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Holy poo poo hearing Naked Lunch read by the author is an experience.
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Jun 26, 2009 23:44
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Philosopher King posted:I'm going on a trip tomorrow. Unfortunately my local bookstores did not have Snow Crash, Alas Babylon, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, or Jennifer Government. So I am down to either World War Z or I am America and so can you, or anything else anyone might like to recommend. If you have not read World War Z, definitely grab that. It's a must read. You may want to pick up another book as you will burn through the 300 some odd pages FAST. It's not that it's short, but it's just THAT good.
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Jun 28, 2009 21:28
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Proffessor Rapeface posted:Holy poo poo hearing Naked Lunch read by the author is an experience. Not to mention impossible to understand what he is slurring on about. Like paying a drunken whino to read a book out loud for you. But it is an experience.
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Jun 28, 2009 22:26
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King Plum the Nth posted:What makes or breaks an audiobook for me is less the book but the performance. Fueled by my recent infatuation by the Dexter books, I tried to listen to them as audibooks but found I couldn't because they aren't read by Michael C. Hall. I am opposed to abridgments but my own new recommendation is, actually and abridgment. Just bumping this thread because I've been really getting into audiobooks recently and I agree with this 100%. Whether or not I listen to an audiobook often depends on who the reader is and whether there is anything noteworthy about their reading. I would kill  to hear Michael C. Hall read Dexter, because it would be a great 'bridge' between the books and the series.On that note, I'm currently really enjoying Brideshead Revisited as read by Jeremy Irons. I don't know how many here are at all interested in Evelyn Waugh's books, but Irons' performance was one of the (many) things I loved about the original 1981 miniseries...and it's also quite funny to hear him doing Anthony Blanche's lines. Roybot posted:I haven't listened to any audiobooks in years, but Lolita read by Jeremy Irons is pretty awesome. Well...  Now I know what I'll be listening to next.
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Jul 25, 2009 10:12
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I just listened to A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. The voice actor was in the Pirates of the Carribean movies, and I'm pretty sure he did nearly every single voice for the video game 'Fable', good stuff. It's like, whenever he does a character's voice, his voice is just the snarky protagonist imitating that character.
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Jul 25, 2009 19:37
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Agile Sumo posted:World War Z I thoroughly enjoyed this as well!
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Jul 28, 2009 17:22
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I just recently got into audiobooks. They're great for the morning/evening commute. Makes being stuck in traffic much more tolerable. I started with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy read by Stephen Fry, which was really entertaining. I started The Road, and I'm almost done it. I wanted to "read" the book before the movie was released. It's really depressing, but I don't mind. I also have Fight Club queued up, and also Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. I've downloaded a few other Asimov audiobooks and I've been really disappointed in the quality of the audio. I guess they were ripped from old cassette tapes and never remastered. Apparently, though, the Foundation trilogy has been re-released so it sounds really good from what I can tell, just skimming through it. I personally can't stand ones that are dramatized. I got a LOTR one and deleted it immediately. Another book I own but could never get around to finish reading was The Dispossessed, but the audiobook version was also dramatized. Ugh. I plan on getting some William Gibson books next. God drat, it's way more fun to listen to audiobooks in your car rather than music.
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Sep 25, 2009 23:25
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Man, I'm happy to see this thread crack the first page again; I have an unholy love for audiobooks. Nick Cave's new book The Death of Bunny Munro is both really brilliant and has a whole new kind of multimedia support -- an iPhone/iPod touch app that includes Cave's reading of is own book synchronized with the text and a soundtrack and video. If the audio book is the same as the audo track in this app, it's still totally worth it. Cave's reading is perfect, the book is wild, it's a treat all around. Finishing Bunny I moved on to Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road. It's a quick, fun, smart read on its own but the audio book has the benefit of being read by Andre Braugher whose voice is liquid; it pours into your ears, carrying the fine prose along with it, and makes you warm and happy from the brain out. I was enjoying the book as it was but the audio is brilliant accompaniment. It's cheap-ish too! Only about $15 from iTunes.
