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Why George Guidall Is the Undisputed King of Audiobooks
- Tomte 9y agoI loved how this wasn't a story about some twenty year old Hotshot CEO of some fad company I had never heard of that has just brought out an iPhone app for audio books, but about a real, old-school professional actor who is successful in an honest profession.
- santoshalper 9y agoI also appreciated that he was not entirely humble about it, without being overly arrogant. I was prepared for a lot of "aww shucks, I guess I've been blessed" style of false modesty, but it was nice to see he is proud of the work he has put in to master a skill.
- Moru 9y agoThis is ofcourse just the journalists image conveyed in the text. But I too love books read by him.
- JohnGB 9y agoI'm sure multitudes of people like his style of reading, but I have found it to be incredibly slow and frustrating to listen to. He reads.... with ...... far too many..... pointless..... pauses. One can have meter and flow without the slow. It's not exactly the same thing, but I much prefer the way that Dan Carlin (Hardcore History podcast) uses his voice to create atmosphere and draw me into the story.
- baldfat 9y agoI usually play him at 1.30 speed. Makes it much more enjoyable for me.
- randycupertino 9y agoWhen I saw the title, I had similar thoughts. imo Ray Porter is the undisputed king of audiobook narration- one needs only to listen to Ray Porter narrate The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow of 14 by Peter Clines to know he is the best! Best narrator of all time.
- ian_d 9y agoI like Carlin's cadence, but I really wish they would run everything through some compression. The volume range between his "speaking" voice and when he's quoting someone is HUGE and sometimes requires mucking around with the volume to keep it listenable.
- marklyon 9y agoI'm a big fan of Dick Hill, Peter Giles, Frank Mueller, Scott Brick and Michael Beck.
- icebraining 9y agoHis voice reminds me of Geoffrey Palmer's, whose reading of The Man Who Was Thursday for the BBC is excellent. My main problem with audiobooks are the narrators, especially in fiction; I give up on about 2/3 of the books for that reason. I have a similar problem with TV shows like The Walking Dead - the acting is just too mediocre. Maybe I'm a snob, but it literally yanks my suspension of disbelief away. I don't think I ever listened to one read by Guidall, though; does anyone have a recommendation?
- arethuza 9y agoI'm pretty sure when I listen to samples on Audible what I'm really evaluating is the voice of the narrator.
- cyxxon 9y agoI just finished listening to his narration of Stephen King's The Dark Tower on Audible (the main books, 1-7), and was actually disappointed to find out that King himself has read the (optional?) 8th/4.5th book.
- skj 9y agoHe read the first one, but 2 and 3 are Frank Muller, at least the versions I got from audible. Did you check?
- cwar 9y agoMuller was in a motorcycle accident and was unable to complete the Dark Tower narration (he eventually passed away from the injuries I believe, tragic), so Guidall finishes out the series. They are both fantastic narrators, but I did slightly prefer Muller in this series. His voice for Eddie is just perfect.
- gghh 9y agoCan anybody identify the PDF annotation app that G. Guidall is using in this picture? https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/08/15/arts/00AUDIOKING2alt/00AUDIOKING2alt-superJumbo.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/08/15/arts/00AUDIOKING2...
- icebraining 9y agoI don't have an iOS device to confirm, but seems to be the latest version of iAnnotate.
- ilovefood 9y agoiAnnotate
- fnordian_slip 9y ago"There’s a rhythm to speech in terms of what’s implied. If it’s raining in the book, there’s got to be something about the voice that evokes the rain." He really does provide great quality. I have listened to quite a few audiobooks read by him and I often feel like I am not doing them justice when I am doing something else besides listening. It has led me to realize that I should listen to good audiobooks more consciously, and to instead rely on podcasts or librivox* books for easy listening while cleaning or cooking. * = Not to put down the efforts made by the hundreds of volunteers reading books for this great project, they have led to great audiobooks, but there are also quite a few that are not up to professional standards.
- RandyRanderson 9y agoMy vote would be for Richard Poe: http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_1_nsrch?searchNarrator=Richard+Poe http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_1_nsrch?searchNarrato...
- madshiva 9y agoI don't know George Guidall, what I don't know too is why there's so little audiobooks in 2017, specially in French.
- kej 9y agoI've enjoyed two books read by Guidall, but I spent several years of my commute listening to Patrick Tull read Patrick O'Brian's Master & Commander series, and I'm not sure any other narrator will ever match that for me. It feels like your British uncle is telling you stories about his time in the Royal Navy.
- drakenot 9y agoI much prefer Tim Gerald Reynolds and Steven Pacey. Listen to these previews for each of them respectively. They were able to bring the characters to life in a way that Guidall was never able to for me. Steven Pacey: https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Blade-Itself-Audiobook/B014LL6R5U/ https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Blade-Itself-A... Tim Gerald Reynolds: https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Age-of-Myth-Audiobook/B0161R0XBQ https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Age-of-Myth-Audiob...
- jdpedrie 9y agoI went to youtube and looked up a clip of him reading, and indeed it was who I expected. My dad listened to a lot of books on tape when I was growing up, and this guy's voice was ubiquitous. It provided a nice moment of nostalgia. As an adult now though, I much prefer Rob Inglis, whose recording of The Lord Of The Rings is more or less the authoritative way that work should sound, so far as I'm concerned. His volume of work, though, doesn't compare to Guidall so far as I can tell.
- jpm_sd 9y agoRob Inglis is also the fabulous narrator of the Earthsea trilogy audio books. Recently I've become a fan of Patrick Tull, who did the Aubrey/Maturin series audiobooks extremely well.
- pmoriarty 9y agoOne of my favorites is David Clarke, who did a superb reading of The Count of Monte Cristo,[1] which is one of the most amazing books I've ever read. [1] - https://librivox.org/the-count-of-monte-cristo-version-3-by-alexandre-dumas/ https://librivox.org/the-count-of-monte-cristo-version-3-by-...
- AdmiralAsshat 9y agoI'm quite fond of John Rafter Lee, personally: http://www.audible.com/search?ref_=a_pd_Classi_c2_1_narr&searchNarrator=John+Lee http://www.audible.com/search?ref_=a_pd_Classi_c2_1_narr&sea... I've been hooked on his voice ever since I heard him as Trevor Goodchild in the 90's MTV Aeon Flux cartoon.
- commieneko 9y agoAbout 20 years ago I had a twice a week commute of about 3 hours. I worked my way through the bulk of Lillian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who ..." book as read by Mr. Guidall. Even when I was reading from the dead tree version I'd still hear it in his voice. My favorite audio books, however, were of Roger Zelazny reading his own Amber books. He obviously wasn't a professional voice artist, but he really brought these non-standard fantasy novels to life with his, literally, authorial voice. I only have them on actual cassette tapes, I suppose I should look around and see if they are available as digital files.
- xparadigm 9y agoFor me the best was Richard Matthews reading "A Short History Of Nearly Everything"