Audiobooks

So I have seen a lot of posts asking about audiobooks.  I consider myself a bit of a connoisseur of audiobooks, I’ve been listening to them for well over 10 years now, and as my current commute can take a long as 2 hours one way (yes, pity me please) I listen to a lot of books.  Audiobooks are a great way to catch up before the next book in a series comes out, or before the movie (I did this with Hunger Games).  You certainly don’t have to listen to books you’ve already read, but I find that’s a nice was start if you haven’t tried them before.

I get just about all of my audiobooks from the library, through their e-book services.  I use two different library apps to listen to the books, Overdrive which I know is popular, and Cloud Library.  If you go the library route, the app you use will depend on your library.  There are other sites, that allows you to buy audiobooks, and if you want to own the audiobooks, or can’t find what you want at the library, these are going to be where you should go.  Personally, I don’t re-listen to audiobooks that much, so I’d rather just check them out from the library for free!  I’ve also noticed that at the library, audiobooks don’t seem to be as popular as ebooks.  This may not matter for older books, but if you are looking to listen to a new release you may get it sooner in audiobook form.

Another thing to consider is the narration.  You may be excited to see your favorite actor is narrating a book, in my experience that is not always a good thing.  I am currently listening to City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare.  It is narrated by Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) and Jason Dohring (Logan from Veronica Mars).  I LOVE Jason  Jason Dorhing, but he’s not a great narrator, he gets better but his reading is just a little too monotone at times.  Sophie does a good job, and her demon voice is amazing! I’m still listening to the book, but I think a better narrator would make it more enjoyable.

Which brings me to my next point, the narrator is VERY important.  It makes or breaks the audiobook experience.  If you are in anyway irritated or just not into the narrator, stop listening, because it will ruin the whole book, and you’re better off just reading it.  I’ve also noticed that a narrator who was great with one book, may not mean that they are great with every book.  I listened to some of the Lunar Chronicles and enjoyed the narrator, that same narrator also did Caraval, and well let’s just say I will be re-reading Caraval in preparation of Legendary coming out instead of listening to it.

If you are just starting out with audio books, I have a few recommendations for you:

Do you listen to audiobooks?  If so, what are some of your favorites?