Neil Gaiman is better than decent. I just listened to both Neverwhere which he narrated and American Gods which was a full cast recording that Neil Gaiman read the “Coming to America” segments. He did an awesome job. He also narrated The Ocean at the End of the Lane which I have sitting in my library.
Dan Simmons book about a doomed 1842 expedition to discover the northwest passage; The Terror was narrated by Tom Sellwood who did an excellent job. It had a cast of over a dozen characters and everyone had their own voice. You never had to think about who was speaking.
Tom Sellwood has another four audiobooks that he narrated; including one of Saki short stories that’s currently on sale for $1.95, normally $4.95, so quite a discount. It’s only 2:18, but that’ll get me through a walk and it’s currently residing in my cart.
Yeah, this is due to Apple’s rentier behavior. Apple takes 30% of any purchase through an app. As a result, many services that have iOS apps just don’t allow purchases through them. Better to teach the customer they have to go to the website than to surrender several times your profit margin to Apple.
For example, they currently (for a couple of days) have a big “Members Only” sale on audiobooks that have previously been a “Deal of the Day,” for $1-$6 each.
I posted here earlier and mentioned the library app OverDrive.
For those of you that use Audible, do you listen to the books you purchase more than once? It just seems like it would be really expensive to buy audio books for one listen. I myself would never listen to a book more than once.
Judging by the comments I’ve read, some people do and some people don’t. I do so rarely, but I like knowing I could; and I may do more of it in the future. I am an occasional re-reader (and re-listener), but usually with years or even decades in between.
It’s not really any different from (non-)audio books, is it? Do you wonder why people buy books?
I do see your point. But, here are some reasons why it might make sense to buy an audiobook that you’re only going to listen to once (most of which also apply to buying a book that you’re only going to read once):
Sometimes, buying the book may be the only, or cheapest, or easiest, or quickest, way of getting access to it.
Buying an audiobook even just to listen to it once isn’t really that much more expensive, and may even be cheaper, than buying a ticket to see a movie just once, or paying for a meal or a bottle of wine that you’re only going to consume just once.
When you own it, you can take as long as you want to start it, or to finish it once you’ve started it, and it will always be there when you want it.
Buying a book supports the author (and narrator, if it’s an audiobook).
For some of us at least, buying/acquiring/collecting (whether it’s books or music or movies or whatever) provides an additional pleasure or dopamine hit, beyond just the time spent actually using/reading/watching/listening to.
I listen to my Audible books as I’m drifting off to sleep or when I’m driving and only half-paying attention. I’d say that I end up listening to most of my books 3-4 times at least.
Definitely listen to books more than once. Some series I’ve listened to 3 or 4 times, especially if it’s an ongoing series that has more than a year between books. Generally, if it’s a series I’ll listen to the earlier books in the series to catch back up. Often when a series is completing I’ll listen to the whole thing again before listening to the final book. There are some books I’ve only listened to once and some series I won’t listen too again, but in general it was just like when I was reading them…I would read books over and over again, or re-read earlier books in a series when a new one came out. Hard for me to grasp someone who only reads or listens to a book once, to be honest.
I also recommend the library over audible. I use the library to:
get portable mp3 players that contain one book
get audio cds of books that I can’t get that way
get audio book digitally
I have found a few that I can not get. I used a free audible credit to get Craig Ferguson’s novel. Otherwise, a ton is available through Michigan’s vast inter-library loan system.
I think you’re mostly right, only commenting because you got me thinking: there’s four big reasons why buying physical books doesn’t phase me buy buying audiobooks kinda does.
I don’t reread physical books TOO often, but I DO grab and skim them for phrases or to remember a detail now and again. I don’t find audiobooks work as well for that. This is especially the case for nonfiction; there are often “bits” (or diagrams) I want to be able to refer back to easily.
I like lending books, but audiobooks don’t work that way.
A book is a book. Audiobooks are still format / DRM dependent in a way that makes me worry they could become unlistenable or at least inconvenient.
But, mostly,
I like the way a physical bookshelf looks and I often like to keep books around as conversation starters.
I fell in love with a handful of books where either the writing (JK Rowling writing as Robt Galbraith; great ‘troubled private detective’ characters) or the reader (Koontz’s moody Fear Nothing and Seize The Night) were perfect.
NEVER thought I’d re-listen to an audiobook, but I’ve listened to those probably a dozen times.
Oh, and I’ve found mp3 versions, so there’s no DRM, and they should be playable even in the 26th century. (“Geez, great-great-gramps, how come you don’t just have the Audible chip in your brain?”)
It is pricy. At 14.95 apiece, though, it’s much cheaper than buying an audiobook from other sources (i.e. a CD or cassette version) as those tend to start at 30 bucks.
There aren’t that many that I’ll listen to multiple times. The few I do tend to be on the humorous side.
As others have noted, if you have the 14.95/month membership (and maybe even the every-other-month version) you have access to specials like books for 5.95 each. Sometimes there will be a book that you get cheaply from Amazon, and you can get the audible version for just a couple bucks more - less than 14.95 for both the Kindle and the audio version.
It’s also not that hard to find “half off for three months” type deals; I nabbed 3 months of it back in July on Prime Day, gave it up when that ended, and they had another one at year end for similar.
Certainly it’s cheaper to borrow the audiobook from the library - either in tape/CD format, or via Overdrive - but the selection is far, far greater at Audible. In general, if there’s an audiobook, they have it… though the Harry Potter books were a fairly recent addition.
To each his own! I have nothing against you guys buying audiobooks. I would never listen to a book more than once. I don’t read a book more than once - I rarely watch a movie more than once.
I’ve always loved reading and books have a hold on me. In the past, I found it very hard to get rid of an actual book even though I would never read it again. So I had boxes and boxes of books in my basement. I finally had the courage to get rid of some last year. I just happened to be in the right mood and I was having a rummage sale. I thought it would bother me. But it didn’t. I was glad to see that someone else was going to enjoy them. I enjoy being able to download books and audiobooks at no cost and not have to have them clutter up my house. I think of how much money I would have spent buying everything I’ve read or listened to in the last 5 years and how the books would have piled up in my house - I don’t miss any of that!
That’s been my policy for years - I’ve listened to John Hodgeman’s books a few times each on long roadtrips, along with other stuff written by standup comedians since those are essentially just long-form standup routines.
But lately I’ve been a real audiobook glutton. I plundered all my reserve credits, bought several more, and bought a couple of ‘daily deal’ books. To save money, I decided to re-read *The Magicians *trilogy and really, really enjoyed it. I just started Snow Crash and am likewise enjoying that, though I doubt I’ll take a second shot at any of Stephenson’s really massive books.
It’s like watching a TV show that you’ve already seen. If the acting and writing are good, then the experience is still enjoyable. Maybe not enjoyable in the same way as the first time, but still good.