Audiobook me

December 30, 2024 6:21 AM

I can listen to 4-6 hours of audio per day as I work. Most of that time is spent on podcasts and music, but I'd like to mix in some more audiobooks. The problem is that my taste in books is different when it comes to listening to them, so audiobook versions of things already on my to-read shelf won't work. Recommendations wanted!

I read a lot of non-fiction but I generally prefer fiction with audiobooks, probably because more of it is likely to fit my parameters without feeling dumbed down. I'm a big SFF reader and always have been but I'm willing to expand to other genres if it otherwise fits my bill. I like stories that transport me to other worlds, so historical fiction could also work. Less so if it's like.. post-industrial, though.

Here are some criteria for what makes a good audiobook for me:

* Interesting, compelling characters
* Imaginative
* Not necessarily action-packed, but faster-paced
* The male narrator does not do bad female voices
* The narrator .... does not ... pause all the ... time

(Re: the last one, think of Phoebe Judge's narration in the Criminal podcast. I couldn't make it through a whole book of it.)

The platonic ideal of an audiobook for me is almost Martha Wells' Murderbot series. I say almost because some books in the series are quite short, and given the cost of audiobooks the dollar/hour ratio wasn't favorable. I don't regret them at all but all other things equal longer is better. Other Martha Wells books are on the list, so I don't need recommendations for those.

I would probably enjoy a lot of YA, with one caveat: I really can't stand the romances in a lot of YA, especially het YA. Can I put my finger on why I don't like them? Not easily, so it's hard to give criteria for what kind of romance wouldn't be boring or offputting to me. Young, inexperienced girl/woman is swept off her feet by mysterious powerful man is definitely out though.

I've tried a few mysteries but perhaps starting with Poirot was a mistake; I immediately was bored by all the minor characters and my emotional investment in the murder was "why didn't they kill more of them." But perhaps that was a reaction to the British aristocracy and not mysteries per se.

posted by Kutsuwamushi to Media & Arts (30 answers total)

Young, inexperienced girl/woman is swept off her feet by mysterious powerful man is definitely out though.

If you want the opposite of that, the Paladin series by T. Kingfisher is about tired middle-aged women sweeping paladins off their feet. Sometimes literally. A surprising number of severed heads for romance, too. The first one is Paladin's Grace, and I'd happily recommend them all. (I have both read them in print and listened to the audiobooks, and the recordings are well-done, I think.)
posted by restless_nomad at 6:25 AM on December 30, 2024 [11 favorites]

Milkman, booker-prize-winner by Anna Burns is my all time favorite audio book. The book itself is a big run-on, and very hard to read, but as read by Brid Brennon it is phenomenal. Sharply funny and very anti-romantic, about Northern Ireland. There's a kind of mystery plot in a way, but it's really about the woman protagonist's attitude.
posted by Mngo at 6:48 AM on December 30, 2024 [2 favorites]

I'll suggest some of my favorite audiobooks from recent years. Some meet your criteria, some eh.

Steven Pacey deserves awards for the audiobook work he's done. In particular, I recommend his reading of Joe Abercrombie's First Law fantasy trilogy. The books are violent, horrifying, and at times very funny, and they're basically inversions of fantasy stereotypes.

Peter Swanson's novels are Hitchcock-esque mystery/suspense. I've listened to a bunch, and they flow well.

Megan Abbott is known for her contemporary suspense novels, but I really enjoyed her Die A Little, which is... Well, it's her first published novel, won awards, and has sometimes been called "women's noir." It's a historical novel that's a heck of a ride.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:56 AM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

Anything by T Kingfisher is great. Some lean more horror than others but I've enjoyed everything of hers I've read and/or listened to, sometimes so much so that I've done both.

I also enjoyed No Gods No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull at least as much as for the amazing voice of Dion Graham as the book itself, which was also brilliant. Alyssa Cole's When No One is Watching and One of us Knows are also great.

