Audio Books

Dirk Diggler · 2 May 2020 at 22:01

Werewolf said:
I think what you've just described is an audio drama, or radio play

I'm not sure they would have a narrator that could feasibly talk for large chunks of time with no dialect?

roccles · 3 May 2020 at 10:02

Dirk Diggler said:
I've been listening to Jo Nesbo's "The Thirst". I think it may be the unfamiliar Norwegian streets, towns, names etc.. but it got me thinking that as well as a good narrator, the character's lines could be acted out by other actors which would avoid the male narrator trying to do different voices for everyone, including the females.

Obviously it would be more costly to produce.

Roy Dotrice does over 200 different characters voices when he narrated the Game of Throne Audiobooks. I am half way though the 2nd book and really enjoying the story and the narration.

Dirk Diggler · 3 May 2020 at 11:16

@roccles that's a great shout for an audiobook. Cheers

Eddie · 3 May 2020 at 11:35

Audible for me and I can recommend the following two audio books for you Mr Diggler...

1984 - George Orwell

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

marl · 3 May 2020 at 20:55

As others have said, I couldn't recommend Audible highly enough. The great thing about them is that you can join and build up a collection of books in your library. Then cancel your membership at any time - whilst still having access to any book previously ordered. Then, as I usually do once I've listened to all my titles, rejoin again and start over!

MookJong · 3 May 2020 at 21:00

If you have audible and like true crime this is free and tremendously good.

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/West-Cork-Audiobook/B079M4J86L

Boge · 4 May 2020 at 09:31

Not sure how good they are but Scribd are doing a 30 day free trial at the mo.
I signed up yesterday and downloaded a couple of Prima game guides - then cancelled my subscription.
It still runs until 2nd June for free though.

Vimes · 4 May 2020 at 10:08

marl said:
As others have said, I couldn't recommend Audible highly enough. The great thing about them is that you can join and build up a collection of books in your library. Then cancel your membership at any time - whilst still having access to any book previously ordered. Then, as I usually do once I've listened to all my titles, rejoin again and start over!

Wow, I didn't know that they were as flexible as that. So, if I wanted to, I could join and then within that month mount up a collection to read within my library and then cancel the membership and retain access to listen to that collection. Then just rinse and repeat as required, and that is ok with them...?

You have never had an account issue or need to use a different email address etc...?

That seems pretty good...!

Dirk Diggler · 4 May 2020 at 10:45

Vimes said:
Wow, I didn't know that they were as flexible as that. So, if I wanted to, I could join and then within that month mount up a collection to read within my library and then cancel the membership and retain access to listen to that collection. Then just rinse and repeat as required, and that is ok with them...?

You have never had an account issue or need to use a different email address etc...?

That seems pretty good...!

I'm not sure about building up a collection in a month, you're only getting one credit a month so can only buy one book unless you pay for the book, but I don't see any advantage there as you'll pay much more unless you grab some special offers.

I don't always listen every month, or I might be listening to the same book for over a month, so right now I have 3 credits to use. I'll buy 3 books and then cancel the subscription until I've listened to them. What I've found is that they usually give you a special offer to come back after a while, so I'm currently paying £3.99 a month for one credit. I'll cancel when it goes back to £7.99.

One thing I really like is the ability to return books you don't like, I've used that a few times and returned books after a couple of chapters.

Vimes · 4 May 2020 at 13:07

Dirk Diggler said:
I'm not sure about building up a collection in a month, you're only getting one credit a month so can only buy one book unless you pay for the book, but I don't see any advantage there as you'll pay much more unless you grab some special offers.

I don't always listen every month, or I might be listening to the same book for over a month, so right now I have 3 credits to use. I'll buy 3 books and then cancel the subscription until I've listened to them. What I've found is that they usually give you a special offer to come back after a while, so I'm currently paying £3.99 a month for one credit. I'll cancel when it goes back to £7.99.

One thing I really like is the ability to return books you don't like, I've used that a few times and returned books after a couple of chapters.

...ah, thanks for the clarification.

So depending on how you often you listen to the books, and your credit to use, it could work out quite flexible and affordable.

