Audible Book Recommendations - Post yours here

[arsolot]

I've listened to several Harry Potter books. Jim Dale is excellent. I've listened to Order of the Phoenix narrated by Stephen Fry, and he's even better.

I've got the Jim Dale version of Half Blood Prince on hold at my local library. I'm 24th of 220 holds, but there are 59 copies of the audiobook.

[moriond]

Originally posted by arsolot
This is a highly enjoyable book. It is extremely well written and very thought-provoking.

The reader does a first-rate job. The reader's use of his voice is quite subtle, but very effective.

Highly recommended.

Is your recommendation for the unabridged BBC WW book read by Paul Shelley? There's also a very good (but abridged) reading of this work narrated by Jeremy Irons.

[arsolot]

Originally posted by moriond
Is your recommendation for the unabridged BBC WW book read by Paul Shelley? There's also a very good (but abridged) reading of this work narrated by Jeremy Irons.

Sorry for the confusion. The one that I have is the one read by Paul Shelly. I'm sure that J. Irons is very good as well, but I prefer unabridged audio books when possible.

Again, I think that Paul Shelly's work on this book is first-rate.

[moriond]

I occasionally like to listen to author interviews, because in the best cases they offer insights into the books, the circumstances under which they were written, and the authors themselves. There have been some excellent suggestions about sites in past forums postings. I summarize some of these here (with credits to the contributors), and make general suggestions for sites with good interviews.

The interviews are available in a range of formats: transcripts, mp3 downloads (some with podcast subscriptions), streaming video, and streaming audio. Some of these have question and answers with a moderator, others open up to listener questions. Many interviews are about books that others have recommended in this thread. Unless noted, interviews are RealAudio streaming recordings.

• Wired for Books http://www.wiredforbooks.org/ suggested by arsolot in a 03-24-2004 forums post contains a series of excellent author interviews. Of particular note are the archived interviews conducted by Don Swaim for his nationally syndicated CBS radio program, "Book Beat". This daily broadcast ran for more than ten years and focused on books and authors. The uncut author interviews that provided material for his shows are available in their entirety, and form a compendium of many recent and significant English-language authors, speaking about their work. The audio and video content of this site, run by Ohio University's Telecommunications Center, goes well beyond interviews. This Chronicle of Higher Education article gives a flavor of the range of material.
  
• SFFAudio http://www.sffaudio.com/ was suggested by Alex Wilson in a 04-24-2005 thread on Sci-Fi Audiobooks Review Sites. Earlier this week SFFaudio added The Diane Rehm Show (npr) with its weekly Readers Review program to their Online Audio page. An hour-long interview with the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell from October 2004 is particularly interesting. Susanna Clarke describes how she came to write this work, and answers questions from the audience at the end.
  
  A few of SFFAudio's Reviews are of authors reading their own works in the course of radio interviews. Of special note is their selection of an interview with William Tenn on WNYC's Spinning on Air in November 2002. The whole program is slightly under 2 hours long. Apart from the interview, William Tenn (aka Philip Klass) gives an excellent reading of his story, "On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi!"; skip 41 minutes into the RealAudio program to catch its start. The whole story is 67 minutes long, and Tenn does a wonderful job. The Spinning on Air archives seem to go back 3 years, so try to catch this one soon.
  
• The Lannan Foundation http://www.lannan.org/ In a 08-15-2004 forums post Audible.com Insufficiently Eclectic? Other Recommendations (please post your own) Periphrast noted that Audible spoken word recordings read by authors were particularly sparse, and suggested a number of alternative sources of audio material on the web. The Lannan Foundation audio archives contain several hundred hours of programs, including more than 15 years worth of recorded material from their sponsored programs of Lanan Readings & Conversations - a public events series held in Santa Fe, NM bringing authors before audience. Some examples of series authors who have recommended audiobooks in the present forum thread:
  -Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Bonesetter's Daughter) March 05, 2002
  -Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake) December 1, 2004
  -Michael Cunningham (The Hours, A Home at the End of the World, Specimen Days) November 14, 2001
  
  The Lannan audio archives also include the interviews of Michael Silverblatt (see KCRW's Bookworm)
  
• Bookworm http://www.kcrw.com/show/bw This weekly radio broadcast is also available as a podcast, and is billed as: A must for the serious reader, "Bookworm" showcases writers of fiction and poetry -- the established, new or emerging -- all interviewed with insight and precision by the show's host and guiding spirit, Michael Silverblatt. You can also subscribe to Bookworm podcasts in iTunes and obtain programs as mp3 downloads for up to 30 days after broadcast. Programs generally feature a specific book and author combination, although sometimes shows feature a few authors discussing a theme or topic.
  
