Anyone listen to audio books regularly?

[Manzelle]

Do you enjoy listening to a book as much as you do reading one? I am starting to listen to an audio book of Huckleberry Finn and while it's not bad I am not sure I will absorb as much of it this way...maybe I'll have to listen to it two times...

 

[Gurck]

I can't listen to those, night & day vs. reading.

 

[tweakmm]

What does the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy count as? Is it a radio show or an audio book? Regardless, I think that I enjoyed reading the book more.

 

[0roo0roo]

hell no. it drives me mad. they read so slowly it feels like your retarded. theres a reason so many are abridged.. at that rate it would take ages to actually read the whole book😛 also the voice/actor/actress tends to disconnect me from the material, esp when bad.

 

[imported_Phil]

I quite enjoy some audio books, especially as I'm on the road 95% of the time for my job; keeps me from going stir crazy. The BBC books are generally the better ones.

 

[nageov3t]

I've always been turned off by the price of them, compared to the paper editions.

 

[Manzelle]

The unabridged edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is 11 hours and 20 minutes in length...that doesn't seem too bad really...the voice acting isn't terrible thus far...

 

[nageov3t]

I'd think that with an audio version, you'd miss some of the subtleties of the novel (Huck's extreme racism, for example).

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: Manzelle
Do you enjoy listening to a book as much as you do reading one? I am starting to listen to an audio book of Huckleberry Finn and while it's not bad I am not sure I will absorb as much of it this way...maybe I'll have to listen to it two times...

You need to be more critical in what you pick to listen to.

Here are some things I've listened to in the past 2-3 months:

The Iliad
Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville
"The Blue Hotel" and "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane
"The Minister's Black Veil" and "The Ambitious Guest" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The One Million Pound Bank Note" and "Baker's Bluejay Yarn" by Mark Twain
"The Princess and the Puma" by O. Henry
"Under the Lion's Paw" by Hamlin Garland, "The Law of Life" by Jack London
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "The Man and the Snake" by Ambrose Bierce
"Paul's Case" by Willa Cather
"MS. Found in a Bottle" by Edgar Allan Poe.
Euripides' Medea
Shakespeare's The Tempest
Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid
Dumas' Camille
Ibsen's An Enemy of the People
Shaw's Arms and the Man
Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.


Short stories, plays, Lyric Epics, poetry... are all good listening choices...

I actually got Moby Dick too, though I wouldn't reccomend it, I just wanted a refresher 🙂

 

[Manzelle]

Originally posted by: djheater

"The Minister's Black Veil" and "The Ambitious Guest" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I actually read "The Minister's Black Veil" a few weeks ago. I liked it a lot which is odd considering I do not like most Hawthorne stories. That story and "Rappaccini's Daughter" are about the only two I like.

 

[darkjester]

Originally posted by: loki8481
I've always been turned off by the price of them, compared to the paper editions.

Go the your local library. That's what I do because my road trips are usually last less than a week, so they're back with plenty of time.

Also, Cracker Barrel lets you "rent" them. You buy an audiobook there for about $30 (for example). As long as you return it to ANY other Cracker Barrel (keep your receipt in the audiobook case) in a week, you get all but $3.50 (might even be less) back. Not too shabby. $3.50 for entertainment on the road is totally worth it to me. 🙂

I used to DREAD road trips, but audiobooks have actually made them something for me to look forward to.

 

[Gunbuster]

All the time, keeps me from having to listen to news about bushy or adverts on the radio, "read" 1 a week back and forth to work.