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Sep 27, 2009 05:21
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As mentioned earlier, it's well worth listening to Neil Gaiman's novels and stories on audiobook format, especially when the author is reading them. Have a hunt for his reading of fragile things if you're new to him. While much of it is difficult to find, I'd also recommend looking for Christopher Brookmyre's work in audio format, if for no other reason than to hear the Glaswegian vernacular, which loses a little something when transcribed to the page. It also hightens his humour a fair bit. Richard Dawkins is a good reader of his own material, and it becomes much clearer when he is exercising his dry wit as he says things aloud, something that can sometimes be lost in writing as delibarate offensiveness (especially in the case of The God Delusion). He reading of On the Origin of Species is also masterful. I was glad to be introduced to Kurt Vonnegut's work via audiobook, in Stanly Tucci's reading of Breakfast of Champions, the laconic and detached manner of which perfectly suited the tone of the prose. Finally, nothing so far has supassed Wayne June's harboiled tones in his readings of H.P. Lovecraft. The matter of fact intonation belied an undercurrent of threat, which was wisely left isolated after being spoiled by corny audio effects and music in the earlier volumes of his audiobooks. That said, his voice still managed to elevate them to brilliant effect. And a warning about the otherwise superb production of World War Z, the book was quite noticably abridged for the audio version, dropping approximately a quarter of the content, which is a real shame.
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Sep 27, 2009 21:55
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Paste posted:I just listened to A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I think I have that version. It's a horrorshow book to slooshy, what with all the Nadsat slovos and all that cal.
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Sep 28, 2009 03:23
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Glad this thread is here  I used to really think Audiobooks were sort of "handicapped man's novel" for those too thick or too easily distracted to handle a novel (it probably doesn't help that one of my cousins is actually mentally inhibited and as such relies on audiobooks to get through novels), but it's now come to my attention really just how much time I could be spending hearing fiction when I can't actually be holding a novel as easily. Exercising, working, driving, that sort of thing.I will probably be checking out several of the audiobooks mentioned in here in the future!
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Oct 18, 2009 20:25
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For all of you people bitching that The Wheel of Time is too long/too hard to read, (because of all the skirt-smoothing, etc.,) I find that the audiobooks by Michel Kramer and Kate Reading are an easy way to enjoy the books (not to mention figuring out how to pronounce some of the names in those book).
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Oct 19, 2009 16:43
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Nosy_G posted:For all of you people bitching that The Wheel of Time is too long/too hard to read, (because of all the skirt-smoothing, etc.,) I find that the audiobooks by Michel Kramer and Kate Reading are an easy way to enjoy the books (not to mention figuring out how to pronounce some of the names in those book). Anyone complaining that TWoT is too hard to read has never picked up the War of Light and Shadow series by Janny Wurts.  Not sure if I've mentioned them before or not, but I'm really loving the Dresden Files audiobooks as read by James Marsters (Spike from Buffy) - his voice really suits Harry Dresden well. I tried the first Sookie Stackhouse audiobook narrated by Johanna Parker and couldn't really get into it - I don't know whether it was her voice or just the accent she put on for it, but it really just started grating on me after a while. If you are a fan of How I Met Your Mother, then its pretty much a must to pick up the audio version of The Bro Code - its read by Neil Patrick Harris and is a good way to pass a couple of hours.