Flibster · 4 May 2020 at 16:01

Time for me to give some book (and other things) recommendations then I think. There's going to be a few...

The Company - A Novel of the CIA - Robert Littell
The Monster Collection
Console Wars - Blake Harris
1000 Years of Annoying the French/How the French Won Waterloo (Or Think They Did) - Stephen Clarke.
The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval/Restoration/Elizabethan England - Ian Mortimer
Bill Bryson books. I love them all, but a special shout out to A Walk in the Woods, Down Under and The Lost Continent. They are all funny and personal stories of his travels.
The Godfather - Mario Puzo.
Failure Is Not an Option - Gene Kranz
The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy. I like most of the Jack Ryan series of books (up until Tom's death really), but this is pretty much the beginning of them, although really, the series starts with Patriot Games, but I think this is the better book.
Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series It's pretty much perfect...
Magic 2.0 series by Scott Meyer
The Tent, The Bucket and Me - Emma Kennedy
Winter Dark/Winter Rising by Alex Callister
Fatherland - Robert Harris
Michael Palin's travel books. The nicest man in the world travels it...
Hell Divers series - Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Look Who's Back - Timur Vermes
The Martian - Andy Weir
Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly
Will Save the Galaxy for Food/Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash - Yahtzee Croshaw
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
If Chins Could Kill - Bruce Campbell
Myth Adventures Series - Robert Asprin (At least the first 8-10 of them, before he started collaborating)
Phule's Company - Robert Asprin (First book is definitely the best)
Round Ireland with a Fridge - Tony Hawks
Humble Pi - Matt Parker
Bobiverse series - Dennis E Taylor
Audiobook of the year (2017/2018/2019) - No Such Thing As A Fish
Red Dwarf - Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers/Better Than Life
Kermode On Film/It's Only a Movie/Hatchet Job - Mark Kermode
Every Tool's A Hammer - Adam Savage
Terra/Terra's World - Mitch Benn
Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher
Audible Alien Series - Covenant Origins/Covenant/Alien/Out of the Shadows/River of Pain/Sea of Sorrows/Aliens/The Cold Forge/Alien 3/Resurrection - EPIC
Alien III - Original Script Drama... full cast of the originally written script. :eek:

Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister
Star Wars Trilogy NPR Radio Series
I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Treasuries
I've Never Seen Star Wars - Complete Series 1-6
Dad's Army radio series.
Just a Minute collections
Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel
Hut 33 Complete series 1-3
The Hitch hikers Guide To The Galaxy Radio Show
Locked Together (A quarantine comedy chat show - free for Audible subscribers)
Slaving Away (free for Audible subscribers)
The Unbelievable Truth (all 21 series are free for Audible subscribers!)
Crackanory (free for Audible subscribers)
Fry's English Delight (free for Audible subscribers)
The Goodies (free for Audible subscribers - also the last Goodies...

)

Dirk Diggler · 20 May 2020 at 13:04

roccles said:
Roy Dotrice does over 200 different characters voices when he narrated the Game of Throne Audiobooks. I am half way though the 2nd book and really enjoying the story and the narration.

I just finished the first book and it's easily the best I've heard so far. He was excellent.

Thanks for the recommendation.

placeholder · 20 May 2020 at 13:32

I really like the idea of audible but it seems a really expensive model compared to either streaming services or Readly for magazines? Ideally Id like a Readly type service where for the fixed price I could have access to things but not own them?

For £8 a month I would effectively just get 12 audiobooks in a year? I also notice that the price of things as individual purchases seems horrendous. For example as well as audiobooks themselves I like the sit-com soundtracks and would like to have them to listen to them in the car - Only Fools and Horses, Yes Prime Minister etc but they seem priced at about £25 each?! I could get them on blu-ray for that price, surely that can't be right?

Am I missing something? And incidentally is there anywhere that sells the radio collections and sit-com soundtracks at a more reasonable price?

Angilion · 20 May 2020 at 13:54

Werewolf said:
I think what you've just described is an audio drama, or radio play

Aren't those always abridged?

slackrob · 20 May 2020 at 14:02

roccles said:
Roy Dotrice does over 200 different characters voices when he narrated the Game of Throne Audiobooks. I am half way though the 2nd book and really enjoying the story and the narration.

