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Audiobooks. Whaddyagot?
Norse Mythology by Niel Gaiman is really well narrated and just sucked me into the world and myths. But now that I've finished that; I wanna give some other ones a chance before diving into any other Gaiman or Harari stuff.
Sapiens by Yuval Harari is a book I was really interested in reading after seeing a TED talk online by this guy. But even though my library had it, I just couldn't digest any of it without re-reading the page eleventy times over. Then I used the free audible book on it and I'm so glad that I did. If you've ever wanted to feel both insignificant and special at the same time, then this is the (audio)book for you!
I really loved the audiobook of The Martian by Andy Weir. It's super entertaining and detailed.
Check out his new book, Artemis. It's based in a dome civilization populating Mars. It follows the life of a smuggler on Mars.
Narrated by Rosario Dawson. She does an fantastic job with multiple characters and accents. Much like the Martian the book is witty, crass and just enough science to make it mostly believable. Very fun book
Is the dialog just as realistic/grounded? Because The Martian was an amazing experience.
Although the first time I listened to it, my library was on shuffle so I'm just glad it's in a "log" format so it wasn't too disorientating.
The dialog is pretty similar, but different enough to be its own personality.
I would say it's based in reality. The author is great at describing things that you know would happen, but never really thought about it. For instance, so many things are illegal on Mars as it's a very delicate ecosystem so having the main character be a smuggler is a great idea and will definitely be a job on Mars some day.
Wow, does it even make any sense then? I hope you listened to it in the right order, too. I'd say Artemis is also on the harder side of scifi, but not as much as The Martian was, because its extrapolated further into the future.
Yeah it was still really gripping. The chunks that it shuffled between were cohesive enough to keep me interested, and then it would cut from intro to him doing the sirius missions, then i think it was back to earth for the "crash lander" stuff, then the dust storm, and after that I noticed something was up and figured out how to turn shuffle off...
It really wouldn't have made sense with any other format of book tbh. Mark is always tackling the issue at hand and whatnot so it never got to the point where it was talking about ONLY things I had no context on.
I have, it's fun too, but The Martian will always have a kind of special place in my heart for being pretty hard scifi with great execution and fantastic wit.
Sapiens is great. I enjoyed it immensely.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson is a good listen.
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is another favorite of mine.
I listen to audio books while I run typically, and lately I've found myself in a pattern of reading fiction and listening to nonfiction.
Came here to say Sapiens is great and to recommend A Short History.
Let's play a game, alright? On the count of three, name your favorite dinosaur. Don't even think about it. Ready? One, Two Three!
Edit: phrasing
Betty white
I guess I'll have to give A Short History a go next then!
Haven't finished it yet but I've been listening to Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Basically the Human Empire implodes in on itself sending it back to pre-tech levels, just as they're beginning to terraform other planets. One planet that was meant as an experiment to force the evolution of primates into higher intelligence via an engineered virus goes awry. The primates never make it and the virus mistakenly guides the evolution of various insects to different degrees. Hundreds of years pass and humans, with Earth on the verge of being unable to support life, have rebuilt their knowledge enough to have a last ditch effort to find a habitable world that they have learned should be out there in the form of the terraforming projects. Meanwhile the insect planet has a dominant intelligent species of spiders building a civilization.
Being arachnophobic made this a difficult read, ha.
I can't recommend Children of Time enough. It was one of my most surprising and loved experiences of 2017. Yes yes yes, all of the way.
The World War Z audiobook is great. Each chapter is a different character, so they have a different voice actor. Some really good ones in there.
It's so damn good.
I've only listened to one audiobook in recent years - it was British comedian David Mitchell's autobiography, which he narrated himself. I doubt that someone who listens to many audiobooks would regard it as notably excellent, but I enjoyed it very much - it was frank, humble, and full of his trademark brand of humour.
That's pretty much exactly what makes a good audiobook. Tina Fey's and Stephen Colbert's are the same way. A good audiobook should bring out the personality of the book, and a comedy writer/performer doing their own book is usually a shortcut to a good audiobook.
Just finished the Bobiverse Trilogy (4th book maybe later this year!), definitely recommend.
We are Legion (We Are Bob) is the first book, and it's a hell of a ride and the narrator Ray Porter does a top notch job.
Because I liked the narrator so much, this led me to "Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker" which is really good so far.
I want to enjoy Ghost in the Wires but I keep getting burnt out on it. Mitnick makes a ton of bad choices in a row, insists he's innocent/things weren't his fault, and then is surprised when he gets into trouble and then does it all over again.
I probably listen to 50+ audiobooks a year. What I liked so far in 2018 :
Evicted ; poverty and profit in america - eye opening book about poverty.
The Great Influenza - I got the flu, and this nonfiction book fit the theme.