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Oct 19, 2009 19:31
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John Hodgman's book "More Information Then Required" was recently released, it was a hilarious book to read, but I found it a little tough to get through. Narrated by John Hodgman, Dick Cavett, Jonathan Coulton, Zach Galifianakis, Ricky Gervais, Ira Glass, Robin Goldwasser, Rachel Maddow If that wasn't an auto-sell, this was how the book was meant to be enjoyed, John Hodgman and other funny people reading it TO you. It also has some pretty great parts that weren't in the book, Paul Rudd begins reading the book, until John Hodgman and Jonathan Coulton enter, argue with him a bit and take over. CharlesWillisMaddox fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Nov 5, 2009 |
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Nov 5, 2009 05:17
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CharlesWillisMaddox posted:John Hodgman's book "More Information Then Required" was recently released, it was a hilarious book to read, but I found it a little tough to get through. Oh god, I've been waiting for it to come out in audiobook ever since I finished the first one, "The Areas of My Expertise." Jonathan Coulton singing little songs about the 51 states was amazing, though the hobo names were drawn out a little long. Can't wait to see how this one shapes up!
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Nov 6, 2009 04:53
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A Scanner Darkly read by Paul Giamatti is great.
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Nov 7, 2009 05:18
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I haven't listen to very many audiobooks, but I agree that David Sedaris is amazing in audiobook form. I also really enjoyed listening to Dreams of My Father written and read by Barack Obama. Unfortunately, it was an abridged version, but I enjoyed listening to him read about his own life. It was also fun to hear the current president do voices (including a Nigerian accent and a more "urban" accent) and even swear.
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Nov 7, 2009 09:23
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MrGreenShirt posted:Oh god, I've been waiting for it to come out in audiobook ever since I finished the first one, "The Areas of My Expertise." Jonathan Coulton singing little songs about the 51 states was amazing, though the hobo names were drawn out a little long. Can't wait to see how this one shapes up! I haven't even thought of checking for his other books, I must go do this. I'm half way through it (listening at work) and there have been a couple times I laughed out loud. "For this next part, wake your children up. Its important. I'll wait...... hello children. Stop fidgeting." Jonathan Coulton also sings little ditties throughout.
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Nov 7, 2009 14:32
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It is an absolute crime that Terry Pratchett's Discworld books haven't gotten more love here. Audible carries what I believe is the complete collection, and the narration is almost uniformly superb. Night Watch and Small Gods are particularly well-done. I'm about 75% of the way through Lev Grossman's The Magicians on audio, and I cannot imagine experiencing this story any other way. The narrator perfectly evokes Quentin's state of mind and makes you feel with him, turning what would, on paper, feel like whiny teenage angst into the emotional equivalent of sucking chest wounds for the listener. A superb reading. Peter Watts' Blindsight is not an easy listen, but it's worth it. This is one of the best hard sci-fi novels - and probably one of the best novels period - in years, but it is dense and twisting, almost hallucinatory in places, and it would unquestionably be easier to grok if it were read rather than listened to. That said, the narration is fantastic, and given that it's a book you'll want to read at least twice, I can recommend the audio version without hesitation. I'm still up in the air on whether it's best to listen to it before reading it or read it before listening to it, but it's worth your time either way.
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Nov 7, 2009 19:58
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Jack McDevitt's book series on Alex Benedict, including Polaris, the Devil's Eye, Seeker etc. are all very good in audiobook when Jennifer Van Dyck reads them. She has a great voice and delivery, and the books lend themselves to listening to someone talk about what was going on, since they are written in a memoir style. Think basically Indiana Jones in space, for profit, in the far future.
