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

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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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. :swoon:

# ¿ Dec 1, 2009 18:47

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:17

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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anachrodragon posted:

How is Cryptonomicon as an audiobook? I've wanted my husband to check it out for a while, but he has little enough time to read these days, and it's a loving huge book.

Actually neither of us reads much currently, but we do spend a lot of time listening to the radio and streaming poo poo for our entertainment, so I think audio books might be a good fit for the time being.

Scott Brick. Need I say more? Unfortunately the only audio version I've found is abridged, but it's still worth listening to. It skips over most of Stephenson's huge tangents (PAGES UPON PAGES OF ANCIENT SUMERIAN MYTHOLOGY IN SNOW CRASH I'M LOOKING AT YOU) and is still entertaining.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2010 11:34

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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PBCrunch posted:

Brick seems like the wrong reader for that story. Stephenson's books cry out for a nerdy smartass reader like William Dufris (who read the audiobook version of Anathem).

Dufris' comes off as monotone and singularly uninspired in his rendition of Anathem, and I was honestly not that interested in the book. If it were a narrator I already really, really like, I'd have given it a second chance, but I just got bored. Simon Prebble can at least make parts of an abridged version of Quicksilver interesting, but it just drags on and on and I eventually lose momentum.

Brick can be smarmy when he wants to, but he really shines at capturing the general cluelessness and normalcy of both generations of the Waterhouse family.

Now Jonathan Davis' reading of Snow Crash is nerdy, smartass and one of the most inspired things I've listened to.

---

Since it seems like something I cannot shut up about, you all owe it to yourself to go and find John Telfer's narration of the complete Sherlock Holmes. He is without a doubt the best narrator I have heard who captures Holmes' enthusiasm and airiness and can also switch over in an instant to a skeptical Watson. He is GENIUS.

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Since all of us end up spending entirely too much time in vehicles going one place or another, I highly recommend Barbara Rosenblat's narration of Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax series. They are campy fun that's far more dignified than say, Clive Cussler, but are still generally bad books. The narration saves them, and Rosenblat's rendition of an elderly woman turned CIA spy is excellent.

I listen to too many audiobooks.

Tanith fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Mar 31, 2010

# ¿ Mar 31, 2010 10:19

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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PBCrunch posted:

The Jonathan Davis from Korn or another one?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1586211137/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

I have no idea. v :shobon:

# ¿ Mar 31, 2010 22:47

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jeeves posted:

I have been listening to the 2007 "full cast" version of Dune. I have not read the book in forever, and in the last 10 years have only really known Dune as the lovely David Lynch version and shittier-but-more-faithful Sci-Fi miniseries, so I had forgotten how good the actual text is.

This full cast version is pretty good, and they drop the "he said" or "she said" for the full cast reading, which makes it sort of only 99% unabridged, but oh well! The main narrator is very good, and he reads all of the "italics of what people are thinking of RIGHT NOW" that Frank Herbert had a constant hard on for writing instead of the actors reading what they are thinking, so you get very used to his voice.

On that note though, the only bizarre thing is that like one out of every six chapters the "full cast" thing is dropped and the main narrator just reads everything. It is a little bit weird, but the guy is good enough that he could have just read the whole thing and it would have still been good. It's just a bit jarring to get used to the actors voices only to have it drop back into the narrator doing all of them, and then the next chapter to go back to actors.

Main narrator is Simon Vance. I honestly wish I could get a copy of the German version of this with J�rgen Prochnow (duke Atreides in the David Lynch version) narrating.

# ¿ May 27, 2010 03:43

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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Does Audible produce their own stuff, or do they just resell other companies' products? I know they're an Amazon subsidiary and all that.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2010 14:48

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Tornhelm posted:

Both. They do in-house stuff, and then there's things like The Dresden Files which they yoink from Buzzy Multimedia who do them.

Ah, good to know.

Also the one thing about Recorded Books Inc that strikes me is how I wish they would tell you the name of the person who does the "Recorded Books presents an unabridged recording of..." because some of those voices are ones I'd like to hear reading things.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2010 19:20

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Audio Renaissance's Dune stuff has a sort of full cast, but will randomly default to having Simon Vance/whatever his other names are narrate everything.