Dear Leader : Poet, Spy, Escapee - Memoir of a North Korean escapee
Children of Time - Fun/weird sci-fi
Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman! - self explanitory
Ten Restaurants That Changed America - yum
Audible changed my life. I stare at a screen all day, and this way I can read anything and still be productive with my free time.
Surely you're Joking Mr Feynman!!! I forgot about that one! I borrowed it from my library a few years ago and it was so charming. He's got such a way with words with that wayward mind of his. I think about his nuclear safe cracking story quite often.
How they'd send memo's out warning employees to take extra precautions when mr feynman was around because he had figured out that their safes weren't as secure as they thought. Instead of changing things up and becoming more secure, they just saw Feynman as the issue and "solved" that.
Every time I'm in a situation where I'm infuriated that nobody is taking a problem seriously and is instead treating me like the issue for pointing it out; i just take a deep breath and think "at least it's not nuclear secrets" and drop it
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman is also a great listen. The Narrator does a pretty good impression of Feynman to boot.
oh god, I have over 1.5TB of audiobooks. Mostly Sci-Fi, but also humor, fantasy and paranormal stuff like The Dresden Files, The Secret Histories, etc.
My favorites are Hard Luck Hank, Space Team, Ishmael Jones, and the Halo novels/SS (in preferred reading order).
I wanted to listen to the Dresden Files and I love James Marsters, but I just didn't like the audio, it was too high def, hearing his mouth noises just bugged the heck outta me.
A lot of the star wars audio book are actually pretty fun listens if your into it.
I read a lot of books, but I also listen to just as many. I always have an audiobook playing while I'm driving, taking a shower (waterproof bluetooth speaker that sticks to the wall), mowing the lawn, things like that. I rarely listen to music anymore and just listen to books instead. I've listened to so many in recent years, and I'm kind of stuck right now because I've listened to everything I can think of and can't find anything else I'm interested in.
There are a lot of narrators out there, but very few of them are actually good. My favorite narrator by far is Frank Muller, but he passed away in 2008 and I've listened to almost everything he has done already. My favorite narrations of his are as follows: The Stand, by Stephen King, The Talisman and its sequel, Black House, both by Stephen King and Peter Straub, The Border Trilogy (which contains All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain), by Cormac McCarthy, and Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. He did such an amazing job on all of those books. He did amazing work on everything he narrated, those are just my favorites.
On the lighter side, the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett were a ton of fun to listen to. They are fun and humorous books, but the narrators did great work. Nigel Planer and Stephen Briggs narrate all the books with male leads and they are both fantastic with exactly the right tone and comedic timing that make the books come to life. Celia Imrie narrates the books with female leads and puts the same effort as the other two narrators do into her work.
Lastly, I want to mention the First Law trilogy, and the three standalone books in the same universe. Fantasy is not my favorite genre, but I do like some fantasy books. I'm very picky about it, and hate the Robert Jordan style of fantasy. I enjoy George R. R. Martin, along with the rest of the world, but few others. However, Joe Abercrombie has written some of the best fantasy on the planet in the First Law books. On top of that, Steven Pacey gives one of the best narration performances of all time with each book. I know I said Frank Muller is my favorite narrator, but Steven Pacey has got to be tied with him even though this series is the only work I've ever heard of his. It is hands-down the best audiobook performance I've ever heard, and I go through five or more books a month. I highly recommend it, even if fantasy isn't usually your thing. There is very little magic in the series and its gritty and has a lot of realism in it. Logen Ninefingers is my favorite fantasy character ever, maybe even favorite character in general. I like the series many times more than even the A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series. Listen to a sample, at least. You won't regret it. Pacey pours his heart into his performance and it feels more like a movie without picture than just a narration. It's amazing, and he deserves every award there is in the audiobook world.
Over the past year or so I've gone through a lot of audiobooks, but one series I'm really into are all from Michael Connelly. Its all west-coast crime, mostly around LA.
With the audiobooks there are sometimes multiple versions with different readers. I find that I prefer Len Cariou's performance over Scott Brick.
Since the TV series came out, Titus Welliver has taken over performing the audiobooks (starting with The Burning Room). His performance improved over the course of The Burning Room.
Overall, Connelly's novels are often dark and pulpy without being depressing or boring.
As for really outstanding performances, Greg Sestero did an outstanding performance for his own book, The Disaster Artist, chronicling his tense and odd relationship with the famed Tommy Wiseau (The Room). His performance benefits from one of the best Tommy Wiseau impressions going.
Lastly, Martin Short's I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend is a real stand-out when it comes to a performance that is not only perfect, but completely heartwarming, emotional, and all around special. When the book finally finished I was overwhelmed with appreciation for the comic actor's life and his willingness to open up to his fans.
This isn't a specific book suggestion, but everyone should be aware of Overdrive / Libby. As long as you have a card with a participating library, you can borrow audiobooks / ebooks for free. It's great. https://www.overdrive.com