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Ask HN: Which audiobooks did/do you like?
Question trigger- twitter thread #MyAudible2018
Edit:
In case of multiple versions, please mention the narrator's name. For example, I like Peter Yearsley's reading of Alice In Wonderland (https://librivox.org/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-by-lewis-carroll-3/) more than others. Or Karen Savage's reading of Pride And Prejudice. Or Stephen Fry's Harry Potter (although I did not really listen enough to Jim Dale's versions).
Strangely, when it comes to non-fiction books, I have been more of a reader than listener (so far).
- Crazyontap 8y agoI really loved the Pale blue dot by Carl Sagan. His voice is soo smooth and relaxing that sometimes I just hear it for his voice even though the content is nothing less than amazing. P.S. Unfortunately Sagan died before the book recording could be completed so some chapters are in a different voice. Still, listening to it is real zen like. Here is a sample[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
- atulatul 8y agoYes... having watched his Cosmos could not agree more about the voice. Plus he has a way of explaining things... If interested, check out Prof. Brian Cox material https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsRvxQzIDNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsRvxQzIDNU
- finaliteration 8y ago“Design Is a Job” by Mike Monteiro. “Educated: A Memoir” by Tara Westover. The audiobook version of “The Martian” by Andy Weir is also great. I also listen to a number of audiobooks about self-compassion and positive parenting.
- atulatul 8y agoThe Martian is already in wishlist. Educated seems interesting. It has critical reviews by Obama and Stephen Fry.
- atulatul 8y ago^ Critic reviews. Positive.
- santa_boy 8y agoAny particular ones that stand out on parenting?
- finaliteration 8y agoI really like “The Whole-Brain Child” and “How To Talk So Little Kids Will Listen”. Full disclosure: I’m not really a believer in negative discipline and/or punishment being effective so my recommendations may be a bit skewed.
- sotojuan 8y agoI exclusively listen to The Great Courses courses on Audible. They're usually 20+ hours long, expensive but can be redeemed with a credit, and high quality. They have everything - music (Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Music is a classic), history, literature, and even self help or improvement. The Great Courses has its own subscription service which includes their video courses (many good ones on art history!), but it's a very amateur execution. The website and app are very poorly written, presented, and optimized.
- atulatul 8y agoThanks. Had a look at collection. Many books/courses are not rated yet it seems. But Neil deGrasse Tyson courses, some on music, religion, courses on books like Joyce's Ulysses seem interesting.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- santa_boy 8y ago- Antifragile - Elon Musk: Tesla, Spacex, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
- atulatul 8y agoMay not pick up the other two soon but how is Antifragile? Applicability wise.
- Tomte 8y agoHarry Potter. Stephen Fry reads it magnificently. I'm listening in half-hour increments when driving, currently at the beginning of Half-Blood Prince, and there are still many, many hours to come.
- atulatul 8y agoLiked those. Plus his reading of Sherlock Holmes.
- LowLevelHacker 8y agoI built the site www.AudiobookReviews.com just to help answer this question :) Would love some feedback.
- throwaway8879 8y agoI spent a lot more time this year listening to audiobooks than music. Most of it was Will Durant's history audiobooks from Audible[1]. Highly recommended. [1] - https://www.audible.com/series?asin=B00G2H1JW8&ref=a_search_c3_lSeries_1_4_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=E63C9TDDKBNR976RG680& https://www.audible.com/series?asin=B00G2H1JW8&ref=a_search_...
- atulatul 8y agoSomeone recommended his The Story of Philosophy and it's been sitting in my kindle wish list for some time. Anyway, just now listened to the sample (narrated by Grover Gardner). Did not know about the narrator. Gardner seems to be have read more than 500 books. (https://www.audible.com/search?searchNarrator=Grover+Gardner https://www.audible.com/search?searchNarrator=Grover+Gardner) Maybe will pick up one of The Time Machine, or biographies of Carnegie or Rockefeller if I don't pick Will Durant's book. Thanks.
- smacktoward 8y agoGrover Gardner is a terrific narrator. If you’re into grand-scale, multi-volume histories, I highly recommend his readings of Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative and Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
- skippednote 8y agoAtomic Habits
- sethammons 8y agoOh man. So many. Anything by Brandon Sanderson. Most of his stuff takes place in the same fantasy universe, and some of the series are starting to cross over. Stormlight Archives is the crown jewel. Edit: each series takes place on a different planet in the universe with a separate (well thought out) magic system. Different books in different series start to reveal the why's and how's and how it is all linked. Enjoying the Expanse series right now by James Corey, sci-fi with us living on Mars and in the belt, when a dangerous alien self-replicating molecule shows up. If science fiction is your thing, I can't recommend higher the Hyperion series. Freedom and Deamon by Daniel Suarez were really fun, a muder mystery where the murderer is dead and uses an advanced AI to do his dealings. The Martian was fun, if a little shorter than I typically like. Better than the movie, as nearly always. I could go on. Gaah! So fun! Edit: usually not a history person, but also really enjoyed The Right Stuff read by Dennis Quaid. The start of the space program.
- atulatul 8y agoTBH all the names here are new to me... What is a good starting point?
- sethammons 8y agoThey are all good books, and none (outside the series') are order dependent. I tend to like longer books, so be warned! haha. Long books in long series? Sign me up! If you are wanting to scratch a fantasy fix, you can't go wrong with Brandon Sanderson. He is really good at world building, and his books are very immersive. His 'The Stormlight Archive: The Way of Kings' is the first book in the Stormlight Archives, my favorite series of his. If you like to save the best for last, you could do his Mistborn series or Elantris to start. If you are wanting science fiction, The Hyperion Cantos is my all time favorite series there. It is four books: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion. Daemon and Freedom are shorter (as in, only two books in the series, and not too large each). So if you are wanting a bit less of an investment in listening, they are fun. It changed what I view as the hopeful future of AR by the second book. But, really, all the books and series I listed are some of my top picks. I can go on. I enjoyed all of the Enderverse by Orson Scott Card, which has like 16 books with 3 to be announced (start with Ender's game, and go onto the speaker series, then the shadow series, and on from there). I enjoyed Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (kinda more young adult fantasy, but just fun) where the main character is a wizard detective in modern day Chicago. Jim Butcher's Codex Alera was decent too - a world where everyone has magic but the main character. The Wheel of Time series (some folks don't like the slow down in the middle of the series, but I still enjoyed it), and the list goes on!
- kull 8y agoDid NOT like: ‘Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People.’ I could not finish this audiobook. Super boring with obvious ideas and some ideas that I believe are not true. For example claiming to talk about somebody’s accent. I am an immigrant in US, this was always very offensive for me somebody points out my accent. I am not bothered by that anymore but it always makes me feel like I don’t belong when somebody points out my foreign accent. I would never recommend it as a conversation starter. I recommend a book published this year: High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People, by Elad B. Gil
- sethammons 8y agoThinking of 'did NOT like' - The Malazan Empire. Some folks are enthralled. I did the first two or three books in the series and just couldn't go on. I like the premise of "just throwing the reader in." You are just exposed to the world. No explanations. No descriptions to introduce you. It is just this new world. Magic systems, new vocabulary, taken-for-granted understanding of this new place. The problem? No GOTDAM descriptions to introduce you! I think it was the end of book two where they finally give a partial description of a character you've known since the first book: "oh, he had red hair this whole time?" - They introduce other races, but you don't know if they are human or not. In one case, I think you find out they are lizard like after several hundred pages of interacting with them. Maybe if you read the whole series and then start again things will make sense. I don't want that much investment in a leisure activity that was (at the time) making my commute better.