  RealAudio streaming versions of past programs are available in the searchable archives along with program descriptions. Examples of interviews on titles previously recommended in this thread are:
  
  -Jhumpa Lahiri (January 22, 2004) The Namesake
  -Yann Martel (September 11, 2003) The Life of Pi
  -Alice Sebold (August 29, 2002) The Lovely Bones
  -Jeffrey Eugenides (February 13, 2003) Middlesex
  -Margaret Atwood (August 7, 2003) Oryx and Crake
  -Marilynne Robinson (March 17 & 24, 2005) Gilead
  
• Online Audio and Video Recordings: UC Berkeley Lectures and Events http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/audiofiles.html This is another site suggested in Periphrast's 08-15-2004 forums post, and is a link to the Media Resources Center collection of Berkeley's Moffitt Library. The entries on this web page include interviews, but extend to a larger list of lectures and readings. Since they have been collected over a long period, many of these items don't correspond directly with current recommended readings. Still, consider listening to Aldous Huxley speaking about modern techniques for controlling human behavior along with your audiobooks for Brave New World or 1984, or hearing Robert Frost read this own poetry. Other recordings include physicist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer (who directed the project to develop the atomic bomb during WWII and afterward lobbied for international control of atomic energy to avert the nuclear arms race) speaking about the problems of Atomic Energy, Bishop Desmond Tutu speaking on human rights, and many others, including several modern poets reading their own works. Some of these programs are also available in RealPlayer streaming video format.
  
• BBC Radio 4 Bookclub http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/bookclub/ conducts interviews hosted by James Naughtie that are available under the Listen Again section of the page. These interviews are notable for the very active participation of audiences in the question portion. Recent interviews covering recommended books in this thread include
  -Bill Bryson (February 2005) A Short History of Everything
  -Terry Pratchett (July 2004, listed under Highlights) Mort
  
• Booknotes http://www.booknotes.org C-Span's Brian Lamb interviewed contemporary non-fiction authors for the 16 year period from 1989-2004. The audio programs are available for purchase from Audible.com and many book descriptions (e.g., Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking, David McCullough's Truman, etc.) contain links to the Booknotes interview. However, you can also browse the archives of the site and read transcripts for every show, listen to streaming audios of the interviews, and watch streaming videos for roughly 500 of the 800 interviews in the archives.
  
• TimesTalks http://www.nytimes.com/criticschoice/ Brief streaming RealPlayer streaming video clips from the TimesTalk lectures with links to John Irving (Cider House Rules) and Jon Stewart (America). [Books given in parentheses have been recommended in this forum, they are not discussed in these very short samples. For other short TimesTalk video samples on non-book subjects see past highlights and A Times Talk Event: Bono.

Serendipity rules. An interview with V.S. Naipaul (may need to register at NY Times to read) showed up just as I was reading A Bend in the River to test out the OverDrive library audiobook experience as discussed in this post. Naipaul's quotes on the decline of the novel and on Islam, China, India and the 21st Century are available in mp3 format.

Interview information can be saved as separate audio tracks and added to iTunes, added in pdf files (for transcripts) along with images such as suggested here. (I've been wanting to thank carbon rods a long time for that reference without using a gratuitous post). In future, iPod users may be able to use ChapterTools to add web links to their audiobooks.

You can almost certainly find other sites for specific books, especially soon after they are released. And, of course, there's other great material at these sites for books that haven't yet been released through Audible, and may be harder to find. A good starting point for audio interviews of new works is the ABA's Bookselling this Week: On the Radio site. YMMV

[zarvox]

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell is just phenomenal. This is one example where I think the audiobook is much more entertaining than the paper book. It's mainly Vowell's unusual voice, but a lot of other people including Conan O'Brien and Jon Stewart play parts. The book is both funny and insightful, with lots of interesting and surprising tidbits.

I also love all three of the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin, which have been recommended many times here. But for those it may be better to first read them the old-fashioned way.

[arsolot]

William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is among the best audio books I've had the pleasure of listening to.

The book is challenging, interesting and well-written. It's especially challenging in the first chapter, which is told in the first person of a severely mentally adult, in stream-of-conciousness style. I'm re-listening to that first chapter now, after completing the book. The book is interesting as a novel about the decline of a Southern aristocratic family.

The narration by Grover Gardner is clearly among the best, if not the best, I've had thus far in over 70 audio books in the past two years.

Highest recommendation.

Nb: "re-tarded" is spelled like that to avoid the #'s that are automatically placed in lieu of the word ######ed.

[bakari]

The Spoken Word Revolutin: Slam, Hip Hop & the Poetry of a New Generation. The book comes with an audio CD. I like many of the slams on it.

[whatsthtagain]

Sarah Vowell's

Partly Cloudy Patriot and

Assasination Vacation

History, Humor, read by the author very touching at times

Total Recorder for $11.95 let's one download any streamable content.
NPR has archived of a lot of author interviews and book reviews
search at npr.org. Terry Gross' Fresh Air is a very good source here

[robert]

Edit 10-11-05: Bee Season, was named a New York Times Notable Book in 2000 and made into a film.


Goldberg's first novel creates a dramatic and gripping unraveling of a family of fully-developed and realistic characters. 25 yo author narrates very effectively and gives a delightful interview at end of audio. The title does not do justice to the book. The totally unexpected spelling bee successes of the daughter are merely a vehicle for the story as each of the four principal characters search for greater meaning to thier lives.

