Audiobooks: when you're too busy to read

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Audiobooks: when you're too busy to read

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

I know with some podcast apps, there's an option to cut out a lot of the pauses in speech and decrease the playtime without speeding up the spoken words.

Does the Audible app have a way to do this, or is there an audiobook app which allows this? All I can see with the Audible app is a way to increase the speed of everything, including the spoken words, which I tried but don't really like (it also didn't decrease the playtime at all :confused:

)

I'm currently listening to Bad Astronomy, which is a great book, but the narrator is a pretty slow speaker with a lot of pauses between sentences, and I'm getting frustrated at times wanting him to just get on with it.

Enfys fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Aug 21, 2016

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 21:36

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:48

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

ShoogaSlim posted:

I've moved 7 times in the last 6 years. Every single time I end up in a new place I ask myself why the gently caress I still have so many physical books (the majority of which I've actually never opened)?

I've finally convinced myself this year to really start downsizing my bookshelves. There are a lot of books that I had that I enjoyed reading, but realistically I was never going to read them again. There were also a lot of books that I had hauled around for nearly a decade because I was totally going to read them someday...

Making use of my local library and audiobooks a lot more now, and it's pretty freeing.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2016 21:12

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:

If you're still not sold on audiobooks, Audible's having a sale right now with a bunch of titles marked down to two or three bucks. Not all of them have the best audio ( some of it is noticeably dated ), but the price is right. I picked up The Road, All Quiet On The Western Front, and a lecture by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

How do you find the sale books? I just had a browse around the home page but can't find any link to them.

Edit: nevermind, think I found it - the anniversary sale.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2016 21:29

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Mister Macys posted:

New Audible bennies if you're an Amazon Prime member:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/14/audible-offers-free-channels-audio-books-amazon-prime-members/

This sounds pretty great, but I cannot figure out how to access the free audiobooks. I'm not too interested in the short readings on the channels, but I'd like to see what books are offered.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2016 17:12

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Are there other places to pick up audiobooks besides Audible? I'm really getting into listening to them now and picked up a bunch in the last sale, but I'm not a big fan of subscription services.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2016 12:02

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

I have been listening to The Girl with All the Gifts. Good story, and the narrator's great. Has a different vocal range and style for the different characters which lend to their personality in the story. Haven't seen the movie, but it's a good listen.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 11:44

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

I thought the last 2 for 1 sale was pretty good and picked up some interesting books, but this one seems pretty underwhelming.

# ¿ Dec 26, 2016 17:59

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Colleen McCullough's Rome series is great, though I've only read the physical copies so not sure how good the audio versions are.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 07:12

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Rocksicles posted:

Anyone recommend anything with hitmen/assassins/spy stuff, that's not romance related?

Been listening to a lot of space opera and it's time for something else.

Audible has a mystery/thriller sale on right now which might have something of interest to you

# ¿ Feb 6, 2018 15:51

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

The_Other posted:

Seconding the Great Courses series. I work in a public library and we have several shelves of these. The most popular ones seem to the lectures on music (especially the ones by Robert Greenberg, who seems to have done about 90% of the music series).

Robert Greenberg is fantastic.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2019 23:45

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

I really like the Caroline Alexander translation of the Iliad, narrated by Dominic Keating.

Also has one of my favourite negative reviews:

# ¿ Jun 4, 2019 12:58

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

NikkolasKing posted:

Reading philosophy really got me in the mood for some Homer and I was really uncertain which version to get.

Then I found the one read by goddam Ian McKellen.

Does anybody have any other suggestions like which Iliad to read? Translation seems to be abig thing for people.

Did you end up enjoying this btw? Based on the sample, it sounds like it Ian McKellen recorded it in a public bathroom with a crappy phone mic. Lots of the reviews complain about the production quality issues and skipping as well.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2019 20:43

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

rectal_prolapse posted:

the UK distributor stopped selling the beloved Terry Pratchett novel in the US

they what

# ¿ Jan 30, 2020 21:24

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Lordshmee posted:

I just finished Other Minds by
Peter Godfrey-Smith. It�s a self-described philosophy book but goes into quite a bit about the evolution and behavior of cephalopods with emphasis on their minds. I liked it and the narration was good.

