Next week I’m going camping in the northern reaches of California. I will be spending a good amount of the time driving to and from the campsites and other locations. I don’t mind, because I love to drive. But a good audiobook makes it all the better.
I have a couple of old favorites that put me in the right mood for a camping roadtrip, like “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson. But I want to give those a rest and try something new, but within the same ballpark. Here are some general guideline for the type of books I’m looking for:
Nonfiction (esp. history or science)
Roadtrip or travelogue related
No need to appeal to kids/family (I’m a single middle-aged male)
Can you suggest a good audiobook for me? Thanks all in advance.
How about musical history? One of my favoritepodcastsis Canadian Public Radio’s Smithsonian’s Folkways Collection. Fascinating information on the history of folk music recordings in the latter half of the 20th Century by Moses Asche and Folkways Records. They play the whole piece they are discussing instead of just a few bars.
Emusic.com is a subscriber service, they have an audiobook division, though you get a monthly single credit [unless you upgrade to 2, and the credits did not used to carry over but they changed recently] I got 30 or so audiobooks ranging from Plutarch to Suetonius to fiction by Lois Bujold and Heinlein.
Check out the “Stuff you missed in History Class” podcasts.
They run between about 10 minutes and 30 minutes each. For driving, I like the short format.
If I miss something, it’s no big deal. I can either go back and listen to it again, or skip it.
I like the Teaching Company’s Great Courses series. You can often borrow them from a library.
For history, I’d specifically recommend:
Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies - Robert Allison
Fall and Rise of China - Richard Baum
History of Ancient Rome - Garrett Fagan
Long 19th Century: European History from 1789 to 1917 - Robert Weiner
Edward Abbey. I recommend Desert Solitaire, The Journey Home, Down the River and Beyond the Wall. His best is The Monkey Wrench Gang, but that is fiction and outside the OP’s parameters.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey is about an expedition that was a lot more dangerous and difficult than your camping trip will be (I hope!). I found it interesting, but almost gave up on it until I got a chance to listen on a device that allowed me to play it at double speed; YMMV.
For something more lighthearted (!?), there’s Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation. Definitely history, maybe a bit of a road trip (though no camping).
Have you listened to Bill Bryson’s other books? “In a Sunburned Country” is a straight up travelogue of Australia. Laugh out loud funny in places, especially when he’s talking about horrible ways to die there (poisonous animals, jellyfish, crocs, dehydration in the Outback, etc). “At Home” is also excellent.
Anything by Sarah Vowell, read by her. “Assassination Vacation” is kind of a travel book. While talking about the history of the Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley assassinations, she visits various sites related to them and their killers. “Wordy Shipmates” and “Unfamiliar Fishes” are sort of a diptych of colonial history. The first covers the Puritans in New England (mostly Boston) in the 17th century. The second is a history of Hawaii in the 18th and 19th centuries, with much focus on the New-England-educated Protestant missionaries that formed the core of the American takeover of the islands and their resources.
ETA: Missed Thudlow Boink’s recommendation of “Assassination Vacation” above. Credit where it’s due.
Not an audio book, but the BBC production of Lord of the Rings is ~13 hours. They have music, sound effects, and different voice actors (Ian Holm, Bilbo in the LOTR movies is Frodo in the radio drama)