Exciting audiobooks, please

October 23, 2018 6:17 PM

I need recommendations for exciting audiobooks. My last long car ride I listened to Dead Wake and it was wonderful for building anticipation. Non-fiction or fiction, something that will entertain for a long boring drive.
posted by gryphonlover to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

If you’re up for a sci-fi series, I’m in the middle of the Expanse audiobooks and they are VERY exciting. Leviathan Wakes is the first in the series.
posted by greermahoney at 6:38 PM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Ditto, that series is fucking fantastic.

For a stand-alone book, I like to recommend 11/22/63 by Stephen King.
posted by Autumnheart at 7:01 PM on October 23, 2018

I enjoyed the Devil in the White City as an audiobook. It has two different stories woven together, one about a serial killer and one about the Chicago world's fair and both are super-interesting though I wouldn't say the World's Fair is anticipation-building, exactly.

I read it as a book, but I would think The Girl on the Train would be fantastic as an audiobook.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:39 PM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thanks to my local library I recently enjoyed Joe Ide's detective novel "IQ" on audiobook.
posted by Nerd of the North at 11:48 PM on October 23, 2018

I'm currently really digging REAMDE by Neal Stephenson
posted by itesser at 12:26 AM on October 24, 2018

Kraken by China Miéville, narrated by John Lee.
posted by neushoorn at 4:13 AM on October 24, 2018

I cannot reccomend the Rivers of London series highly enough. Someone on AskMe mentioned it one of those "find me a good audiobook!" threads a while back, and I checked it out, and i'm obsessed. (So is my brother, and so is my best friend, and maybe you will be too.)

It's about a secret branch of the Metro Police in London that handles...weird shit. Kinda X-files-ish but more ghosts / magic than aliens. Also has lots of fleshed out and complex queer / POC characters that like, have actual character arcs!

The first book is Midnight Riot (in the US, it's called Rivers of London in the UK).
The audiobook is narrated by the PERFECT WONDERFUL AMAZING Kobna Holdbrook Smith.

I do not know why he is holding a gun on the cover of the audiobook. UK cops don't carry guns.
posted by capnsue at 9:05 AM on October 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Some great suggestions already. Let me add the Altered Carbon series from Richard K. Morgan, The Reckoners series from Brandon Sanderson--YA, but really fun for all ages, and a couple more Neal Stephenson recommendations: The Diamond Age and Seveneves all of which are really engaging audiobooks.
posted by nenequesadilla at 9:11 PM on October 24, 2018

Well, here. I already rec’d the Rogues ofthe Republic series. My update is to say I finished it and lurrrrved it. It’s not all action. But it was very twisty-turny.
posted by greermahoney at 8:38 AM on October 26, 2018

Non-fiction - Born A Crime by Trevor Noah. I know him a little as a late-night show host, but the book about his early years was absolutely mind-blowing. I listened to it last week and this week while driving to work, and I don't ever remember saying WHAT? WHOA!! so many times during an audiobook experience.
posted by seawallrunner at 3:32 PM on October 27, 2018