts is that they sit around and jabber at the start/end of each episode (usually a static amount of time, or you'll get used to knowing when they're done for the episode and just hit Stop instead of listening to their latest trip to Comic Con). The good side of listening to the indie authors jabber is that they shill all the other authors trying to do the same thing, and you'll find a lot of stuff, some great, some cringingly awful.. I listened to a couple chapters of some superheroes-in-tights genre novel where everybody got packed onto death camp trains and the author narrated with the worst truckstop-waitress née chainsmoker cat-lady voice I'd ever heard.. If you're persistent you can often track down a free "abandonware-style" alternative (I've never had to :files: any of this) to find a lot of this stuff, but it's gonna take some  so chin up, buttercup. There are also of course a bunch of other podcasts which read short stories every week (old and new/indie) and serialized stuff coming out all the time. The podcast-author community was really tight-knit when I was listening to them instead of audible a few years ago but I'm sure there are tons of podcasts out there coming out with new stuff and shilling new authors who're giving away their books for free, every week. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 05:56
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coyo7e posted:Also keep in mind that any kindle books marked as whispersynch-ready mean you can buy the audio version for $3.99 if you own the kindle. I recently got into Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey and Matarin series and it's actually cheaper than my 1-cred-a-month plan to buy the kindle version and then the (apparently the newest, there are two on audible) version on audible in the correct sequence. Price varies and isn't always $3.99. Sometimes $12 or more. You can see what Kindle books you've already bought that have a discounted audiobook at https://www.amazon.com/gp/audible/matchmaker
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Jun 10, 2014 22:47
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Oh, weird. I was wondering because I thought I recalled that Whispersynch was originally like "the audio version will just be 5 bucks" but the Aubrey-Maturin ones seemed to all be 3.99. Super useful link for someone with as many ebooks as me though, thanks! 
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Jun 10, 2014 23:54
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Man, what is it with John Scalzi having so many of his books narrated by Wil Wheaton? That worked with Redshirts because of the layered metahumor, but I don't see him being that great with The Android's Dream or Agent to the Stars.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:03
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I enjoyed both well enough. They were pretty fun books.
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Jun 12, 2014 17:32
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Can anyone recommend any good nonfiction history audiobooks? I just finished Venice: A New History and The Last Gunfight (about the OK Corral) and found both fantastic. I commute for 45 minutes each way a couple of times a week and would prefer to listen to nice, unabridged history books than just waste my time with music. Ancient, Medieval, and the American West history are my primary areas of interest at the moment.
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Jun 13, 2014 04:30
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Actual books? Because the Great Courses lecture series are very interesting... Bob Brier - Egypt Garret G. Fagan - Rome, the Emperors Kenneth W. Harl - Mediterranean history, Viking history, Barbarian history, Byzantium, the Crusades Robert Garland - Greece & Rome, ancient daily life Rufus J. Fears - History from a literary perspective.
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Jun 13, 2014 05:49
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Technical question: does using anything other than 1x speed on the Audible app use more battery? That's the only explanation I can think of for why my iPod battery died with surprising speed yesterday.
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Jun 13, 2014 14:37
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Humble Bundle has their second audiobook bundle up https://www.humblebundle.com/books Pay what you want "The Perfect Storm" by Sebastian Junger "Strip Tease" by Carl Hiaasen (turned into the 1996 movie) "Red Rising" by Pierce Brown (first in a trilogy) "Grave Sight" by Charlaine Harris (first in the Harper Connolly series) "How Music Works" by David Byrne "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow "Hollow World" by Michael J. Sullivan $10 or more Tier "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk with others to come. Haven't bought it myself yet, but depending on what extra books come out, I may pick it up just for the Fight Club audiobook, also vaguely interested in Hollow World and Red Rising. Anyone heard these before? Are they any good?
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Jun 15, 2014 04:31
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I've read Red Rising and wanted to read Hollow world and this is cheaper than the book. Red Rising has some graphic things that happen gently caress trigger warnings but it has characters who hate the world and want to hurt the world as much it has hurt them.
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Jun 15, 2014 21:09
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Peas and Rice posted:Can anyone recommend any good nonfiction history audiobooks? I just finished Venice: A New History and The Last Gunfight (about the OK Corral) and found both fantastic. I commute for 45 minutes each way a couple of times a week and would prefer to listen to nice, unabridged history books than just waste my time with music. The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote Vols I, II and III. ~120 hrs of sitting in traffic and not noticing and "just one more minute" while sitting in the garage. Trust me, you didn't know you were this interested in the American Civil War.
