Audiobooks - A revelation!

quarky

tampaxboo said:

then they are reading too slowly or too quickly, 

That is one thing that is typically easy to fix. A lot of players will let you adjust the playback speed. I have only tried about four or five audio books, a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, but I found that generally playing back at 1.4-1.8x worked pretty well. 

monquixote

Top tip for audiobooks is sign up for the Audible deal of the day.

They have a rolling special offer for £1.99 or £2.99 every 24 hours. If you check it every day you will get some right bargains.

tampaxboo

TommyVercetti said:

I agree - don't get on with audiobooks at all. The pleasure of a book to me is my simple brains interpretation of the characters and the dialogue as well as the story - i dont want somebody else's imagination doing that for me.

that's kind of it. one is active/creative and one is (more/relatively) passive. also more personal.

i once read a brilliant piece of writing in john fowles' 'daniel martin' novel about the difference between films and books. i can recommened the whole book but that section really nailed it for me as a teenager. he was writing about how films depersonalise the interpretation. when you recreate an idea of an image from your own 'memory stock' it will always be something that resonates more deeply within you than a random generic tree chosen by a director.

films can be beautiful. terence malik's badlands is pure visual poetry, for example. but he is populating his interpretation from his memory stock not ours, so we are still less involved (memory/emotions).

i had a massive thing for john fowles' writing when i was a teenager. collector, magus, ebony tower, daniel martin i loved. i think they made a film of the magus with michael caine but it was so crap it flopped horrendously and no one has ever spoken of it again since. which may add weight to my point.

rpr

There's free public domain audiobooks downable here - http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks ; and http://www.gutenberg.org/  ;

darthed1981

duotone said:

strumjoughlamps said:

Spotify has Auidobooks too, although some of them are computer voice read. 

Didn’t know that. Cheers @strumjoughlamps ;

One of the fun sets is the old magazine front ones from about 20 years ago, I remember my Grandmother used to buy some of them to listen to, I remember thinking they were great, as a lad I pinched cassettes of Dracula, Jane Eyre and The Moonstone.

Wolfetone

I listened to most of the Charles Dickens books on LibriVox (Android app) and they are absolutely brilliant to listen to.

If you do decide to listen, they must be read by a lady called Mil Nicholson.

Just the best experience. 

Teetonetal

I listen to loads of audio books via audible, but also bbc radio dramas... sherlock Holmes, hitch hikers, pratchett, Orwell,  loads, all excellent.