As far as the cost goes, are you aware that your local library probably has heaps of eaudiobooks you can listen to for free? This is especially useful if, like me, you decide the book is probably OK but the voice of the narrator is driving you nuts.
posted by Athanassiel at 6:59 AM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I've had bad luck with my local library having what I want to listen to available. Not their fault, I imagine it's due to some horrible licensing restrictions. I'll check there for any recommendations that intrigue me but I'm setting aside a budget for buying/renting audiobooks so that I can listen to the specific things I want when I want.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:02 AM on December 30, 2024

Fair point! Some libraries do take suggestions though, and it's worth sussing out whether there are other libraries you can join just for their e-collections, so if they don't require you to be a resident of the particular area.
posted by Athanassiel at 7:08 AM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

You may have read some of these already, but FWIW, here are some that might fit your bill.

Andy Weir's The Martian and Project Hail Mary are both narrated by Ray Porter. I find him an engaging narrator, especially for books like that. He also narrates the Bobiverse books by Dennis Taylor.

Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch books are narrated by Adjoa Andoh are good. I really like her narration.
posted by Archer25 at 7:36 AM on December 30, 2024 [4 favorites]

The Divine Cities series by Robert Jackson Burnett has a fabulous narrator. The series is one of my favorites, with amazing strong female POC protagonists, noir fantasy settings with insightful political commentary.

Mr Contour and I are listening to the Dungeon Crawler Carl series right now, which is a silly but highly engaging adventure. The male narrator does do female voices, but I think he does a pretty good job considering he is friends with the author who wrote increasingly outrageous voice descriptions to see how the narrator would handle them, as I learned in the recent FF thread.
posted by Illusory contour at 8:02 AM on December 30, 2024

I'm not a big audiobook person, but from what bits I heard, Seanan McGuire's October Daye series has good ones - it's urban fantasy, folklore, minor romance but major mystery, thriller and slightly soap opera vibes. Read by Mary Robinette Kowal, who's also a host on the Writing Excuses podcast (as well as Hugo winning author, puppeteer, writing teacher and owner of talking cat), so I can vouch for her great audio skills.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 8:04 AM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

Ok not directly answering your question but I’ve had a very hard time getting hooked on audiobooks because the writing I like to read does not lend itself to half assed listening. But Dan Jones is a historian who writes kinda popular history books but does so with at least somewhat of a critical eye, and his books are easy to read and in popular audiobook formats and they very easy to listen to.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:23 AM on December 30, 2024

The voice narration on the audiobook edition of The Expanse is quite good, and there are 9 books so if they grab you, you’ll be set for a while. It’s what I turned to after finishing the Murderbot books and while it’s not quite the same, it’s at least in a similar enough neighborhood genre-wise.
posted by rivenwanderer at 8:40 AM on December 30, 2024 [4 favorites]

OK, I have responded similarly to other audio book recommendation requests: my wife and daughter started reading the J.D.Robb "In Death" series and eventually I joined them by starting from the beginning and now the house rule is whoever gets the next in the series MUST listen to it with headphones. But yes I did read your preferences, so I will just say this:

Fiction yes. Set in the 2050ish future but NOT science fiction, it's murder mystery and romance. The head murder cop in New York falls in love with the richest man in the solar system. Don't worry, it won't be all science and aliens, it's just our hum drum solar system (I'd probably prefer that one than our current mess).

The rich guy is Irish so there's a lot of "bloody" this and that when they get in arguments. And Eve Dallas is definitely NOT a push over. I can't say much more without spoilers, but I would think you would want it for the immersive aspect, the good quality audio and the cost per hour (at least we found it to be doable, your finances may be more restrictive). Oh, and you get to know and enjoy the various side characters that are present in most of the books, they become like quirky friends. FWIW.
posted by forthright at 9:23 AM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

Second The Expanse. The narration is good, the books are long and so good value per dollar, and it's a long series (9) that is good to the end (IMO). Not up to the inventiveness and characters of Murderbot, but scratches a similar itch. When I listened the last three books were free with Audible membership.
posted by lookoutbelow at 9:35 AM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris is a fantastic audiobook, as is The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. Both are also long so it's good value per dollar. They will transport you to other worlds, but are not SFF.

