Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with audiobooks

Downloadable content in Argentinian Spanish?

yesno — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:36:55 -0800

Downloadable content in Argentinian Spanish? I'm looking for spoken content read by someone with an Argentinean or Rioplatense accent. Audiobooks, podcasts, and so forth. Any tips?

Audiobooks for a roadtrip

BradNelson — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:47:32 -0800

Recommend audiobooks for a four-person roadtrip, about 10 hours each way. I'm driving from WI to MO with my brother and my parents and since all our musical tastes vary to the extremes, I thought it might be better to listen to audiobooks instead. We're all grown-up adults, so I'm thinking something informative/interesting or something quaint/comical.

As far as informative audiobooks go, my brother and I are both history majors and my parents both enjoy history. But obviously for a roadtrip, we wouldn't want any detail-driven book, rather something that is more of a narrative/story. (For example, we all enjoyed Band of Brothers and Ghost Soldiers.)

For comical/entertaining books, we've all enjoyed the works of Patrick McManus. So, basically good, clean humor.

Recommend repetitive audiobooks?

HeroZero — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:53:20 -0800

Recommendations for repetitive audio literature? While driving to work, I enjoy audiobooks that won't punish me if, for instance, I stop listening for a second while making sure not to crash my car. The two books I've enjoyed most as audio are The Old Man and the Sea and Robinson Crusoe. It's probably not an accident that these are both books about repetitive actions required for survival. The memoir Black Boy also worked well, though I'm really looking for fiction recommendations. My attempts to listen to books by authors such as Dostoevsky and Faulkner were much less successful, even though I enjoy reading both of them in traditional book form. It would also be swell if your recommendations were available on CD through the Chicago Public Library. Thank you!

Audiobooks a gogo

ocherdraco — Fri, 08 May 2009 07:02:24 -0800

How does one become voice talent for audiobooks? I love reading aloud (in high school I read most of The Grapes of Wrath out loud to my classmates), and have often been told I'm good at it.

I'm not interested in voiceover for advertising or other kinds of voice acting, just audiobooks.

iPhone: my ears are happy, but my eyes are bored.

grumblebee — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:31:47 -0800

I'm looking for a very specific sort of game for the iPhone: one that (a) takes almost no conscious brain power and (b) doesn't interfere with my iTunes music. I want a game I can play while listening to iTunes. I listen to music and audiobooks on my iPhone. Usually I do this when I'm out and about, so I have plenty of visual stimulation from the city or subway. Or I listen in bed with the lights off, so I don't need any external sights. But when I'm stuck waiting at the dentist or whatever, I find myself wanting something to look at while I listen. Better yet: something to look at and manipulate with my hands.

I can't surf the web, because I can't pay attention to that and an audio book at the same time. But a really simple game could work. For instance, I've listened to audiobooks and played snake (that game where you make a snake move through a maze and eat apples) with success. Something like Bejewelled might work, too -- basically, something that's more about getting into a zenlike state or a tactile state than a logical-deduction state -- the way you can drive your car down the freeway while listening to talk radio.

The other problem is that so many games override the iPod/iTunes functionality. I've heard people say there's a way to stop them from doing this, but I can't figure it out, despite reading "instructions" on many websites.

The instructions always say to start the iTunes song playing, then switch to the game, then double-tap the home button. When I do that, sure enough, my music controls pop back up, but I'm also closed out of the game. The game doesn't come back when after I start the music playing. If I close out of the music controls and restart the game, the game music overrides iTunes again.

As far as I can tell, the reality is that some games allow you to play your own music and some don't. So, unless you can tell me the secret of overriding any game's sounds with my own audio, please recommend simple games that let you listen to whatever you want while you play.

PS. I already know about Galcon.

Downloadable Audiobooks that don't come with anti-purchase protection

Mozai — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:36:21 -0800

I want to listen to audiobooks, hopefully better than the self-help chicken-soup or Tales Of The Rapture or bodice-ripping fare I can find at my local big-box bookstore. Without a DRM-enabled machine like Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh, it seems my only choice is Librivox. What other options do I have for downloadable audiobooks without the DRM crippling that bravely protects products from my purchasing power? I already mentioned Librivox, and for my music downloads I've been enjoying eMusic which is delightfully OS-neutral, although their selection in audiobooks leaves something to be desired. Their music selection started out poor, improved over the years, but I don't want to wait years for eMusic to finish negotiating with the publishing syndicates!