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Jun 16, 2014 13:59
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I'm listening to Console Wars at work and Clash of Kings in the car/at home. Console Wars is very engaging and fun to listen to, I think even people who aren't into video games would enjoy it and the speaker does a great job with the voices. Clash of Kings on the other hand puts me to sleep when I'm at home which is actually a good thing because I really need help getting to sleep. Usually if I start a chapter at 9:00 I'll be asleep at 10:00, 9:30 if it's a Jon chapter. A really good book can be ruined by a bad/boring voice, I have never made it through "Bad Samaritans" because of that. edit: I should have read back a little bit because speeding up the playback on CoK sounds like a great idea. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Jun 16, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 15:17
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Kraps posted:Technical question: does using anything other than 1x speed on the Audible app use more battery? That's the only explanation I can think of for why my iPod battery died with surprising speed yesterday. 1) The reading speed was not the problem (dunno what it was) 2) Summer BOGO is here
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Jun 18, 2014 15:01
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I'm currently listening to John Dies at the End by David Wong. It's a reading I found on youtube by Capt. Black Friday (I stuck all the parts together into one playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxLjz781tQyi3oL5liQ7UMOYrUGgXqnE-). It's one of my favourite books, and it's nice to be able to listen to it for free (I ran out of credits on Audible earlier than planned this month). The reading is pretty good for an amateur, though his per-part intros get a little grating. Also, one of the recordings (somewhere around chapter 3) is broken, and he hasn't done any editing to take out the gaps where he turns the page. Outside of those tiny issues, I think overall it's a fun comedy horror that I've enjoyed going through again, and his voice and delivery are as good as some I've heard in more expensive productions. So if you're looking for something to listen to, and you like your comedy dark and interspersed with dick jokes, parody and surrealism, I recommend it.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:09
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I just listened to Jack Kerouac's Big Sur and the narrator Tom Parker did an amazing job with some difficult prose.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:17
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So I think I may have found a weird little exploit in the Audible Whispersync system. If your library offers free Kindle book downloads through Overdrive, Audible will detect this digital loan as owning the book for the purposes of the Whispersync discount. I just loaded up on Joe R Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series (which I highly recommend for fans of bantering Southern asskickers solving crimes) and Richard Stark's Parker books for $2.99 each. Obviously, this trick is limited by the digital selection of your local library, but it's still pretty loving cool. Lumbermouth fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 23:25
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^^^ that's cool, I think it may only account for people with actual kindle devices registered though? Because I've got the kindle reader installed on everything I owwn and still can't access the lending library, nor have I noticed "freebie" whispersynch discounts for books I haven't purchased on my own. I did recently buy an audible book on credit, then return it. buy it on kindle, and then whispersynch discount on audible for less than the price of a credit though..  Death of Rats posted:I'm currently listening to John Dies at the End by David Wong. It's a reading I found on youtube by Capt. Black Friday (I stuck all the parts together into one playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxLjz781tQyi3oL5liQ7UMOYrUGgXqnE-).
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Jun 21, 2014 02:51
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The Goblin Emperor is on Audible, it's pretty great.
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Jun 29, 2014 04:59
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Authorman posted:There's always A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, I remember liking that audiobook. Thanks but this went back into comedy within the first like, 5 minutes. I don't want to listen to one city dude's hilarious foibles, I want to hear about the majesty and/or history of the wild. Like I said I grew up on Patrick McManus and Dave Barry and would rather watch reruns of Home Improvement than hear the hilarious misadventures of a white guy in the woods - that's what I'm out there for. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 07:10
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coyo7e posted:I'd really recommend trying the professional audiobook version instead of some questionably legal youtube recording. It was the first laugh-out-loud funny book I've read or listened to in many years. Although it was mostly bcacuse of the cringingly dumb poo poo like John's wrestling puns during a certain scene involving folding chairs, among others.. Yeah, the guy doing the narration on Audible really gets into John's dialog, it's great. EDIT: I also liked that narrator's version of Camel Holocaust better than what we got in the movie.
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Jul 7, 2014 12:02
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The chat room scene is hilarious as an audiobook.
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Jul 7, 2014 14:47
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mastajake posted:The chat room scene is hilarious as an audiobook. Oh yeah, I forgot that bit. Wish they'd kept the same narrator between John Dies At The End and This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously dude, don't touch it!
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Jul 7, 2014 16:08
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My latest listens: The First Law Trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie, read by Stephen Pacey. I cannot recommend this enough - not only are the books great, but the reading is absolutely sublime. Pacey brings characters such as Glokta to life in such a way that it makes them more memorable and vivid than even a tv show or a movie. This guy is hands down THE best audiobook reader I've experienced. Haven't listened to anything else read by him, but I can't imagine it being anything other than top notch. Fiendish Schemes, by KW Jeter. Absolutely adored the first book in the series (Infernal Devices), apparently the occasion Jeter coined the term "steampunk", and I'm loving Fiendish Schemes, which is the sequel. But I absolutely LOATHE miss Eyre from Brilliance Audio's delivery. She's always speaking in a low, throaty whisper, which not only is difficult to hear in an environment that's a little noisier, but irritating as hell given the fact that it barely fluctuates to indicate mood or situation. I'm happy to report that either I developed immunity to it or the reader did improve by degrees... still doesn't compare to the gentleman who read Infernal Devices (can't recall his name). Either way, I wholeheartedly recommend both books - they're loosely connected - as early (I think first!) examples of steampunk, even though that description's a little misleading: the books are comical ones, featuring a bumbling protagonist and juicy, victorian-like witty dialogue that'll have you in stitches occasionally. I'm even more excited to find out that Jeter's penned a number of official Blade Runner book sequels, and I'm really hoping to find those in audio format, too. P.S. Check out that cover! Yum. 
Mr Underhill fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 13:24
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Does anyone have any experience with audible's magazine section? I recently got into the audio version of the economist and it is quite well done, but done by the economist it self. I was leaning to trying The New Yorker not really sure on the quality.
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Jul 11, 2014 21:37
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