Recommend a good audiobook for driving

Cafe Society
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Thanks for the update!

If you’re still looking for “included with Audible” audiobooks that you don’t have to spend a credit on, I’ll throw out a couple of suggestions:

Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day by Jonathan L. Howard - (speaking of “necromancer books”) this is a collection of short stories about Johannes Cabal, Necromancer, and it’s a pretty good introduction to the character (who also features in several novels, which I haven’t yet read/listened to). Darkly humorous, quirky, and well written and narrated.

The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent by Larry Correia - I’m not sure this one’s worth money or a credit, but since it was free, I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised at how amusing I found it.

There are quite a few titles by P. G. Wodehouse that are “included” on Audible. If I had to single one out to recommend, it might be Right Ho, Jeeves, as read by Jonathan Cecil.

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Oh, P. G. Wodehouse is perfect to get me out of the doldrums. I often listen to a Bertie & Jeeves story (or one set at Blandings Castle) in between serious audiobooks.

And Jonathan Cecil or Simon Prebble are the quintessential Old School Brit narrators. Perfect for these… or Dick Francis novels.

Your public library may have them as digital downloads. Our library uses the Overdrive and Libby apps, and there’s so much great stuff for free…

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Year later bumpdate:

You all have similar tastes to ours!

I already listened to the Interdimensional Insurance Agent tales. The same author wrote the Grimnoir Chronicles (Hard Magic / Spellbound / Warbound) which are set in the late 1920s / early 1930s, in a world like our own but where some people began developing magical powers in the mid to late 19th century. Very enjoyable.

Drew Hayes’ Super/Powered series is entertaining, if not terribly well written (a lot of “xxxx, he said”; and “he surmised” is a favorite), but if you can get past that, it’s an interesting bit of world-building. Premise: around 1950, people began manifesting with powers. If you’re one of them, you’re either a Super (can control whatever powers you have), or a Powered (can NOT control them, leading to sometimes disastrous results). Supers really look down on Powereds, even if the Super’s powers are something as mundane as being able to generate bubbles on demand. Then a secret group develops an experimental treatment to cure the Powereds’ inability to control their powers.

Another series by Drew Hayes, newer and slightly better written, is the Fred the Vampire Accountant series. Pretty much what it says on the label: Fred is turned, but his life really doesn’t change all that much… until he starts meeting up with other not-quite-humans. Not high art, but after I made my husband and son listen to one or two of them on another long drive, I caught my husband telling family members about them during phone calls, on several occasions.

John Scalzi has some shorter stories, in which the premise is that some years back, people who were killed (versus committing suicide, or dying of natural causes) basically get rebooted to about 24 hours earlier; no matter where they are killed, they wind up back at home, naked. This is used strategically on numerous occasions. The Dispatcher, and Travel by Bullet. Unfortunately, the narrator (Zachary Quinto) isn’t a hell of a lot better than Wil Wheaton.

I just finished Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Good tale, though in some ways it would have worked better in print. I have its sequels queued up.