So, I was browsing for a book to buy on Amazon and Childhood’s End / Arthur C. Clarke piqued my interest. I saw that it cost 1 credit on Audible. I also saw that I had 12 credits accumulated. Huh?
So, silly me, I looked at my bank account statements and saw that I was charged $14.95 per month by Audible for the past year. Then I realized I had signed up for Audible’s free trial last year, and forgot to cancel after the trial period.
Ok, no problemo, I enjoyed the Audible book I listened to during the trial period (Kaleidoscope / Dean Koontz), so I might as well continue. With 12 credits on my account, I’ve got to find 12 books to listen to. I may or may not cancel Audible after I listen to them.
Question 1: For those who subscribe to Audible, do you like it? Is it the best audiobook service out there?
Question 2: What Audible books do you recommend (best stories with the best narration)?
Now that I’m retired and no longer have to keep up with medical journals, I have more time to read for pleasure. My favorite genres have always been non-fiction science, history, and biographies. Stephen King has been my go-to non-fiction/horror writer. But, now I want to delve deeper into Hard Sci-Fi (though I’m not opposed to some good pulp fiction).
I’ve read the Dune / Frank Herbert series and a smattering of other Sci-Fi books. I’ve read some of the Big Three (Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov), and wish to read/listen to more of their best works.
I’ve been using it for so many years that I’m deep into sunk cost territory. I don’t know if it’s the best service, but it’s plenty good. I especially like that you can get refunds for books you don’t like without any hassle - there’s some fuzzy amount of serial refunding that’ll get you blacklisted from future refunds but I’ve never abused the system so don’t know the limits.
You can suspend your account for up to three months. Your credits will remain but you won’t have to worry about racking up more monthly fees.
I’ll come back to this thread later with some recs, though I don’t read much hard scifi. I’ve read quite a few good history books and biographies.
I liked it a lot back when I was still commuting to work most days. Now that I’m working from home, I don’t have large blocks of time that are well-suited to listening vs. reading a book, so my usage has dropped off.
As for recommendations, a lot of the John Scalzi books are pretty good.
The “Plus Catalog” is a large, rotating collection of audiobooks that are free to listen to for limited periods like every few months.
Many “Great Courses” titles are often included in the free collection. The quality can vary quite wildly, both in content and audio. Sometimes the lecturer has a heavy accent that I can’t understand and can’t listen to even if I’m really interested in the subject.
The Demon Under the Microscope - the story of the search for antibiotics set against the backdrop of WW2. It’s been years since I read it but I remember enjoying it quite a lot.
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions - if you like XKCD, this is a must-read. Wil Wheaton’s narration is admittedly a bit of an acquired taste.
A Short History of Nearly Everything - great book, great audiobook. I haven’t listened to any of Bill Bryson’s other books, but I’ve read a number of them and they’re very funny. A Walk in the Woods is a classic.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey - TR is an endlessly fascinating man and this is about a lesser-known adventure of his.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption - highly entertaining biography of Louis Zamperini.
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - comprehensive and entertaining.
All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business - Mel Brooks’s autobiography and maybe the best narration I’ve heard.
Mythos: this is a trilogy by Stephen Fry: Mythos, Heroes, and Troy. He is a deeply funny man who is deeply interested in Greek mythology, and even the stories you know about are a pleasure to listen to.
Great Courses: I think the entire GC catalogue is also on Audible. Some of them are really great, but a caveat: very few of them are at all in depth. If you’ve already done a bit of casual reading on a topic you’re unlikely to get much out of a Great Course series. Pick stuff you’ve never bothered to learn much about.
I can also recommend everything by Jon Ronson. He’s a long-form journalist with a knack for picking fabulous topics.
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart has been living rent free in my head since I listen to it on Christmas Break. The story is beautiful, sad, funny, horrible and the narrator uses a Glasgow accent (where the book is staged) and it’s perfect, really brings you in. I think about it all the time, and my lazy book club needs to get off it’s ass and finish it so I can talk about it with someone.
Patti Smith’s two volumes of autobiography, Just Kids and M Train are terrific. She reads both.
Neil Gaiman reads many of his own audiobooks and is one of the best readers that you will ever hear. It seems like it would be a pleasure to listen to him reading legal documents.
I’ve enjoyed all of Mary Roach’s books. Great road trip books. Lots of interesting information, written in a humorous style, but without a lot of characters and no complicated narrative to follow. They’re all about 8 hours long.
I mentioned this specific version in a related thread a while back:
Basically, any novel that feels like it should be read aloud is a fine pick. I also have a bunch of stand up comedian books: Carlin, Lewis Black, Dave Barry, and Denis Leary. To be fair though, I don’t have an audible sub though - they’ll offer 1-2 free audible credits a year as a trial membership, so I’ll take them, and cancel the sub before it renews.
99% of the time I want to read, not listen. The 1% is road trips, during which they are awesome.
The Great Courses are indeed a solid deal and I thought I couldn’t do better than a riveting 40 hrs Harvard history course for one credit or the summer I listen to Shelby Foote’s three part The Civil War for three.
But now I am on Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 126 hours to go!
Audible almost certainly has the best selection of any audiobook service out there, at any rate.
Every once in a while, a “recommend some audiobooks” thread pops up here on the SDMB. So if you don’t get enough recommendations here, you could search for those older threads (and I see that @ParallelLines has already linked to one of them).
The Great Courses are indeed great. What a great way to disengage from brain-draining junk TV and expand your mind with intellectual content! I just finished the course Homeopathy for You and your Pets and can’t wait to sink my teeth into A Critical Analysis of My Mother the Car and The History of Bubblegum.
JK
I did recently finish and recommend Middle Ages Around the World, Great Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind, and Intro to Paleontology. Great Piano Works is up next. Egyptologist Bob Brier’s courses are still my favorite, though.
I just finished the Audible Childhood’s End. It was good and not as dated as I expected. Just downloaded and started David McCullough’s Truman. So far so good. I’ve read nearly all of McCullough’s and Ron Chernow’s books (my favorite history writers). I recommend them all. Truman will complete that bucket list. Then, it’s back to some more hard sci-fi.