Available at NetLibrary. Not available at audible.com

[robert]

This classic novel written in the late 19th century is regarded by many as Balzac's finest. The writing is superb, but the dreary circumstances and fickle human relations conveyed in the novel create a melancholy mind-set. All-in-all, I much preferred reading about people reading Balzac than reading Balzac (the excellent Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie)

[robert]

Zafón's European best-selling and long novel luxuriates in its Barcelona setting. A bit of a literary page turner as a young boy grows to young manhood searching for the story behind the author of a book he has come across and loves. The lives of the boy and the mysterious author begin to parallel in a plot full of surprises. The narration is puncuated with occasional piano music written by Zafón himself. Well translated and narrated.

The Washington Post says: ...anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up The Shadow of the Wind. Really, you should.

Edit: Thanks to moriond:
Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Shadow of the Wind was the subject of an author interview on KCRW's Bookworm (November 18, 2004):

http://www.kcrw.com/cgi-bin/db/kcrw...tmplt_type=show

[robert]

Even though I am an economic conservative and somewhat agree with Ayn Rand's philosophy, I found the extreme caricatures, dated language and social mores, unrealistic hyperbole relative to political systems in a 1940's vision of a 1955 US in Vol 1 of 3 of audible's unabridged Atlas Shrugged, tedious. So, I bought a new cassette tape version of the abridged version on e-bay for little less than the two remaining volumes cost at audible and converted the cassettes into iPod files (see Guide 2 and supplement) to finish listening. I usually avoid abridged versions, but was pleased that I had left the UA version. As a transparent vehicle for Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, the plot and characters were thin but not totally off-putting. I found Ayn Rand a lesser Margaret Atwood. One must keep in mind that Atlas Shrugged was written in the late 40's by an author who had experienced first hand the excesses of communism/socialism and appears to have extrapolated those experiences into a vision of the future with this novel as a vehicle for expressing her philosophy. The radio address given by John Gault (at one hour to completion in the abridged version) sums up her philosophy nicely.

The audio book version was released in 1951 and the audible.com audio quality is poor. However, my tape conversion to iPod bookmarking file was very satisfactory audio quality. I will soon offer for resale on ebay the audio cassette set along with a cd of bookmarking iPod files (5 hour segements, of course, since even longer mp3 bookmarking files skipped out of the audio and lost my bookmark).

Many others clearly disagree with my assessment since this audio is one of audible.com's best sellers.

2.5*Cod: A biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky This 7:37 audio book is interesting enough as it describes how cod had an economic, political, and social impact upon the world. However, it eventually is overwhelmed by the same sort of filler described in the huge number of recipes for preparing cod. Like potatos in the recipes, the recipes themselves become an extender for the book, giving it length but not substance. Substance is used up about half way through. However, like Germs, Guns, and Steel, this book provides insight into how overlooked factors often strongly influence peace, politics, and economics.

5*Typhoon by Joseph Conrad This short (3:13) classic book retains its freshness with an entertaining account of a ship, its crew and "passengers," and their encounter with a typhoon. Great for short attention span youngsters, and fun for adults. Conrad's colorful pen brings special life to this story.

[robert]

Just in case anyone is interested, since the post limit on length was grossly exceeded, I have consolidated all my book recommendations here:

Link 7. Roberts Audible Book sorta literary Recommendations

This is now the url for link 7 in signature below.

Cheers,

Robert

[robert]

3*Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins. This long (16:48) audio does not live up to its seductive title. If you like my 4/5 recommendations, you probably will not like this book. Irreverent, flippant, sometimes offensive, perpetually young-man-of-the-world with an axe to grind, in-your-face, CIA operative embarks on a journey that will possibly entertain, bore, fascinate, offend, or confuse you with highly colorful, frequently redundant, imaginative prose that fizzles out in a weak ending. Robbins fans love this book, but make certain you share their enthusiasm before embarking on any of his books.

4+*The Lady and the Unicorn. Paralleling 3.5*Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier has woven clever and unpredictable fiction around
the breathtaking tapestries now hanging in the Paris Musée de Cluny. Even having seen the tapestries, re-visiting them at this site during their descriptions in the audiobook added enjoyment to the audio. Male narrator is weak; Female narrator fine.

Roberts Audible Book sorta literary Recommendations consolidates and replaces the post, with its 120+ audio books, far exceeds maximum post length.

[ChelSE]

I don't know if you've seen any of his BBC television programmes in the US, but former Monty Python star, Michael Palin has a terrific catalogue of travelogues that is a great listen! Dry humour and observations as he navigates the world.

Originally he tried to copy the Jules Verne character Phineas Fogg by travelling around the world using only the transport availabe at the time the book was written.

The original TV series, then made into a great audiobook, was Around The World In Eighty Days.

He's also travelled... Pole to Pole.
Sahara.
Full Circle.

A great listen, and the TV series is very well recommended too!

Steve