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Nov 8, 2009 03:35
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Woofwoof posted:Also, for those of you on a budget, there are plenty of free audiobooks out there that have taken on the moniker, "podiobooks" that range from really, really bad, to kind of bad but not so much because they're free.  The rest of Scott Sigler's stuff is far more palatable, although he tends to get pretty ridiculously bombastic with his presentation.. He's got a lot of fans and he panders/showboats for them mercilessly - I tend to fast-forward through the beginning and end of most of his podcasts. A lot of his books are really very good, although the cow-sharks in one of his story were pretty  MindSet posted:What about other 'high fantasy' type audiobooks? Stuff similar to A Song of Ice and Fire or Malazan Book of the Fallen? I've got plenty of print handy but I've found myself looking for something to listen to at work recently, and the Malazan series appears to lack an audio version. The free "general" fiction (and scifi) stuff you find on iTunes tends to be a lot better and more professionally produced, but some of the fantasy stuff is really painfully bad, and the voice acting doesn't do the mediocre writing any favors. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Nov 9, 2009 |
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Nov 9, 2009 18:53
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Kestral posted:It is an absolute crime that Terry Pratchett's Discworld books haven't gotten more love here. Audible carries what I believe is the complete collection, and the narration is almost uniformly superb. Night Watch and Small Gods are particularly well-done. I've listened to roughly 15 of the Discworld books, and they are very well done. Nigel Planer does a fantastic job. However, the girl they got to do Equal Rights is horrible. She lacks comedic timing and is just plain boring. I couldn't make it through any of the books she reads. Stephen Briggs does a great job too, just takes a bit to get used to his voices for ones already established by Nigel. It's like when you're young and one of your parents does the voices all wrong. I love audio books because it makes me feel like 5 year old 
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Nov 30, 2009 16:57
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So, is Audible everyone's favorite site to download books from? And am I correct in that you only get one a month--or is that one at a time?
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Dec 1, 2009 02:02
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timeandtide posted:So, is Audible everyone's favorite site to download books from? And am I correct in that you only get one a month--or is that one at a time? You can buy them with cash (crazy talk) or get one of the subscription plans. For $15/mo you can get 1 book, and for $23/mo you can get two. Which is a shitton cheaper than just buying them as you want them. I recently upped my subscription to the platinum 2 books a month. I believe that https://www.audible.com/twit2 has a promotion if you're a first time subscriber and you go for the platinum plan you get two free books. I'd just do this, and after if you only wanted one book a month just downgrade or cancel. Edit: You buy them. Even if you cancel/max out your credit card and don't pay, you can still access your books. Though one thing to look out for is to make sure your MP3 player supports audible.
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Dec 1, 2009 02:11
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The General posted:Though one thing to look out for is to make sure your MP3 player supports audible. Edit: For other AudioBooks sites, Podiobooks.com has a bunch of free audiobooks, they release them chapter by chapter though, which may or may not be your thing. The quality is very hit and miss too. Tornhelm fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Dec 1, 2009 |
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Dec 1, 2009 09:04
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Tornhelm posted:That isn't so much of an issue - it takes a fair bit of fiddling and googling to set it up, but you *can* convert audible files to mp3 fairly painlessly. I use it on my Win7 computer when I want to listen to audiobooks on my old Sony Walkman NW-HD1 - which is what I use on my motorcycle when I don't want to risk my iPhone. It is a pretty big issue when your laptop can hardly run MSN, firefox and iTunes at the same time. The processing power to turn Audible into MP3 is pretty significant and would mean hours where I couldn't use it. Then there's the issue if your MP3 player sucks (as it probably does if it doens't support Audible) that you end up with 8 hour MP3 files that you can't bookmark or quickly navigate large lengths of time (gently caress you Sansa). But you are right, just tossing it out there.
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Dec 1, 2009 11:16
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The General posted:It is a pretty big issue when your laptop can hardly run MSN, firefox and iTunes at the same time. The processing power to turn Audible into MP3 is pretty significant and would mean hours where I couldn't use it. Then there's the issue if your MP3 player sucks (as it probably does if it doens't support Audible) that you end up with 8 hour MP3 files that you can't bookmark or quickly navigate large lengths of time (gently caress you Sansa). Not really, if your laptop is slow its just an issue of time. On my current PC it took about 5 minutes to convert the latest Wheel of Time and that was 4 parts. Audible files are pretty much just wrapped mp3's anyway so it isn't actually that problematic.
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Dec 1, 2009 14:42
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It would probably be a better playback experience if you just pick up a cheap iPod shuffle: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipod?mco=MTM3NDY2NTg $40-$60 refurbished, and they would support resuming/bookmarking, be able to sync back to iTunes for resuming on computers/iPhones/whatever else.