Might give these a go, reacquaint myself before the next one (Ha!) comes out.

Dirk Diggler · 20 May 2020 at 14:18

placeholder said:
For £8 a month I would effectively just get 12 audiobooks in a year? I also notice that the price of things as individual purchases seems horrendous

I'm only subscribing now because I got another 4 month deal at £3.99. I'll cancel my membership when that expires because as you say the pricing is silly, especially the individual pricing - who's paying £20 for an audio book?

I share my Kindle library with my wife, and she's built up a big selection. There's some decent deals to get the audio version for a couple of quid when you already own the Kindle version, so I'll probably try some of those out.

Edit: I just went to cancel and got offered another 50% discount to £3.99 for another 3 months. That'll be 7 consecutive months. I'm happy with that price, and considering the continual discounts then they must know the pricing model isn't working out.

Angilion · 20 May 2020 at 18:04

slackrob said:
Might give these a go, reacquaint myself before the next one (Ha!) comes out.

IIRC it's only that quality for the first 2 or 3 books. Or maybe the first 4. Definitely not the last one. Something went awry and the reading quality dropped from extraordinary to good.

But the earlier ones are the best quality reading of an audiobook that I have ever heard and I have been listening to audiobooks most days for a couple of years. The quality of Roy Dotrice's reading on the earlier Song of Ice and Fire books is truly remarkable. It's not just the fact that he uses so many seperate voices (which is impressive enough in itself). He voices male and female voices effectively, which is difficult to do. But there's more than that. His voicing is absolutely consistent with every character. You can recognise people solely from their voice, as you could IRL. But there's more than that. Characters have consistent accents based on their region. Each individual has a unique voice but there are regional accents. But there's more than that. There are also class accents. So, for example, two nobles from the same region would have individual voices but the same accent and that accent would be different to the accent of a commoner from the same area. It's a masterful piece of work of audiobook reading.

In the last book (last 2 books?), the main thing that slipped was the consistency with previous books. Voices were still individually consistent, but they were not consistent with the voices of the same character from earlier books.

Angilion · 20 May 2020 at 18:16

placeholder said:
I really like the idea of audible but it seems a really expensive model compared to either streaming services or Readly for magazines? [..]

Audiobooks are very expensive. You have to hire a professional voice actor for an extended period of time and the size of the market isn't very high. Costs are high and competition is low and volume of sales is low, so price is high. Far higher than printed books. Far higher even than high end films, which cost a fortune to make but have a far larger market.

The cheapest route to audiobooks is the library system, if your local library system does audiobooks. Either physical visits and borrowing physical copies on CDs or (usually far more convenient) online. Almost all of the audiobooks I download from the library system are default unprotected mp3s, which is just the job for me. Download, copy to a basic media player I bought for ~£10, listen, delete. No fuss, no drama. I break it? I lose it? It's stolen? Oh well, never mind, just buy another one.

pastymuncher · 20 May 2020 at 19:40

I have tried two audio books now and I can't stand them. I didn't like the story teller and I don't find them half as absorbing as reading a book myself. I said a few years ago that I would never get into ebooks and preferred a physical book but have a rather large Sci-fi library on my Kindle now but I will never get into audiobooks and that's a dead cert.

Andybtsn · 20 May 2020 at 19:52

placeholder said:
I really like the idea of audible but it seems a really expensive model compared to either streaming services or Readly for magazines? Ideally Id like a Readly type service where for the fixed price I could have access to things but not own them?

For £8 a month I would effectively just get 12 audiobooks in a year? I also notice that the price of things as individual purchases seems horrendous. For example as well as audiobooks themselves I like the sit-com soundtracks and would like to have them to listen to them in the car - Only Fools and Horses, Yes Prime Minister etc but they seem priced at about £25 each?! I could get them on blu-ray for that price, surely that can't be right?

Am I missing something? And incidentally is there anywhere that sells the radio collections and sit-com soundtracks at a more reasonable price?

I have an absolute load of audiobooks on Scribd waiting to be read, it's £11 a month but you get unlimited audio books. The library isn't as extensive as Audible but I'm only interested in thriller/crime and there's loads on there.