Audiobooks

[lyni]

I love reading books and I also love listening to books. isn't it great that we have the choice to do whichever suits us at the time?

[Janine]

I love reading books and I also love listening to books. isn't it great that we have the choice to do whichever suits us at the time?

Absolutely!

[Night_Lamp]

I'm resurrecting an old thread because I just got a GREAT audio book:

I finally found the audio book of Lewis' The Screwtape Letters read by
John Cleese! His voice and subtleness really underlines the satire of the text. This was a very enjoyable listen.

I also love the original BBC HHGTTG with Simon Jones as Arthur Dent. Love him in Brideshead too.

[Virgil]

I'm resurrecting an old thread because I just got a GREAT audio book:

I finally found the audio book of Lewis' The Screwtape Letters read by
John Cleese! His voice and subtleness really underlines the satire of the text. This was a very enjoyable listen.

John Cleese to read C.S. Lewis? Now that is an odd combination. Is Cleese particularly religious? I am not aware.

[dfloyd]

I started out with some simple but pretty good stuff such as the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout. Soon I was in to more advanced books. It takes a while to use audio books while driving on short trips, but I have learned to concentrate so if I can snatch 15 minutes of Dostoevsky, I do it. I have listened to over 400 audio books which has increased my literary output by this amount. I listen to then at home when doing household chores such as ironing.

I never listen to abridged cds, and I try to get audio books with the same translation as my personal library books. Many times I listen to the cd while reading the book. I have listened and read Crime and Punishment, Gone with the Wind, Tender is the Night, the Iliad, and The Odyssey to name just a few. Some of the readers are great, and my local library has been helpful in obtaining cds in unabridged formats. Some of the audio books I have recently listened to are The Beautiful and Damned, Main Street, This Side of Paradise, The Collector, The French Lieutenant's Woman, and Moll Flanders.

There is no question that audio books can vastly increase your reading ability, and can enhance your reading. On a recent vacation trip, I listened to Dickens' Pickwick Papers in its entirety. There is no question in my mind that your ability to concentrate is enhanced and increased with audio books.

[Virgil]

Many times I listen to the cd while reading the book.

Hey, I do the same thing. I'm not sure if this is the thread (there have been several) I talked about my audiobook habits, but if it is look back and see my thoughts on it.

There is no question that audio books can vastly increase your reading ability, and can enhance your reading. On a recent vacation trip, I listened to Dicken's Pickwick Papers in its entirety. There is no question in my mind that your ability to concentrate is enhanced and increased with audio books.

Completely agree. We share the same experience.

[soundofmusic]

I love the audio books; and often do listen to them while I am reading the novel. In addition to making the drive to and from work and chores more pleasant; I find that they increase my understanding of bits of the book that I may have not caught otherwise. Sometimes, I listen to them in order to fall asleep! No, really, you continue to hear and learn while you are sleeping; you wake up the next morning and know the book!

[Brad Coelho]

Great thread. Audiobooks actually got me into reading (which is perhaps an *** backwards process of sorts) as I tend to be on the road quite a bit. Sports talk radio, bad FM music and redundant ITunes MP3s could only take me so far.

Perhaps what I love most about audiobooks is that they make my otherwise banal time pretty damn fulfilled. Not just driving in the car, but walking the dog, doing the dishes, etc. For me, it isn't exactly complex multi-tasking (I have close to zero creative output during those mechanical activities...keeping me cerebrally focused on the reading). The crux is that the narrator has to be at least palatable, but as has been said before, a compelling narrator truly acts & provides an added dynamic that few readers intrinisically experience w/o this assistance.

I've done the Virgil technique, particularly w/ Ulysses (especially in those all too seldomly punctuated segments)- and this adds a layers of intrepretation to the experience. Certain prose does tend to fair better in this medium, and I generally agree that the stripped styles thrive w/ a compelling voice behind them.

Something that should be additionally considered is whether or not you personally respond more acutely to auditory stimulus or a visual one. While books on tape have made me a more voracious and competetent reader, I've also learned how well I retain & absorb information through the ears. It is an interesting subjective experiment at least

Also, MP3's through Itunes have gotten quite user friendly. Gone are the days of fast-forwarding and re-winding, you can skip from chapter to chapter w/ ease (though admittedly not as briskly as by thumbing through pages).

[wildspirit]

Audio books are great when doing mindless tasks. I wouldn't be able to "read" half as much without audio books and I would usually much rather listen to a book then listen to music.

[FrankMarcopolos]

I love audiobooks. It's one of the reasons I started doing audio versions of public-domain short stories on my website.

Two of the most awesome performances I've heard are Douglas Adams performing his own, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Stacey Keach doing some of Hemingway's short stories.

[Blanket Heist]

Call me a silly goose, but something about audiobooks rubs me the wrong way.

[FrankMarcopolos]

Call me a silly goose, but something about audiobooks rubs me the wrong way.

Silly Goose.

[papayahed]

Does anyone else have a problem concentrating on audiobooks?

[FrankMarcopolos]

Depends on the quality of the narration. For me, if they're done well, they're easy to follow, if not, then not.

[Janine]

I am a slow reader, so I love them. I tend to fall asleep if I lay in bed with headphones on. One night I did just that and woke up when people were warring and shouting at each other - pretty alarming. I like narration but best of all love the ones that have characters and are actually acted out such as the Shakespeare ones I own. I could listen to those over and over again and never get bored. I already have listened several times to "Women in Love" read by an English female narrator who is quite good. I would listen to it a third time. I find when it is read it takes on new perspective if the narrator is really good at what they do. The book can really come alive.

papaya, I have trouble concentrating unless I really like the voice and delivery of the narrator and I have to listen to them on headphones; otherwise my mind just wanders away.