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Dec 1, 2009 16:56
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So I don't list off too many books I have, I'll just go by some of my favorite narrators. Ian Stuart is amazing, and so very commanding-stuffy british. His reading of John Keegan's A History of Warfare is good, but what sealed the deal was what he did with Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August. My god, that voice. Simon Prebble, another british gem, has narrated things like Keegan's Intelligence in War or the majority of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver is incredibly laid-back sounding, and his range of narrative voices is astounding. Simon Vance does stuff on his own, but also does stuff for Audio Renaissance as well (notably the Dune series they've put out.) In particular, he does a wonderful job on Justin Pollard's Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern Mind. John Curlis is an upbeat-yet-snooty narrator, who works marvels with Anthony Everitt's Augustus. If you're a young whippersnapper and aren't familiar with the BBC's televised version of James Herriot's exploits as a veterinary surgeon, do yourself a favor and go watch them. The narrator of all the audiobooks of these is the actor who played Herriot, Christopher Timothy. 
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Dec 1, 2009 18:47
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Tanith posted:If you're a young whippersnapper and aren't familiar with the BBC's televised version of James Herriot's exploits as a veterinary surgeon, do yourself a favor and go watch them. The narrator of all the audiobooks of these is the actor who played Herriot, Christopher Timothy. A friend recommended All Creatures Great and Small to me, and I was pleasently surpised. I was expecting to hate/not get it as I'm a huge city boy. But god drat, that book is hilarious. Highly recommended.
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Dec 1, 2009 19:53
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Does anyone have a preference between Booksfree and Audible? Seems like Booksfree is cheaper but I'm not sure what their turnaround/shipping times are like. Also if I rent a CD audiobook from them can I rip it myself to mp3?
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Jan 19, 2010 20:03
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I love the reading of: William Dufris George Guidall Tom Stechschulte Dufris is pretty hilarious because he sounds like a complete smartass and does voices. The female voices are across the board hilarious. He reads a lot of SF. Guidall sounds grumpy and I love it. I hate the reading of: Richard Ferrone Ilyana Kadushin Neil Gaiman Ferrone sounds like a villain from a 1980s cartoon. He would be great in a cast of readers but his voice alone can ruin any audiobook. Gaimain sounds like a stereotypical limp-wristed Hugh Grant fop. I like his writing but don't care for his reading at all. Scott Brick is totally hit or miss. He reads a lot of books I like but sometimes he tries to convey too much emotion in his reading. I listened to Tracy Morgan's book I Am the New Black read by Morgan. This was the craziest audiobook I have listened to. I don't think he read anything at all, the whole thing sounded like conversation. I listened to Ender's Game read by a cast of voice actors and it was pretty annoying. The woman's voice was terrible. I read Anathem by Neal Stephenson and listened to the audiobok at the same time. This was something I don't think I would try to do again. Too much looking through the book to find my place and too much FF and REW on the mp3 player. Rant by Chuck Palahniuk was EXCELLENT with a cast approach. Paul Michael Garcia has read a couple of CP books and they were both pretty awesome with his voice. Survivor and Pygmy I think. PBCrunch fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Jan 20, 2010 |
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Jan 20, 2010 02:01
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Mood posted:I forget who it was, but there was an unabriged Neuromancer audiobook that was fantastic. Really? My first audiobook was (abridged ver.) Neuromancer, and I thought it was read by Gibson himself. Maybe I was mistaken? It had that one band, you know, Bono and the Edge etc. doing part of the musical backdrop -- and in the 80s, they were pretty "cutting edge" I should mention. The reader sounded like a real stoner, but it fit really well. My audio copy remains one of my favorite books, and was sort of like a comfort food to me. I've almost memorized it, I love it so much. I'm currently listening to "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Gibbon every other night at the gym. I'm very grateful to Librivox for making that possible, as I might have never taken the plunge and started such a series otherwise. Now I feel like I might have to read the text as well, it's so good.