Help me find inner peace through my Ipod

Otis — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:47:49 -0800

Please help me achieve inner peace on my morning commute. Looking for audio book recommendations. I've found that listening to self-improvement audio books on my daily commute really helps cut down the amount of stress and road rage I experience. This is a good thing for myself, my family, my co-workers, my fellow travelers on the road and pretty much all of the central Ohio area. However, I'm running out of books and would like some suggestions for new titles...please save us all.

Are there any audio books that have had a real transformational effect on you? Titles that you recommend to everyone you know? Titles you return to for inspiration?

To give you an idea of the kind of thing I might be looking for, I just finished listening to "Happiness" by Matthieu Ricard. I like that Ricard has a scientific background and brings a "matter-of-fact" approach to his work. I also like the more informal, lecture style of delivery rather than someone who just sits down and reads their book. Thanks everyone!

Boring Books

daboo — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:22:15 -0800

I'm trying to find incredibly boring books. The kind of books that you'll try to read, and can't help but space out. Bonus points if its in the public domain. Also, if you have any experience with LibriVox, and know of any particularly boring books or boring recordings, that would be greatly appreciated as well.

Help me find more amazing, and epic, sci-fi and fantasy audio books

Kraki — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:06:12 -0800

Help me find more great, epic scope, sci-fi or fantasy audiobooks. I just finished all of Frank Herbert's Dune Series, both his own work, and the work of his son and Kevin J. Anderson. I've also listened to the entire Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov, and the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin, as well as the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan. (frustratingly enough, only the Foundation Series is fully complete at this time. Edit. I just found out that Dune 7 part two "Sandworms of Dune" is finished, but I can't seem to find the audiobook for it yet.)

Of those four I liked the Foundation Series and the Dune Series the best.

What are some other fantastic and (hopefully) long novels or series of novels?

Bonus points if the audiobook is read by Scott Brick

Audiobook rentals

schoenbc — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:01:06 -0800

What Netflix-like service do you use to rent audiobooks on CD? I've decided that, although I am (of course) interested in our electoral process, I am already tired of hearing about it during my hour long commute to and from work. So, I've decided to start listening to books on CD, but would like to rent, as opposed to own. (My local public library does not have a very inspiring collection of books on CD).

What Netflix-like service have you/do you use and/or recommend?

Other Like Hiro to Help Me Lose Weight

Smarson — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:07:59 -0800

Recommendations for Sci-Fi while on the Treadmill? I managed to lose a fair amount of weight about 18 months ago thanks largely in part to listening to Snow Crash while on the Treadmill. I found that it gave me something to look forward to at the gym and kept me distracted from how much I wanted to quit after 15 min. of jogging. Needless to say I've slacked off in recent months and have put some of that weight back on.
I'd love some recommendations for medium-to-fast paced sci-fi that I could get onto my iPod and hit the treadmill with again. Snow Crash is an excellent example of the type of pace of story I'm looking for. Something I'd consider not such a good choice would be Cryptonomicon. While still an awesome book by the same author, its lengthy descriptions about code breaking and math would bore me in about 3 seconds at the gym (however on the bus I eat that stuff up). I also tried using Gibson's Spook Country, and that too failed miserably (although worked great on a 7 hour car ride). If I hadn't already read Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive I'd probably be using those.

I've heard good things about Richard K Morgan's Altered Carbon.

Reading over this I've clearly used cyber-punk almost exclusively as examples, but I enjoy all the sub-genres inside Sci-Fi so whatever is action packed/funny/witty/ etc. I'm willing to try.

Should I renew my MP3Tunes membership, or is there something better now?

SlyBevel — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:54:47 -0800

Should I renew my MP3Tunes membership, or is there something better now? I've had an MP3Tunes locker since they were first offered.

I use the service mostly for offsite backup of my audio collection, but there are a couple of problems with that:

The MP3Tunes uploading utility, Oboe, has always been slow and crashy. And even if it were fast, 200GB of audio takes a long time to transfer.

I keep my collection in a well-groomed folder heirarchy that makes things easy to find. If I did need to restore my collection from MP3Tunes, I fear that I'd end up with 100k+ files in one folder.

The kludginess of Oboe has deterred me from uploading much of my collection. If I re-up for another year, I'll finish uploading it all, but I won't like it.

Is there a good option out there to replace my MP3Tunes account?

I want offsite backup of my audio files.

I want it to allow restoring the collection EXACTLY as it appears, with the folder tree intact.

I want a web interface that will allow me to play my files anywhere. (If "anywhere" includes Opera or IE on my PocketPC, so much the better.)

