Spoken Word for the Great Outdoors

May 3, 2015 3:47 AM

I recently bought a pair of Aftershokz bone conduction headphones, with the express purpose of using these to listen to podcasts, audiobooks etc. without shutting out the sounds of the world around me when hiking. As hoped, they work brilliantly, so I'm now looking for new ideas of what to listen to when spending quality alone time surrounded by nature.

I live in the Alps, with a huge array of mountain, forest and meadow terrain right outside my door. Part of the joy of hiking for me has always been the sounds of wind and leaves and birdsong - shutting that out with in-ear headphones has never appealed.

These headphones sit in front of the ears and conduct sound through the cheekbones, leaving the ears open to ambient noise. Their principal marketing line is that this makes them safer to wear for e.g. running or cycling in urban areas. They're not amazing quality-wise for music, but spoken word is a revelation - they give the impression that the narrator is talking to you whilst walking alongside, just out of sight, their voice naturally mixed with environmental sounds.

So... this opens up a whole new chunk of time I can use to listen to things. But a lot of what I currently listen to - mainly history / philosophy books and podcasts and episodes of In Our Time - when doing housework can be a bit too dry or hard to concentrate on whilst taking in the world around me... hence this question.

Please let me know anything you think would work well in the setting I describe. Non-fiction about the natural world, geology, weather, landscape etc. would be awesome, but I'm also completely open to other non-fiction areas, fiction, drama, poetry...

Expressive, engaging narrators obviously a big plus, but I know this is a massively subjective requirement.

Podcasts, radio shows, audiobooks all equally welcome. I do have an Audible (UK) account so anything available there would be a bonus.

posted by protorp to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (9 answers total)

Radiolab is a great and immersive nonfiction podcast. They are rather atmospheric sounding with sound effects and music being part of the narrative but I listen with very poor am radio quality speakers and it sounds great to me. I also really like the planet money podcast which is a very good finance for the rest of us kind of thing.
posted by chasles at 4:56 AM on May 3, 2015

You live in the Alps?! I'm jealous. If I was frequently on meditative walks through the mountains I'd want to be listening to Mary Oliver poetry; Wendell Berry poetry (The Peace Of Wild Things); maybe some rapturous John Muir writings about the High Sierras in the U.S.; stuff from this AskMe thread about nature writing; or John McPhee books about pretty much anything (he has some geology books!). I don't know any specifically but look for nature writing about the Alps themselves or poetry inspired by the Alps.
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 7:34 AM on May 3, 2015

99 Percent Invisible is not often about nature, but it is about design and how it interacts with us and the world, plus Roman Mars has a voice you could spread on toast.
posted by Etrigan at 8:44 AM on May 3, 2015

How about the Environments series of recordings? IIRC there's a whole bunch of them. Imagine walking through the mountains while listening to a thunderstorm in a rain forest. There might even be one of hiking through the Alps! Worth trying out even if just for novelty value. (Also, they are really good at home for making the dog/cat think that there are birds in the house)
posted by sexyrobot at 8:44 AM on May 3, 2015

StarTalk Radio is a good podcast

David Attenborough's Life Stories
posted by euphoria066 at 11:24 AM on May 3, 2015

Peter Matthiessen's Snow Leopard. It's his account of his trip into the upper Himalayas with a biologist. The biologist is trying to find this rare sheep, but Matthiessen spends that time waxing beautifully about the landscape, about the intricacies of Zen Buddhism, about the aftermath of his wife's death, about the harsh and ancient Himalaya, the difficulties and strife of remote mountaineering, and about the elusive snow leopard. I consider it a truly beautiful book. Plus, the Audible recording is supposedly narrated by Matthiessen himself, like forty years after he wrote the book, as an old, thoughtful man.
posted by mrmanvir at 1:18 PM on May 3, 2015

I live below the Alps, not in them, but so far my favorite walking podcast is Welcome to Night Vale -- pleasingly weird but in a smooth, contemplative way. Also, if your French is up to it, Radio France Inter's La tete au carre.
posted by bettafish at 3:10 PM on May 3, 2015

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. Mr. Abbey worked as a seasonal ranger at Arches National Park in Utah for two years. Desert Solitaire is the book he wrote about that experience. It's mostly a contemplative work about wilderness and our place in it; he talks about the pressure on natural areas from mining, timber and tourism industries. Desert Solitaire is one of the canonical American works about nature and the outdoors, along with Thoreau's On Walden Pond and John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra..
posted by workerant at 3:44 PM on May 3, 2015

Thank you one and all! This is a great range that I wouldn't have otherwise found, and I'm really looking forward to getting out there with these playing :)
posted by protorp at 11:01 AM on May 6, 2015