Tonight on Frontline: A Bedtime Story Just For You

May 18, 2015 11:01 AM

Putting on Frontline and listening to Will Lyman narrate is my favorite way to fall asleep. But, seeing as how the show is not intended to lull me to sleep, there are sometimes parts where Will Lyman has to stop speaking and noises or a non-mellifluous person cut in. Clearly I need something more suitable.

Has Will Lyman narrated any audiobooks I can buy? Podcasts? Are you his agent? How much for a bedside gig?

Other perfect narrator suggestions are accepted.

posted by Monochrome to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

I used to fall asleep to the voice of Bill Curtis. It didn't matter that he was narrating one of those true crime forensic shows. I put audiobooks on when I'm going to sleep, and the right narrator definitely seems to make the difference. I seem to get sleepier to people with even-paced British accents, fwiw.
posted by answergrape at 11:53 AM on May 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Audible.com is showing a single response for Will Lyman, but it looks like he's only one of many narrators.
posted by ShooBoo at 12:54 PM on May 18, 2015

Most nights, we fall asleep to Create TV, the PBS lifestyle spinoff channel. With the exception of the host of Pati's Mexican Table, who can wake me from a deep sleep faster than the emergency broadcast test signal, it's very soothing. We also look for overnight marathons of How It's Made, or Bordain, or Bizarre Foods or, surprisingly, Top Gear - they get shouty sometimes but I guess their voices are in a low enough resister that it's not disruptive.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 2:42 PM on May 18, 2015

Have you tried Nova, Nature, or American Experience? All can be streamed from PBS.org and have similar "authoritative science narrator!" voice tracks. I've also had good luck with YouTube commentator Scott Manley, who does "Let's Plays" of a game called Kerbal Space Program with lots of science and engineering discussion thrown in. Interesting content, but I can still use it to zone out and get sleep.
posted by Alterscape at 2:44 PM on May 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

I really liked James Marsters' narration of the Harry Dresden books.
posted by answergrape at 4:04 PM on May 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You may want to check out the podcast Sleep with Me, which is designed for this purpose.
posted by samthemander at 7:59 PM on May 18, 2015

BBC radio is perfect for sleep.
posted by Gusaroo at 10:23 AM on May 19, 2015

Morgan Freeman's space show:

http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/
posted by bobdow at 10:41 AM on May 19, 2015

Bob Ross app?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:12 PM on May 19, 2015

When I worked shifts, and had to get to bed early on a Saturday night, anything with Garrison Keillor would always put me under. You can get a podcast of the News from Lake Wobegon segment of his show.

I used to listen to Radio 4 Extra for this purpose, until I woke up in the middle of the night to an episode of The Cabaret of Dr Caligari and couldn't get back to sleep...
posted by mippy at 8:36 AM on May 20, 2015 [1 favorite]