What Are Your Thoughts on Audio books?

Jason

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I think we're all bookworms here. Just as we are inspired to write, it came from a passion for reading, and as the time-honored mantra goes:

The more you read - the better you write!

I have realized in the past several years after joining AW - (4 years in October btw), on the impetus of "writing the damn book" that I just do not read as much as I used to. That realization saddened me, and I made several efforts in this same time frame to try and rectify that with mixed results.

What I have come to realize is that paper books in printed form, as much as I loved them as a kid and young adult (say age 10-30's) just take up too much space in my crowded life. This last move from Colorado to Tennessee made me realize that I had way too many things in my life. I donated most of my own library of 300+ books to the local branches of Denver, and packed about 20 fewer boxes halfway across the country.

For a while the Kindle I'd purchased was a decent utility to try and stick to my reading goals. But even that has fallen by the wayside. So, with a sort of a half-assed mindset, I said "ok, I'll try audio books". Well, that did it. I was able to finish the GRRM series, I've powered through another 10 books or so since via Audible, Overdrive and Libby. I think I'm addicted. I find myself just waiting until I can plug my earbuds back in, and check out of things.

As an example - I just finished Ready Player One (a 15 hour listen I think - compared to 40 hours for a GRRM book) and did so in roughly 3-4 days:
  • Just in the morning drive to the gym and back, I'll find that I listen to an hour of the narrative.
  • When I take the dogs for their evening walk, there's another 60-90 minutes
  • Then, as I mindlessly skim through my email, my smart phone pumps another hour of the narrative in my ears.

The last time I devoted 3 hours to a paper copy of a book was probably in the 90's! It just seems that the audio narrative processes so much easier for me...but then I hearken back to my youth and feel like I am somehow cheating myself out of the pleasure of reading an actual physical book.

Now, maybe it was because of the book itself. The plot was particularly engaging. Ready Player One was narrated by Wil Wheaton, and he happens to (I think anyway) have a great voice for narrating. The story was a quick hook for me too, and the action moved along quite briskly, so it became the audio equivalent of a page turner for me.

I'm also finding that I have more time where I can listen to something over the ability to sit down and read something. Plus, usually if I sit down to read, it becomes a passive thing for me, and my eyes shut almost against my will. With an audio book, I can actually close my eyes and continue to listen - and sometimes even find that soothing! I now am filtering my searches through various public libraries where I have an account only on audio books.

Does anyone else feel this way about audio books? I'm also finding out that for an audio book to work for me, the voice has to be right. After listening to probably 10-20 books now, it seems the more soothing sounds for me are baritones and altos. The higher registers seem too grating for me. Is that because I am getting to be an old geezer or does anyone else feel this way too? If you're into the audio book scene, what makes for the best narrators? What books hooked you really quickly?
 
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MaeZe

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I love them. Reading while you commute or drive a long distance is fantastic.

I rarely listen to audio at home. I can't concentrate because I want to be doing something while listening. For whatever reason, I don't have the same issue reading at home. I don't find myself distracted the same way. I dod sometimes have trouble staying awake while reading.

I have tried listening while walking. That works.
 

Chris P

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I haven't listened to many, so my sample size is small. But so far it depends on who reads them.

I thought the guy who did the book reading on NPR (I can't remember the man's name or the program name) was really good. I tuned in for Young Men and Fire, and it stuck with me. I also had Kurt Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuffbox on CD, and while Kurt's reading of the intro was great the other person reading the rest of the stories couldn't hold my attention. Allen Ginsberg reading Howl was completely unlistenable.

ETA: I asked my wife if she remembered the guy from NPR, and she said "Agh! I hated that guy! He was so boring!"
 
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FletcherHavarti

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Does anyone else feel this way about audio books? I'm also finding out that for an audio book to work for me, the voice has to be right. After listening to probably 10-20 books now, it seems the more soothing sounds for me are baritones and altos. The higher registers seem too grating for me. Is that because I am getting to be an old geezer or does anyone else feel this way too? If you're into the audio book scene, what makes for the best narrators? What books hooked you really quickly?

I LOVE Audible and got hooked on it a couple years ago while commuting. Ready Player One was one of the first ones I listened to... I thought it was funny that Wil Wheaton was mentioned in the book that he was narrating.

My only problem with audio is that my reading process is not very linear. With paper books I tend to go back a lot to reread paragraphs that I just read, and I tend to flip back frequently to review earlier parts. Can't flip around an audio book like that, although I do often use the button that jumps back 30 seconds. It drives people nuts if they're listening in the car with me.

I am a slow reader and find it very hard to allocate enough time for reading, but listening while driving has enabled me to finish a lot of books that I might never have had a chance to read. The Grapes of Wrath is a good example -- always wanted to read it, finally had a chance to listen last year and I'm so glad I did. The version on Audible is read by Dylan Baker, who does an incredible job capturing the mood of the novel. I also enjoyed Forrest Gump (read by Mark Hammer) and The Sound and the Fury (can't remember who narrated that one). For me it's all about how well the reader engages with the material and conveys the emotional tone of the writing. With a challenging author like Faulkner, the audio really helps me understand what's going on during the stream-of-consciousness sections.
 

Lakey

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I’ve talked about this a lot around here. I am a huge audiobook reader; audio accounts for between 2/3 and 3/4 of my reading. Partly because there’s just plenty of time in my day when I can listen—while I’m walking, while I’m doing chores, during my commute (at least in the before times; I don’t have a commute at the moment); partly because my eyes get very tired from working at a computer all day and just from having crummy eyesight, so I cannot read an eyeball book for very long in one sitting.

I will fight anyone who makes the claim that audio reading doesn’t “count” or isn’t “really” reading. (To AW’s credit I haven’t heard that ableist nonsense here, but I see it frequently elsewhere.) There are advantages and disadvantages to audio reading compared to paper reading, but on balance, it works incredibly well for me. There have been times when I wanted to study a text more closely after listening to it and have acquired a paper or ebook copy for that purpose; other times I use the bookmark feature and navigate around the chapters to find passages I want to study. (Once I asked a friend who I knew had an ebook copy of a book I wanted to study to use the search feature to tell me what chapter the passage I was looking for was in; I quickly found it and did the studying I needed to do.)

As to what I like in a narrator, a year or two ago there was a whole thread (started by AW Admin if I recall correctly) wherein I listed off a bunch of my favorite performances. It shouldn’t be too hard to find by search, but I can dig it up if you want me to. The short version: Thandie Newton’s reading of Jane Eyre is possibly my favorite audiobook of all time, followed closely by William Dufris’s reading of Anathem.

:e2coffee:
 
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ChaseJxyz

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I would love to get into audiobooks (and/or podcasts) but I have ADHD and, therefore, auditory processing issues. So a narrative story that requires my full attention literally requires 100% of my attention, I can't be doing anything else while listening to it. If I'm cleaning the house, I'll be thinking about what things I need to move, what to do next, what not to forget, and then I miss something important in the book. There's also just certain voices people have that just...don't trigger my brain at all. I might have to have my roommate repeat something she said three, four, five times in a row and my brain just can't catch what she's saying, and if I don't get it at that point I just give up. I'm trying to listen to The Magnus Archives and each episode is 15-20 minutes long and even that is extremely difficult for me. Even subtitled tv/movies is difficult, because there's text AND pictures I need to pay attention to! There's a literal mountain of audiobooks at work that I can borrow at any time so it's something I really wish I could do :(