I want the upload utility to be fast and easy to use. If it's just an FTP login, I'd be tickled.

I want to pay a flat fee per year for, say, 250GB of space, or unlimited space (MP3Tunes claims to be unlimited). For something really fully-featured, I might be willing to pay $100/year.

I've already given hard drives with my data on them to an offsite friend, but I really like the web access utility of MP3Tunes. To be honest, I've been turned off of using Oboe for a while now, so if you're using MP3Tunes and you like it, by all means, re-convert me.

(Sorry for my shitty HTML.)

Librivox Recommendations?

prettyboyfloyd — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:26:01 -0800

FavoriteLibrivox books? I am getting ready for a long drive and wonder if any of you have listened to any good librivox books. After searching the web I've found a few recommendation lists

Can you add to the wealth?

Thanks.

What is the best (or any) Mac software to put protected WMAs on my iPod?

x41-pbj — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:48:26 -0800

What is the best (or any) Mac software to put protected WMA audiobooks, from my local library via NetLibrary, on my iPod? I'm trying to put the free audiobooks that my library offers on my iPod, but can't find a Mac solution.

My library, like many many others, is using NetLibrary to offer audiobooks to its members, but for whatever reason, not only do NetLibrary's wma files not work on iPods, there is no way to access the site with a Mac -- I've tried Firefox, Safari, Camino, Flock and none of them have worked. Bleh!

So there is one previous AskMeFi thread on this topic -- posted here -- which offers the good suggestion of TuneBite on Windows, but I can't find anything comparable for Macs, or anything free for Windows (Tunebite is $25).

Any help is hugely appreciated. Libraries are supposed to be free, right? Right!

Deep in-the-ear earbuds that don't leak sound.

grumblebee — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:01:41 -0800

I'm looking for cheap, deep-in-the-ear earbuds for listening to audiobooks. The sound quality doesn't have to be great, because I won't use them to listen to music. I want cheap ones, because I inevitably break headphones, and I don't want to have to spend $100 every month. On the other hand, I'm willing to spend $20 a month if I have to. In-the-ear, because I don't want to keep my wife awake with "leaking" sound. I listen audiobooks when I have insomnia, which is way too often. But if there's even a tiny bit of noise leakage, my wife complains. The only solution I've found is that sort of earbud that sticks way in your ear canal. There's no leakage, and I can keep the volume really low and still hear.

My full-bodied (enclose-the-ear) headphones don't leak, but they're too uncomfortable when I'm lying on my side, which is what I mostly do in bed. Only earbuds seem to allow me to lie on my side.

For whatever reason, I'm finding it harder and harder to find earbuds that go deep inside your ear. I live in NYC, and all the ones I see are those ones with the little round buds on the end. Those leak too much.

I've tried expensive ones, but they're not worth the $ if you're just listening to audiobooks. Also, I'm careless with them. I break them and lose them.

I thought I found EXACTLY what I was looking for at Radio Shack. Deep-in-the-ear headphones for $10 (I got a better deal than what you'll see via the above link). I figured they'd be crappy and that I'd have to replace them, but I'm fine with $10 a month. So I bought about five of them. And -- no joke -- they lasted about three days each! After that point, the sound kept cutting off, and I had to constantly bend them and put rubber bands around them to get any sound out of them at all. I guess you get what you pay for.

Feel free to suggest other solutions or talk me into expensive headphones. I want a solution, and I'm willing to think outside my box.

Requirements: no leakage. comfortable when lying on side. inexpensive (in the long term).

Audiobook trading site

Lauram — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:44:01 -0800

I have a few dozen audiobooks I've already listened to and/or don't want, and I'd like to find a site that will allow me to trade them for other audiobooks. I don't have a tape-player anymore, so they'd have to be CDs. I've tried Zuna, but the selection is not great. I can't believe there isn't a bigger swap site for these things -- it seems like a no-brainer, but searching has turned up zilch. I'm fond of audiobooks, but not their prices. Any recommendations?

Recording an audiobook: the gory details

JaySunSee — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 05:58:25 -0800

Recording a full-length book into downloadable audio format: what's the best way to do that? Any advice or instruction on how to do it, links to resources and (preferably free) software would be appreciated. Thank you.

Where to find free audiobooks?

gnutron — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:41:49 -0800

Please recommend some good sources for downloading free/cheap audiobooks.