Agreed on The Expanse as good SFF audiobooks. Cloud Atlas is also a fantastic audiobook but you have to be patient to let it expand; I had read the physical book before listening to the audiobook. This one maybe you can get from the library since it's old.

The entire Gideon the Ninth series is great audiobook, if you like the books (the series is polarizing, but people who like it tend to obsessively love it). Also might be hard to follow without having physically read them, but worth a shot, the reader is just wonderful. Some of the Scalzi books (which are often(always?) narrated by Wil Wheaton) are also good, I enjoyed Lock In.
posted by ch1x0r at 10:35 AM on December 30, 2024 [3 favorites]

I listen to audiobooks all the time, and I love having a list of holds on my libby, so I'm rarely waiting for more than a few days for a book that I want to read to become available. But, if you're budgeting and can get what you want when you want it, that's also great.

Dystopian fiction? How are you with violence? Chain-Gang All-Stars was a five-star read for me, especially because some of the sections are read so beautiful by the narrators.
posted by gladly at 11:06 AM on December 30, 2024

You may have listened to these already, but I'm a big fan of the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik (think Hogwarts, but if the author were willing to think about what magic actually costs, and also willing to deal seriously with race and class issues, and what it might mean to arrive at school a traumatized student).

Uprooted is also quite good.

I haven't read/listened to other Naomi Novik books (Spinning Silver, Temeraire) so couldn't speak to those.

Have you listened to the audiobooks to N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became and The World We Make? That narrator is amazing. Such a good job.
posted by johnofjack at 12:09 PM on December 30, 2024 [2 favorites]

'Cerce' and 'Song of Achilles' by Madeline Miller are amazing audiobooks. They are about Greek mythology but they make it seem very human while being fantastical. Both narrators are great.
posted by catquas at 12:27 PM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

I don't suppose I can get you to try some Warhammer 40000 "Black Library" audiobooks? :) Grim-dark to the extreme, Imperium of Man is huge, but under threat on all sides, and only a few heroes stand in the way of annihilation of millions...
posted by kschang at 12:50 PM on December 30, 2024

My job is to recommend Becky Chambers, also great on audio. I want to second The Expanse as quality and great value for money, and to for sure give Th Locked Tomb (Gideon the ninth) a go. The story is bonkers and you will have to relisten to the books numerous times, but you will want to because they were excellently narrated. You can then also listen to all the podcasts examining it, and I promise you, they don't talk slow (I had to play one at a lower speed to follow).
posted by Iteki at 1:32 PM on December 30, 2024 [2 favorites]

Because you have mentioned my favourite audiobook series (Murderbot), I suspect we might have very similar tastes in audiobooks. And therefore I will recommend my 2nd favourite audiobook series.

The Rivers of London series written by Ben Aaronovitch and beautifully narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

You're getting loads of great recommendations, but if you get to this one while working through the list, I'd love to hear what you think.
posted by coffeepot at 1:36 PM on December 30, 2024 [8 favorites]

Have you read the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold? I listened to that after Murderbot and really liked it. Science fiction with a healthy dose of romance, and the heroines are decidedly NOT young and helpless, but rather competent, strong, and varying degrees of dangerous. Start with Shards of Honor.

For historical fiction adventure, the Aubrey-Maturin books including Master and Commander are a great listen.

Both of these have vivid world building, enough action to keep the audio versions engaging, and between them are nearly 40 books so should keep you busy for a couple of months.
posted by hovey at 1:59 PM on December 30, 2024 [3 favorites]

wool trilogy works on audio. my libby has all of em, fyi.
posted by j_curiouser at 2:51 PM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

Agreed that Vorkosigan saga books are great audiobooks. Also I remember Lois McMaster Bujold's other series World of the Five Gods being great audiobooks, but I forget if they match all the criteria you mention.
posted by catquas at 2:52 PM on December 30, 2024 [2 favorites]

I get to spend about 7.5 hours of my workday listening to audio, too. I listen to a lot of podcasts and nonfic, usually - I can read fiction a lot faster than I can listen to it - but sometimes I'm in the mood for audio. But a couple of these recs are from back when I was driving two hours of commute a day.

