Any audiobook fans around here? I mainly use Audible, and I find that randomly browsing on there is more painful than it isn’t. I’m open to anything although I particularly enjoy fantasy, horror, and nonfiction biology/medical stuff
For anyone looking for something new (at least new to you) I can’t recommend the unabridged Moby Dick read by William Hootkins. He does such an amazing job emoting for every character and imparting actual drama into a book that is painfully long winded at times.
I’ve been stocking up on the Culture series… One day I’ll start to penetrate my backlog.
The Expanse series made for very good audiobooks, IMO.
I’ve got a lot of history recs but it sounds like you’re not looking for that.
I’m open to history stuff, particularly the Crusades.
The only Euro history book I listened to that blew me away was A People’s Tragedy which is about the Russian Revolution, unpopularity and failure thereof. I’m mostly an American history girl.
do you know of anything good about the first colonies? I’m partial to anything New England based, I try to look for folklore/tall tales stuff like the Jersey Devil, Ogopogo, etc.
I really enjoyed Capital in the 21st Century as an audiobook. I wouldn’t ever fathom to read something that dry, but listening to it in increments day to day was great.
I also am like 2 hours from finishing the 10 main books of Malazan as audiobooks. It’s pretty good, first time I’ve done an audiobook instead of a real book for a fantasy series. I will say the transition from books 3 to 4 or whatever where they change the performer AND force you into three chapters of a single character’s story is a rough rough transition, but by the end you’ll be alright with the new voice actor.
I do not recommend whatever audiobook I went through for Marcus Aurelius, not because the content is bad or the performance is bad, but it’s just better in written form.
I enjoyed Tsun Zu’s the art of ward as read by Peter Baelish, but I kinda don’t want to recommend it. For one, when you actually find out t hat there’s just not much to this supposed story, and 99% of the wisdom is just sort of tautological pretend to be weak when you are strong, pretend to be strong when you are weak… it’s pretty low value. I bet there’s something else out there that goes more into history that would be higher value.
“The Worm at the Core” is a trash book. Nothing necessarily wrong with the performer. It comes across 100% like an amateur hour undergrad student’s thesis of everything. They explain a bunch of research, then draw “some kind of conclusion” from it wherein I often felt you could just as easily draw “the opposite conclusion.” The thing is I think the premise “death has a big effect on our lives and how we behave” is true, but they just never justify their conclusions; and I feel that people should naturally mature past simple ‘death fears’, though certainly not everyone does.
American Colonies by Alan Taylor was pretty good. Taylor’s a two time Pulitzer winner so you know the content is good if a little dry. The Counter Revolution of 1776 was a comprehensive history of slavery throughout British America and the places that would become it starting with the first settlements. 1676 is also very good but that’s not audio.
Malazan’s main books are done. Very fun.
Trying the audiobook for The Prince of Nothing… only minutes in, but this feels gross.
Listen to Gollum reading The Hobbit.