Learning English as a Spanish speaker

edbyford — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:54:11 -0800

I have a Spanish speaking friend who wants to learn English. Are there any easy audiobooks for learning basics? He lives in Ecuador, and I'm hoping to find something like the Michel Thomas series of audiobooks which teach you all the basics, and all you need to do after that is learn vocabulary.

Should be something relatively cheap (compared to Rosetta Stone) and of course, effective.

Here is a link to the Michel Thomas course
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michel-Thomas-Foundation-Course-Spanish/dp/0340938935/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/026-8256560-4942007?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180032650&sr=8-2

What are some good Audiobooks?

Holygrail2 — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:14:33 -0800

What are some really amazing audiobooks that people would highly recommend? I've recently heard Al Franken's Lying Liars and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go on mp3 and cd respectively and I'm becomign convinced that the audiobook itself can be an artform. Those are both books that I had read before but it was a totally new experience hearing them from good orators.
What are some particularly good Audiobooks that would leave a lasting impression?
Fiction slightly preferred, but I'm open to everything.

Please recommend a portable device for listening to audio-books

gregb1007 — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 18:21:22 -0800

Please recommend a portable device for listening to audio-books I am looking for a portable device that would play audio books on the go. Kind of like a cd player, but one that would be able to play back MP3. Since an audio book takes up a few hundred megabytes of storage space, this device should be able to store about 500mb of MP3s.

Price is also an issue. I don't want to end up buying an audio player that costs 100s of dollars because I don't need gigabytes of space. Under a gig would be enough. That's why I am set against the Ipod. It's storage capacities are too roomy and the cost is that expensive.

Hopefully, you all can help me find the right portable audio player

Family-friendly books and audiobooks?

rafter — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:16:34 -0800

Family-friendly audiobooks and/or book content reviews? (Have you read The Kite Runner? Never Let Me Go? Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell?) I'm going on vacation with my girlfriend's family and have once again been assigned the task of choosing an audiobook for the rental car. While it would be easy if it was just my girlfriend and I, her parents and 14-year-old sister complicate things. Last year's Life of Pi was perfect: hilarious, well-read, interesting, a "page-turner," and entirely appropriate for both kids and uptight adults. (As a bonus, the story was easy enough to follow that those in the passenger seats could nap from time to time.)

Ideally, it'd be contemporary fiction and something that everyone would enjoy (i.e. Harry Potter books would be out even if the sister hadn't read all of them). The books I listed on the front page are ones that seem interesting to me off the top of my head — but I have no way of knowing whether they contain sex scenes, excessive foul language, substantial drug use, et cetera. I'd say I'm looking for PG or light PG-13.

(Related: Is there any sort of MPAA-style ratings for books online somewhere? Even as distasteful as I find CAP reviews, such a super-specific breakdown of a book's contents would be perfect.)

I know that people of all ages read and enjoy Harry Potter. Just doesn't interest me, sorry.

mp3 for visually impaired

WyoWhy — Thu, 18 May 2006 04:48:04 -0800

I need recommendations for an mp3 player for a blind user. My sister-in-law, who is very visually impaired, is tired of lugging around a big cassette player and recorded books for the blind that she gets from the Library of Congress.

She has a little bit of vision and has a computer running Windows XP. She wants to start listening to audiobooks with a more convenient little player. I have an audible.com account and listen with an iPod mini. I just don't think that an iPod is going to be that great for a blind person.

A similar question was asked last year, but I know technology changes, and I'm hoping to give her a good recommendation. In addition to recommending an mp3 player, I would appreciate knowing what source of audiobooks would be best.

Audiobooks on the ipod

leavens — Wed, 17 May 2006 09:56:36 -0800

I use my ipod Mini for audiobooks. When I stop and turn the ipod off and then later turn it back on, I usually have to search for my place. Can anyone tell me how to solve this problem?

How can I get an audiobook bought from Audible to play on my iriver H10?

chrissyboy — Mon, 15 May 2006 17:30:56 -0800

How can I get an audiobook bought from Audible to play on my iriver H10? I know I should have checked beforehand, but they support all kinds of obscure players, so I just assumed mine would be ok as it's a fairly 'mainstream' device.

The downloaded file's extension is .aa, is there any way to get it on to the iriver without messing about with DRM stripping?

I suspect not, so if the only way is to strip the DRM then what program would do it? A quick googling reveals this issue to be a real minefield, and any programs I can find have long since ceased to have any real functionality.

If anyone can help but wants to keep it 'on the down low' then let me know and I'll make myself emailable.

Thanks in advance =)