Phillip Pullman's stuff, however, :drat:

If you like the books and pretend the movie didn't happen, the audiobook versions are really impressive.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2010 04:21

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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For anyone interested, NPR has a neat story about audiobooks and they talk with George Guidall. ( :swoon:

)
http://www.npr.org/2010/11/11/131248703/art-of-storytelling-alive-and-well-in-audio-books?sc=fb&cc=fp

# ¿ Nov 17, 2010 02:31

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Picked up Weir's Martian because of you guys, and it is every bit as excellent as I was led to believe. Thanks. Any suggestions for a good Scott Brick-narrated book to listen to? I first found him by listening to Clive Cussler on long car rides (on CASSETTE) and haven't gotten much since Asimov's Foundation. How much of Dune does he actually narrate, and does anyone know how many people I have to murder to find the George Guidall/Recorded Books version?

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 01:50

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Syrinxx posted:

He's extremely prolific but I enjoyed Ender's Game, Spin, Gap Cycle, The Traveler, Foundation, he's even narrated a nonfiction history of salt (yes, table salt) that I could not stop listening to.

If you like books like Salt (interesting, focused nonfiction about things we take for granted), you should check out Victoria Finlay (has one book about pigments, one book about gemstones) and Deborah Blum's Poisoner's Handbook (history of forensics in NYC).

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 03:11

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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What is wrong with me? Some of that is falling asleep to stuff, but still. :psyduck:

# ¿ Mar 29, 2016 19:27

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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I lost my copy of George Guidall narrating Dune to a hard drive dying.

gently caress

# ¿ Aug 28, 2016 19:43

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Apoffys posted:

I've only read his Sprawl trilogy, but that was excellent. The first book, Neuromancer, was especially great. I read them on paper/Kindle though, so I don't know how good the audiobook versions are.

Robertson Dean narrates Neuromancer, and does a solid job of it, but it took me a while to come around to his voice. Unfortunately, the formatting doesn't have the introduction as its own chapter, so if you've heard the author's note enough times, just put a bookmark at 7:40 or so.

Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive are narrated by Jonathan Davis, who also did Snow Crash. He's superb.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2016 22:03

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Habibi posted:

Any audiobooks y'all would recommend specifically for kids? Taking a long car ride with my 5.5 and almost-4 year old this weekend. Something less advanced than Harry Potter (he can more or less keep up, she can't) but more advanced than...I don't know, the Gruffalo, but particularly with a reading that would hold their attention.

Roald Dahl, maybe? Patricia C. Wrede's Dealing With Dragons series? James Herriot?

Tanith fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jun 1, 2017

# ¿ Jun 1, 2017 02:46

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budgieinspector posted:

Any good books set in the Roman Empire?

Maybe try Robert Harris' Imperium trilogy? It's a fictionalized, Cicero-based telling of the events leading up to Caesar's dictatorship.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 05:38

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The John Telfer narration of Sherlock Holmes is probably my favorite, I'm not sure if Audible carries it though.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2018 12:53

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Albert Camus: Elements of a Life
By: Robert Zaretsky
Narrated by: Daniel Galvez II
Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
https://www.audible.com/pd/Bios-Memoirs/Albert-Camus-Elements-of-a-Life-Audiobook/B016JBMC1I

quote:

In a book distinguished by clarity and passion, Robert Zaretsky considers why Albert Camus mattered in his own lifetime and continues to matter today, focusing on key moments that shaped Camus' development as a writer, a public intellectual, and a man

# ¿ Aug 19, 2018 23:25

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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On the topic of sentient plant audiobooks: Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep has a race of sentient mangroves who were uplifted by being given little scooters with RAM to let them remember things long enough to commit them to their long-term biological memory, and I love Pete Larkin's voice so much I got three other books he narrates.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2018 00:58

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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NmareBfly posted:

Fire Upon the Deep is the first, Deepness in the Sky is a prequel and... mostly unrelated. They're both really good. Never did read Children of the Sky, maybe I will one of these days.

How does FUtD work as an audiobook? It's been a long while since I read it but I recall there's a lot of galactic usenet posts with long headers that might be weird when read aloud. Similar to Excession by Banks, IIRC.

You are correct, they're very similar. There's also some in Michael Crichton's Sphere.

All the narrators have their own "computer" voice(s), and Larkin reading the entities advocating exterminating humans was fun.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2018 22:41

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:17

Tanith: Jul 17, 2005; _{Alpha, Beta, Gamma cores

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Book 8 is my favorite in the expanse, definitely worth it getting to the last arc in the story.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2024 16:39

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