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Jan 27, 2010 10:40
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I forgot, Librivox has the first three of the immortal classics (cough) of the "John Carter of Mars" series also. For a crash course in pulp and the roots of space opera, it's a must-read. The reader quality is appropriate to the material, and the poor readers often can't handle the vocab, but it's still a great intro to the garish, low-res world that's provided inspiration for the art of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo, not to mention much comparatively literary artists like Leigh Brackett and the whole Star Wars series. The visual scene of Princess Leia, captive to Jabba the Hut, is lifted straight out of the John Carter of Mars series, except her outfit is more skimpy in Burroughs' version. I hear that this series will be adapted to film next summer. I will no doubt watch it at some point.
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Jan 27, 2010 11:12
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I don't know why I never thought of it already, but Jack palms Crime novels are really great. They're from an indy author who wrote the books as he went and put them online as podcasts/audiobooks for free, and ended up with enough of a following that he took his fan numbers to a publisher and got his books put in print.    (I've yet to read the "Young Junius" stuff, they're based on a character in his other novels who became a much-demanded fan-favorite.) They're fun and the protagonist is kind of a failed Jason Statham-type action star with all kinds of problems, who ends up getting mixed up with some bad, bad people. They're really fun, wild rides and there's a pretty satisfying character progression throughout the books as the protagonist gets his poo poo together and has it fall apart again from time to time. Everything's narrated by the author with (sometimes) voicework help from his friends and family (it's almost all of very acceptable quality). The author himself has an easy-to-listen-to voice and you can really hear him getting into his own work. Also he's got a series of short vignettes named "A Long Way From Disney" which are really poignant cross-sections the life of a boy who grows into a man. They're not told in sequential order but they can sometimes make your heart ache. All available here for free, "Jack Wakes Up" is the first book in the series: http://sethharwood.com/jack-wakes-up This reminds me, I wouldn't mind listening to all of those books again - I've already heard most of them twice! coyo7e fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 28, 2010 |
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Jan 28, 2010 22:50
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SnakePlissken posted:Really? My first audiobook was (abridged ver.) Neuromancer, and I thought it was read by Gibson himself. Maybe I was mistaken? It had that one band, you know, Bono and the Edge etc. doing part of the musical backdrop -- and in the 80s, they were pretty "cutting edge" I should mention. The reader sounded like a real stoner, Yeah, Gibson read the abridged version, and that band you're talking about sounds like one called U2, it might be them maybe.
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Jan 28, 2010 23:02
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SaviourX posted:Yeah, Gibson read the abridged version, and that band you're talking about sounds like one called U2, it might be them maybe. Sounds like?! Oh, you kids today.
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Jan 30, 2010 12:37
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I'm 28. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, so I went with it.
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Jan 31, 2010 12:00
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Just finished Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns, read by Tom Parker. It wasn't a great novel but I think listening to it added something to it. The narrator sounded like a good old southern gentleman and that worked for it, as it took place in Georgia in 1906. I probably never would have otherwise read it except that my local library happened to have it on MP3 CD, so I didn't have to deal with changing out CDs all the time. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes the south. Starting Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, read by Donada Peters. I wouldn't recommend it. The narrators voice is too lilting and the story is only interesting if you find gothic literature hilarious to make fun of.
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Feb 1, 2010 04:52
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SaviourX posted:I'm 28. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, so I went with it. Sorry. I couldn't remember the name of the band at the moment. So I was only partly joking. Not a big U2 fan, really. Thanks for confirming that he read it. Gibson has moments of prose in this novel, like most of them actually, that stand above the entire book, and to hear them in his own voice really does it for me. Better than porn. He has so many faults as a writer I could ridicule him to death, but when finished I still love him as he was a peculiar voice for my generation. The Gibson posted:The shuriken had always fascinated ::Nostalgic Emoticon
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Feb 1, 2010 09:34
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