I had gotten on the audiobook bandwagon...

[Carrie12345]

even though I assumed I’d hate it. I wound up listening to more that 20 books and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to follow along and get other things done.  But that was all non-fiction.

Yesterday, I finally decided to treat myself to a mystery/thriller.  Hated every second until I turned it off.  The voice person’s rating is 4.5 out of 5 for this title, but all I could think about was how she was doing it wrong! The personalities she was giving characters didn’t match the words that were used. The voices/inflections she gave male characters made playfully written dialogue sound like a high school play filled in with 16yo football players who weren’t actually in the drama class and had no understanding of who they were playing. (That’s not a dig at jocks; our best actor was a football player who did take drama.). I found myself trying to re-voice the whole thing over her. It was crazy.  If that’s 4.5 starts, fiction audiobooks are definitely not for me!

And I’m not going to name the title because I don’t want to blast a real, non-public person on the internet. But I hate her work. The book itself doesn’t seem all that great, but now I have to get it in print just so I can “fix” it in my head.

Anyway, I needed to get that off my chest. 😛 

[Wheres Toto]

I never thought I'd be able to do audio books because my mind tends to wander when I listen to things but thought about giving it a try occasionally.   But my mother recently started this habit of listening to audiobooks "for the noise" and having them on ALL THE TIME.   Whenever I would be over her house, I would find them super annoying.  Many of them were books I had read (JD Robb, Nora Roberts type stuff) so I was familiar with the stories and would occasionally actually recognize a scene.  And they were doing it all wrong.  

[Carrie12345]

2 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

And they were doing it all wrong

Thank you for telling me I’m not alone, lol.

10x worse than movie adaptions, imo!

[Alicia64]

1 hour ago, Carrie12345 said:

even though I assumed I’d hate it. I wound up listening to more that 20 books and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to follow along and get other things done.  But that was all non-fiction.

Yesterday, I finally decided to treat myself to a mystery/thriller.  Hated every second until I turned it off.  The voice person’s rating is 4.5 out of 5 for this title, but all I could think about was how she was doing it wrong! The personalities she was giving characters didn’t match the words that were used. The voices/inflections she gave male characters made playfully written dialogue sound like a high school play filled in with 16yo football players who weren’t actually in the drama class and had no understanding of who they were playing. (That’s not a dig at jocks; our best actor was a football player who did take drama.). I found myself trying to re-voice the whole thing over her. It was crazy.  If that’s 4.5 starts, fiction audiobooks are definitely not for me!

And I’m not going to name the title because I don’t want to blast a real, non-public person on the internet. But I hate her work. The book itself doesn’t seem all that great, but now I have to get it in print just so I can “fix” it in my head.

Anyway, I needed to get that off my chest. 😛 

Would share the audio books that you really loved? I'm always looking for great "listens." 🙂

 

[Carrie12345]

29 minutes ago, Alicia64 said:

Would share the audio books that you really loved? I'm always looking for great "listens." 🙂

 

“Loved” might be stretching things, given most of my subject matter, lol, but I was able to process them without much effort.

The Connected Child. 
Building the Bonds of Attachment. 
Beyond Behaviors. 
Parenting Children of Trauma. 
How to Be an Antiracist. 
Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control. 
Culture Warlords (needed lots of emotional breaks). 
The Radium Girls. 
So You Want To Talk About Race. 
I Will Teach You To Be Rich. 
This Book Will Make You Kinder.   
 

A few other in the same genres that I haven’t finished.  I tried a couple of those titles that use the f word with big asterisks because that’s up my alley, but didn’t enjoy the authors’ over usage of cuss words, funny enough.  It was like my reckless use of very/really/truly. Except I’m not an author, so who really cares?
 

[Katy]

Haha, try starting with kids books.  Harry Potter and the Alex Rider series were the first two I listened to and thought they were both delightful. 

[ktgrok]

Definitely try another fiction book! I have listened to a lot and only a few times have I felt that they were doing the voices wrong. But man...those times were awful! And yes, it was usually the male voices, which sounded like caricatures. 

But most of the time i enjoy them - I actually think a lot of the ones I listen to have the same narrator, or they sound alike, I really don't know, lol. 

[Home'scool]

I LOVE audio books! It saves my sanity during my 45 minute commute. I also listen to audiobooks while doing paint by number ... it is so relaxing.

I got the audiobook Ethan Frome, which is one of my favorite stories, but the narrator was so annoying! Every time he voiced the Ethan character he would sound like a constipated bear!

You can listen to a sample before buying ... I always do that now to know what I am getting.

[Carrie12345]

2 minutes ago, Home'scool said:

ou can listen to a sample before buying ... I always do that now to know what I am getting.

I definitely should have! My overconfidence and excitement really got one over on me, lol.

[Lady Florida.]

You'll find that the more you listen to audio books the more discerning you become about narrators. You might even end up having favorite narrators! 

