(I’m sure we’ve had threads like this before, but it’s been awhile, and since this came up in another thread, I thought I’d start this one rather than let that one get hijacked.)
So, which books are best experienced as audiobooks rather than in print? (This is assuming you normally like reading with your eyes, but for some specific books listening to the audio version is just better.)
A few examples off the top of my head:
David Sedaris’s books. When I first tried to read him, I was “meh” on his writing, but his stuff really comes alive when he reads it.
P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves & Wooster stories are great fun in audio, at least with the right narrator. (I like Jonathan Cecil and Martin Jarvis, and Frederick Davidson is a bit below them but still good at Wodehouse.)
As You Wish, Cary Elwes’s memoir of the making of The Princess Bride is well worth listening to for fans of the movie, because the audio version features guest appearances by the others involved in the movie.
And as a general rule, any book, especially a memoir, is usually but not always worth listening to when read by the author if that author is a performer (actor, comedian, etc.).
As I said in the same thread, Max (NOT MEL, thank you brain) Brooks World War Z is another exception, with a large voice cast (won Audie Award Winner, Multi-Voiced Performance, 2014 for that matter) doing what I would rate as a ‘performance’ of the book rather than a traditional audio book. Do check out the cast!
There is one other ‘class’ of audiobooks that tend to be superior to the written version, and that’s books by stand-up comedians. As a concrete example, consider Carlin’s Napalm and Silly putty. The book reads more like a transcript of one of his shows, and when he reads it aloud, it truly comes to life.
You may be right. Fry narrates the UK versions, and, last I checked, they aren’t readily available legally in the US. But the US audiobooks read by Jim Dale are also good; and I’ve enjoyed other audiobooks narrated by Stephen Fry.
I have been listening to the Game of Thrones books and they are awesome. The guy who reads them, Roy Dotrice, not only did all 5 books, but with so many characters he did an amazing job at making each voice somewhat unique. And that really helps with keeping track of who is who.
I don’t know that I would have been able to keep all the various story lines straight just reading the books.
The pair of readers for Gone Girl, Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne, together do a great job setting the right tones for a book with shifting narrators and their secrets.
Probably any David McCullough book just to get to listen to his voice.
I recently linked to a review of Edward Herrmann reading The Tommyknockers; he evidently does a great job with making sense out of King’s drug-induced rambling.
Jim Collins (Good to Great, Built to Last, etc.) is incredibly animated when reading his books. Can picture him sitting across a table getting excited as he talks about the concepts.
I had a much more enjoyable time with Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Metro 2033 as an audiobook than reading it. Both because of Rupert Degas’ excellent narration but also because all the Russian station names were untrackable letter salads to my eyeballs but surprisingly easy to tell to apart when heard.
I find audiobooks preferable for 18th and 19th-century novels that have limited dialogue and loooong sentences and paragraphs. Books that are a bit of a slog on paper, like Moll Flanders and House of the Seven Gables, are far less tiring in the audio format.
I really like the audiobook of Susan Orleans’ The Orchid Thief. It portrayed the craziness of John Larouche (without any of the Nicolas Cage/Charlie Kaufman craziness from the movie Adaptation) and the history of orchid fever from the Victorian era to Florida in the current day.
McCourt is not a professional performer, but his natural deadpan style is perfectly suited to the material, he’s a great storyteller. It’s a fabulous book any way you come to it, but hearing the author tell his own story brings an added depth. Hilarious, poignant, I’d say it’s probably the finest audiobook I’ve come across.
Anything from Iain [M] Banks (most notably the Culture series, of course) read by Peter Kenny. I can’t read any of Banks’ books without hearing his voice now. His voice and style are just perfectly matched to that author’s material.
Listening to this book was a sublime experience. I fell in love with the voice of the narrator, Joe Norton. This is truly one of the best books I’ve ever read/listened to.
We read it in our book club, and some of the people who read it were annoyed with the way the text was presented-- I gather the paragraph breaks, quotations, etc., and some other stuff were wonky. It is a complicated story that takes place over time and many places, but I had no trouble following everything as I listened. Joe Norton is a MASTER of dialects, even handling the women’s voices in a credible way. There is some singing of slave songs and he even sang! (I get goosebumps just remembering his singing…<swoon>)
I usually listened as I walked around my neighborhood, and there were some revelatory moments near the end when the significance of the title is revealed that stopped me dead in my tracks. I can only label those moments as profound.
Yeah, some amazon reviewers hated it. There’s always someone who hates the books I love and someone who loves the books I hate. Whatever.
I’ve got to control myself here… I’ve been listening to audiobooks for decades, sometimes all day long. And I really think the reader makes or breaks the experience.
In a couple of cases, I’ve tried to read dead tree versions of some of my favorites, and given up. For instance, the “Cat Who” books are read by George Guidell, who perfectly matches the hardened writer from “Down Below” who moves “400 miles north of everywhere” to a small town… with his cats, of course. The laconic reading makes Jim Qwilleran come alive as well as the town and its denizens. Imagine Wilford Brimley as a character in Northern Exposure…).
But I picked up a physical book (The Cat Who Came To Breakfast) on a trip and thought “These books are lightweights without That Voice delivering the words.”
Left the half-read book in our hotel’s bookcase, got home, checked the audiobook out from the library… and loved it.
Same would probably apply to David Rosenfelt’s “Private Eye Who Also Runs a Dog Rescue” series. Narrated by Grover Gardner, who’s been reading hard-boiled detective tales since The Maltese Falcon. The books are hilarious, but the reading is so tough, so “Just The Facts, Ma’m”, that it’s twice as much fun. I won’t try those in print form… I’ve learned my lesson.
More favorites later… this is exciting. Thanks for the recommendations, everyone!
If you like Eddie Izzard (and if you don’t, why read his memoir?) then the audiobook of him reading Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens is well worth listening to. He frequently diverges from the text, but has clearly been told not to, and then tells side stories, some of which are in the book, just later. At one point, he has someone Google something that he wants to add. The book is good. Him reading it was hilarious, I thought.
Simon Prebble has the perfect voice for spy novels, and I enjoyed listening to Day of the Jackal more than I enjoyed reading the book (and I love the book).