- The Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch (starts with The Lies of Locke Lamora) is EXCELLENT on audio.
- I enjoyed listening to Ready Player One - I can't remember if I did Ready Player Two or not.
- I've only read them (and they're fantastic as text), but I've heard that Raven Kennedy's Plated Prisoner series is a good listen. (Dark fantasy, may or may not be to your taste... it's certainly not a wilting flower of a girl heroine, though one could be forgiven if they made the mistake of thinking that was the case...)
- I've only read John Sandford's Prey series, but a family member has been through them all on audio, and says they're well done.
posted by stormyteal at 5:53 PM on December 30, 2024

The solar clipper series is a cozy, low stakes SF story following the career of a spacer in the interstellar merchant trade. If you search the book titles in your podcast app, they should show up, if you don’t want to buy them.
posted by rockindata at 6:26 PM on December 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

I'd second the rec for Adjoa Anode reading Ann Leckie's books. They're all fabulous, with the caveat that you can kind of hear her struggle with a couple of the names in the first one.

However, I have a slightly alternate solution to the need for listening material – the BBC archive on archive.org has excellent stuff, and it's not all posh twerps, unless you interpret all British voices as posh.

These are mostly dramatisations. I just found this iteration and I'm kind of gobsmacked that it exists given how much of this is usually for sale.

The John Le Carré Complete Smiley is PHENOMENAL. Can't recommend it highly enough, even though it doesn't really fit your request.

There's some sci-fi there. I enjoyed the adaptation of Solaris, if you can find it, and I like the vintage sci-fi but there are some old-fashioned attitudes/language to put up with. The Pratchett adaptations are fun.

Of its historical fiction, the Cadfael, Falco and Shardlake adaptations. are pretty good. Mike Walker's historical plays are okay to excellent. Casts are usually fantastic. I really liked McLevy, starring Brian Cox as a detective in 19th century Edinburgh

If you want comedy, go to Armando Ianucci's Wikipedia page to find out everything he was ever involved in, and listen to that. Ditto John Finnemore.
posted by finisterre at 5:14 AM on December 31, 2024 [2 favorites]

There are some great audiobook performances of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, which have five arcs: Rincewind, Death, Ankh Morpork, the Lancre Witches and Tiffany Aching. The Penguin Audiobooks have a range of great natrators, with Death played by Peter Serafinowicz and footnotes (drily) read by Bill Nighy.
posted by k3ninho at 3:30 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]

Try the Tana French Dublin Murder Squad books. There are six and the audiobooks are over 20h each, so, if you like them, its a goldmine.

I would start at the beginning with In the Woods. It's not absolutely necessary, but she does connect each one to the next nicely.

They are mysteries, obviously, but really just beautiful character studies.
posted by pjenks at 10:14 PM on December 31, 2024

- I've only read John Sandford's Prey series, but a family member has been through them all on audio, and says they're well done.

I agree these are well done (although their tone has not been uniform over their 35 year run... early ones were dark and violent, these days more fun and sarcastic, including Lucas Davenport's "Investigator" daughter).

But the most enjoyable audiobooks by Sandford are in the Virgil Flowers series, read by Eric Conger. Sandford also has a scifi adventure: Saturn Run.

Along the same lines, I've also really enjoyed the Harry Bosch series (although avoid narration by the awful Titus Welliver) and the Dave Robicheaux series.

They're all, you know, cop books, though, so ymmv.
posted by pjenks at 10:29 PM on December 31, 2024 [1 favorite]

Slade House by David Mitchell is just a really great audiobook all around.

Another excellent audiobook is Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer. Very unconventional modern British mystery with an unbelievably good narrator (Andrew Wincott).
posted by Kemma80 at 10:20 AM on January 1