I went to a staged reading of selections from The Pale King tonight.

It was cool.

Reading Infinite Jest I Just Got something my brother has been saying to me for years.

So yesterday I finished the Rosemary and Rue audiobook, read by Mary Robinette Kowal, and it was great! She did voices and everything! It totally took my mind off the fact that I was stuck in traffic. So now I'm totally into audiobooks for my commute. What audiobooks do people recommend, specifically because they're good audiobooks? I'm going to swing by the library and see what strikes my fancy. Any books that are good books but don't make good audiobooks? The library has Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but doesn't that book have footnotes? How do audiobooks handle footnotes?

What audiobooks do people recommend, specifically because they're good audiobooks?

Stephen Briggs doing the Tiffany Aching books by Pratchett, starting with The Wee Free Men.

The Graveyard Book as read by Gaiman himself.

All of the Harry Potter books by the king of book readers, Jim Dale. (Aka, the voiceover on Pushing Daisies.)

I loved David Straitharn's reading of L.A. Confidential. He was a better Lynn Bracken than Kim Basinger.

I hear that the audiobook of Coraline as read by Dawn French (the UK version) is better than the American version.

I don't recall hearing a book with footnotes. I loved Tim Curry reading Cry to Heaven and I think Richard E Grant reading The Tale of the Body Thief. Michael York reading Candide was good too. It occurs to me that we might not be looking for the same thing in audiobooks.

BSG

Stephen Briggs doing the Tiffany Aching books by Pratchett, starting with The Wee Free Men.

I did see that rec, but a friend bought me the first couple Tiffany Aching books for my birthday last year, so I would like to read it that way first.

The Graveyard Book as read by Gaiman himself.

Ah yes! I wonder whether they have that. Ooh, they do, just not at the SSF branch. Maybe I'll get that transferred over, or, oh, no, I can totally pick that up from the Burlingame branch tomorrow!

All of the Harry Potter books by the king of book readers, Jim Dale. (Aka, the voiceover on Pushing Daisies.)

Ooh, yes, that's one I've heard a lot about.

I loved David Straitharn's reading of L.A. Confidential. He was a better Lynn Bracken than Kim Basinger.

Oh! That could be great. I did love that movie. But they only have the book on...tape. Read by someone else.

I hear that the audiobook of Coraline as read by Dawn French (the UK version) is better than the American version.

Cool! But the library only has the American version, as read by Neil Gaiman with music by the Gothic Archies.

It occurs to me that we might not be looking for the same thing in audiobooks.

Heh. For my first one, it was nice to hear a book I'd already read so I didn't mind if I missed a sentence here or there. But what I liked about it was that it drew me into the story, especially with the different voices. It's a first-person book, too, so she made the narration appropriately emotional at times.

a friend bought me the first couple Tiffany Aching books for my birthday last year, so I would like to read it that way first.

You know what? I think they're better on audiobook, actually. Because I have an unhappy tendency to read too fast and skim over things, and there's so much awesome humor in Pratchett, that listening to them is better for me. And David's right: Stephen Briggs is utterly wonderful. (I'm partly through Wintersmith right now.)

I think Patrick Bell does a fabulous job with the Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien. And Rob Ingles is really good reading Tolkein (they even recorded some of the appendices!).

Next up, after I finish Tiffany Aching, I'm going to listen to all of Harry Potter. That should get me through a couple months of commuting.

Ooh, the OPL does have all the HP audiobooks. That sounds like a good plan after The Graveyard Book.

And then maybe one day I'll try to do an audiobook of a book I haven't already read. Heh.

And then maybe one day I'll try to do an audiobook of a book I haven't already read. Heh.

(Fiction) audiobooks only really work for me if I've already read the book.

I'm afraid I'd have to concentrate too hard on hearing every word if I hadn't read the book before. And with a real book, I can easily flip back to refer to things.