I tend to listen to nonfiction on audio more than fiction but there are definitely good fiction audio books. Do you like classics? I find Dickens much easier to listen to than to read. Same with the Greek myths. Speaking of Greek myths I adored Circe and The Song of Achilles on audio book. 

Have you heard of Milkman? It's certainly not for everyone due to the writing style but the Northern Irish narrator's accent is wonderful.

Sometimes books with overly silly characters are better on audio too. I can't read Agatha Raisin books because Agatha irritates me so much, but when Penelope Keith reads them to me I enjoy them. 

Definitely listen to the sample first. It won't always work but most of the time you'll get an idea if you like the book or narrator. 

[forty-two]

3 hours ago, Katy said:

Haha, try starting with kids books.  Harry Potter and the Alex Rider series were the first two I listened to and thought they were both delightful. 

We all love the Harry Potter audiobooks here - Jim Dale does such a good job.  There's a few interpretive choices he makes that I don't entirely agree with, but it doesn't take me out of the story, and he gets so much just spot on. 

Most of the audiobooks I've listened to are kids' books.  IDK if I'm not a discerning audiobook listener or if I've just been lucky enough to have always gotten good readers, but I've never listened to one that took me out of the story.  Most of them were classic books or really popular books - ones where the publisher would go to the effort of getting a really good reader.  (Or readers, in the case of dramatized ones.)

In addition to Jim Dale, I especially enjoyed Ramon de Ocampo's narrating of Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz books.  Usually I prefer to read instead of listen, but he was *so good* that I think he improved the already good books with his reading.  He *is* the voice of Alcatraz for me. 

[ktgrok]

If you like suspense, most of the ones I have listened to are included with Kindle Unlimited, via their Thomas and Mercer imprint. They have the ability to switch from reading to listening back to reading without losing your place, which I LOVE. Not all kindle unlimited have audio but the ones that do all have that ability. That way I can sit and read at night, but listen during the day while doing dishes or vacuuming or whatever. Keeps me doing housework vs sitting and reading, lol. And I have liked almost all the narrators. Favorite for romantic suspense over there are Kendra Elliot and Melinda Leigh...oh or the Tracy Crosswhite novels, but not sure if those have audio. I listen to a lot of the Mary Burton ones too I think, but they can be kind of dark. 

[shawthorne44]

I completely love and adore audiobooks.  But there is one narrator that gets on my nerves.  So, much that I don't like the author anymore.  They are both huge deals, but I can't remember either name.   What grates is that she pronounces k's as their own syllable.  So, "Back" will be pronounced  Bak-k

I've been listening to audiobooks from back when I listened after my dad who got the unabridged books-on-cassette from the library back when that was limited to those with sight problems.  It was always feast-or-famine with the books, so we had 100+ cassettes that we'd record the books onto and then keep circling around.  My dad and I still share our audiobooks.  We are in different libraries, and we'll download each others audiobook borrows.  

I've found that with stuff that is really dense, like a lecture series, I listen twice.  I've also found that with stories I'm more likely to catch stuff in the audio version.  

 

[Forget-Me-Not]

3 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

You'll find that the more you listen to audio books the more discerning you become about narrators. You might even end up having favorite narrators! 

 

Yes! But do a little Googling, because some of them work under multiple names. I’m not sure why this is, unless it’s like authors who write different genres and have different pen names? 

[KungFuPanda]

I never did audio books before the pandemic but now I listen to them, and podcasts, ALL the time. I can get my cooking, shopping, gardening, etcetera done AND read more books. I feel like I’m the one who discovered this. 🤣 

[theelfqueen]

I LOVE audio books but the right reader IS important! Audible has the option to listen to a sample before buying and you CAN return a book you're unhappy with. 

[Laura Corin]

I have an actor friend who reads a lot of books. I think he's good. Peter Kenny, if you happen to see his.

[shawthorne44]

For those that have audible and are frugal.   Check out the Plus catalog.   When it first came out, I was like, "Meh" after I looked at what they had.  Then I joined Scribd because they had most of Dune and I was re-doing to the whole thing in chronological order.    But that got annoying because after you listened to something in demand, they restricted you until the next month.   So, the unlimited listening was only theoretical.  At one point, all I had access to was Librovox stuff.  But, then I went buy something on Audible and it was free on Plus!   Some exploring found some good stuff.   Right now, I'm listening to all of Thomas Sowell on Plus.  I've bought some good books, but I'm waiting until my annual membership expires to listen to those.  
 

[Emba]

I occasionally have moments like that but rarely a whole book. It does drive me nuts. Often it had to do with women doing men’s voices or Vice versa, but sometimes I Can get over it after a few minutes of the story hooks me. 
 

The one that drove me so nuts I had to quit listening was actually nonfiction. The Worst Hard Time. The narrator kept saying Boise City as if it rhymes with noisy. The book itself said it is pronounced like “boys”. The narrator read that aloud and then continued to mispronounce the name. I’m from the area, my brother-in-law is from Boise City. I couldn’t take it any more.