Audiobook suggstions

[catspaw]

I keep running out of podcasts. I enjoy audiobooks that have an engaging voice, whether that's a David Sedaris memoir or a Song of Ice And Fire book read by Roy Dotrice.

Any suggestions for books you've listened to that are particularly engaging?

[notcreative]

My favorite audio books include The Poisonwood Bible, Doomsday Book, The Crime of the Century, Nothing to Envy, Packing for Mars, and The Poisoner's Handbook. The first two are fiction and the rest are NF. Disclaimer is that I did not care for the one David Sedaris book I tried to listen to.

[bjjgrrl]

I liked the "Golden Age of the Solar Clipper" books by Nathan Lowell. Available here on Podiobooks. Quarter Share, Half Share, Full Share, Double Share, Captain's Share, Owner's Share.

[AustralMoonBear]

Scott Sigler's Infected, COntagious and the GFL series were awesome. Available as free podcasts too

[concretecavewoman]

Gone Girl by Gilian Flynn, The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville.

[The Tin Man]

I enjoyed the recording of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Also Stephen Fry's reading of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I will be paying attention to this thread for ideas.

[Brometheus]

I love everything read by Neil Gaiman. The graveyard book is particularly good. I know @crowbeak had a bunch of suggestions for me, I'll dig up my pm and copy it here.

[Roflhouse]

Bossypants by Tina Fey (and read by her too)

Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter is pretty good.

Haven't heard the Stephen Fry Hitchhikers, but if you can get a hold of the original BBC radio series, it's incredible. Marvin the paranoid android can't be unheard.

[Starstuff]

World War Z by Max Brooks (the audible recording, which has multiple readers due to the format of the book, and they're all quite good)

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (read by Kevin Foley)

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer)

The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane (read by Christina Moore)

[JasontheKiwi]

I enjoyed the audio books by AJ Jacobs, try drop dead healthy or the year of living biblically, hilarious stuff.

[liljehult]

The Dresden files by Jim Butcher

13 (+1) books and soon the 14´th (its on E-book) but not yet on audiobook. Edit it is in Audio book in the US, not yet in Europe :-(

They are really great fantasy in the modern world. kinda like a grown up version of Harry Potter.

Yes, go find Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (much better that the movie and I really love the movie).

[BeckyBuckeye]

I'm listening to The Shining by Stephen King (don't know who the reader is, sorry) and I love it (and no, I haven't seen the movie, so no spoilers!).

[sericite]

I don't usually listen to audiobooks, but I listened to Stephen King read his writing memoir, On Writing, and it's pretty fabulous.

[GuQiMi]

I listen to audiobooks every day while at work, and I've got a ton of them on my external HD.

 

I second The Dresden Files, especially since you can listen to a bunch of them in a row.  Plus, all but one of them is narrated by James Marsters (Spike, from Buffy), who does a terrific job.  The one book that wasn't narrated by him was narrated by the guy who played Lyle Luthor in Smallville.

 

Similar to Dresden would be the Iron Druid series by Kevin Hearne, read by Luke Daniels.

 

I recently listened to The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson and really enjoyed it.

 

Stephen Briggs does a bang-up job performing all of Terry Pratchett's work.  There are some novels that have other readers, but all of the books that Briggs narrates actually say, "Performed by" rather than "Read by."

 

Neil Gaiman narrates a lot of his own books, which is nice because you can hear the intonations the author intended.

 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is a nonfiction Barbara Kingsolver book, which is also read by the author with some excerpts read by her daughter and her husband.  It's about how her family spent a year eating locally, producing much of their own food.

 

I wasn't able to read the physical books of Charlaine Harris novels, but the reader who reads the Southern Vampire series (Sookie Stackhouse) was pretty good.  When I listened to it, I was able to overlook the writing style, since it was more like someone was telling me a story.

 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green was very good, even though it is a YA book.  Narrated by Kate Rudd.

 

If you like romance, most of the Nora Roberts/JD Robb audiobooks are narrated well.  If you like them racier and paranormal, the Laurell K. Hamilton books are all decently narrated by Kimberly Alexis.  It just gets weird when she tries to do all the male voices.  It almost works better for men to read for women, in which case you can check out the audiobooks from Gena Showalter's Lords of the Underworld series, which are read by Max Bellmore or Sherillyn Kenyon's Dark-Hunter series read by Holter Graham.   Holter Graham is a great narrator, so if you just search his name on Amazon, you'll find several audiobooks in different genres.

 

Sorry, I'm a nerd for audiobooks, and I can ramble on and on.

[ICB]

I second Stephen Briggs and the Terry Pratchett books. I've listened to so many Discworld books by Stephen Briggs that his voices will always be the voices for those characters to me.

 

I also second World War Z. Mark Hamil is one of the main readers, but they are all amazing.

 

New suggestions:

• Redshirts by John Scalzi read by Wil Wheaton (Yes, THAT Wil Wheaton). Wheaton does a great job with it.
• The Gun Machine by Warren Ellis, read by Reg E. Cathey. Cathey is super growly in this one, and it kind of bothered me at first. As the story goes on, though, that growl just becomes part of the excellent scenery, and the book is great.
• The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston, read by Paul Michael Garcia. Garcia sounds just terrified and petulant, which works so well for the narrator of this book.

[FalseAesop]

I'll echo the Neil Gaiman suggestions. Besides being a fantastic author, he is a great narrator with a wide vocal range. He really likes the format of audio books and has begun to produce audio books of lesser known authors he likes through Audible.com's Neil Gaiman Presents series.

I haven't listened to them all, and they haven't all been to my taste (I found the Viriconium collection.... Really tedious to listen through) But if I can't find anything the Neil Gaiman Presents series is a wide range of books selected by my favorite author.

[re-animator]

Scott Sigler's Infected, COntagious and the GFL series were awesome. Available as free podcasts too

 

I second that one; Ancestor and his short stories are also really good too.

 

Also try checking out Overdrive media. The site used to have a bunch of free, good audiobooks; they went through an overhall recently so I'm not totally sure what they have any more, still worth a look though.

[Shortkaik]

I'll second Bossypants by Tina Fey!  I listen to a lot of audiobooks, but it's one of the few that I would recommend the audiobook over the real book for more than just convenience.  It's so much better to hear it read in her voice!

 

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone... when I run out of audiobooks I find myself not working out as often.  Need more!

[Nighner]

Hyperion by Dan Simmons!

 

This series is just epic.  The first book in the series (4 books) has a different reader for each character to wonderful effect.  The last three books don't have as many readers... but are still absolutely worth the listen.

 

http://www.dansimmons.com/books/early_release.htm

 

The series is Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion... then more recently Illium came out, I think it's related, but I haven't listened to it yet.

[JasontheKiwi]

Have recently listened to 'The biology of belief' which was awesome! Listened to 'the power of habit' but Charles Duhigg which was ok. Listened to 'On origin of the species' which was interesting but tedious and am currently listening to Rob Bells 'what do we talk about when we talk about God' which so far is quite interesting. I also enjoyed a couple of audiobooks by David Eddings.

[Tazo]

The Old Man's War series has a really solid reader that I think matches the voice of the world, and the story, very well.  

I will also say, it's amazing how a voice that DOESN'T work will drop me out of a story like that.