I really enjoyed listening to this as well

# ¿ Dec 10, 2020 23:51

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

If you listen to the trilogy, you're going to hear so many songs.

It's especially fun if you listen to them at a faster playback speed, so the narrator's attempts to carry a tune get even more garbled.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 14:26

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Lordshmee posted:

The Lord of the Rings is the only series of books I�ve ever encountered that I can�t get through either reading or listening to. They are intensely boring. It makes me sad because all of my friends read them as kids and love them, I adored the movies... I want to like them but simply cannot.

I devoured them as a kid and have tried to re-read them a few times as an adult and always stall out at some point.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2021 11:21

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

I recently listened to Confident Women by Tori Telfer.

It's about conwomen, grifters and swindlers and it's pretty fascinating if a bit shallow in places.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2022 12:41

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Does anyone have any recommendations for good spooky/scary audiobooks?

# ¿ Sep 20, 2022 10:38

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone!

Tea Bone posted:

The Cabin at the End of the World - Home invasion/Apocolypse
Survivor Song - Zombies/Pandemic. (This one came out in the late summer of 2020 but was written in 2019, it's eery how well he nails the air of the early pandemic)

I finished Survivor Song today and have now started Cabin at the End of the World.

I needed to know what was going to happen, so I stayed up late the past couple nights listening in the dark. It was a great and very atmospheric experience, would recommend.

I'm really looking forward to other suggestions here.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2022 19:50

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Head Full of Ghosts is absolutely harrowing in ways I did not predict.

I feel like that's one that's going to stick with me for a long time. Really great recommendation but I'm going to go for something light for my next book before dipping back into spooky month selections.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2022 11:57

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

MeatwadIsGod posted:

Anybody ever had an Audible title you've purchased with a credit that's locked in the app so you can't download or play it? I know this happens with Audible Plus titles when they're removed from the Plus catalog, but I've never had this happen to titles I've purchased with a credit, and as of now there's like 5 books I've paid for that are locked.

There's a glitch where that's happening to a lot of people, but logging out and back into your account fixes it for most, or logging into the browser instead of the app.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2023 14:03

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

# ¿ Feb 17, 2024 09:46

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

I have started avoiding ensemble versions of audiobooks in general because the sound effects are often so loud and distracting, taking away from the narrative rather than adding to it (haven't listened to the Dune one, just a general comment).

# ¿ Mar 1, 2024 12:29

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Armauk posted:

Read his narration of "American War."

Long waiting list for The Wager but this was available; thanks for the rec

# ¿ Mar 10, 2024 12:41

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Demon Copperhead is really good

# ¿ Apr 9, 2024 21:47

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

Armauk posted:

What did you like about it?

I'm only a bit over halfway through it (it's nearly 22 hours), but I'm coming up with excuses to listen to it here and there as often as possible now. I walked for an extra hour today because I wanted to keep listening.

The narrative coming of age structure is well suited to an audiobook; the writing is a combination of humourous, heart-breaking, and biting social satire; and the narrator does an amazing job at breathing life into the performance.

If you have read David Copperfield, the general plot beats won't be a surprise, but it somehow manages to be a unique story of its own.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2024 19:58

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:48

Enfys: Feb 17, 2013; The ocean is calling and I must go

The man called M posted:

Going through the Penguin version of the Night Watch stories in Discworld. Are there any other audiobooks that aren�t Discworld where the narrator does different voices for the characters well?

Fantasy/sci-fi, in case you want a genre.

"American War" narrated by Dion Graham. I listened to it after it was recommended earlier this page (still waiting on The Wager), and he's an incredible narrator. The book is more dystopia than sci fi though.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 07:58

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Audiobooks: when you're too busy to read