Tom Hanks also narrates the book of short stories he wrote. Beautifully written and performed.
We listened to lots of audio books when our kids were little. I donāt do it so much now since Iām not in the car for regular periods and thatās how I like to listen. I donāt like earbuds or headphones. My husband loves to āreadā via audio books. I read paper books, but I do kinda miss audio books. Maybe I will look into doing it again.
Anyway, Iāve only got one plug for ya since Iām not a regular listener any more, but when the kids were little we listened to āThe True Meaning of Smek Dayā by Adam Rex, read by Bahni Turpin. Bahni Turpin was an amazing reader. In fact she was so good that I looked up all the other audio books in the library she read for and we checked out a bunch. And hereās the plug for yāall adult listeners. She also reads adult/grown up books, so check her out. I know she read the āImmortal Life of Henrietta Lacksā.
ETA: more info on her reads
I hadnāt done a audiobook before, but am currently listening to The Latecomer for the CC Book Club thread and am loving it. Itās read by Julia Whelan, who was mentioned upthread, and she does a fantastic job. I feel like the book is being performed rather than read; the language really lends itself to this format.
I decided to do this as an audiobook because of my eyelid/brow surgery. My only issue is that, unlike hard copy, the audiobook keeps going when I doze off. Iāve had to rewind several times.
Itās a library book and Iām listening via Libby (did the forced switch from Overdrive recently and am very happy).
Iāve been asking for years, for someone to please build an app that uses FitBit sleep data to pause my audiobook!
Libby should be part of every āreaderāsā arsenol! What a great alternative while your eyes are healing.
I always set the Libby timer to stop at the end of the chapter if Iām sleepy which makes it much easier to rewind to the spot where I doze off.
Great one! I read on Kindle and got the audio for one of my kids to hear before bed. We tested it first; so perfect, from what I heard!
Cary Elwesās memoir of The Princess Bride, āAs You Wishā is excellent.
I really liked the reader for the first three Deborah Harkness books (the fourth was good but pronounced things differently). This is thebA Discovery of Witches Series. The reader for Edwin Hillās Hester Thursby series is great. I also liked the reader for Kate Quinnās books, starting with The Alice Network.
Empire of Pain, about the Sackler family, is read by the author and done very well (Patrick Radden Keefe).
Thanks for the recommendation of As You Wish - it was so much fun to listen to, with Rob Reiner and much of the cast chiming in. I did think Cary Elwes was a bit self-effacing plus hero worship of Reiner - but he did a great delivery. I periodically stopped to pull up videos of the scenes he described making. Very enlightening!
Glad you liked it! We also had to watch after listening. We appreciated certain scenes more, thatās for sure. Also, fencing sounds so difficult!!
I have started to use audio books more over the last year with the addition of a dog in our household - perfect for long walks. So far, I have been quite happy with my choices and just discovered one genre that doesnāt work for me - light fiction/rom-com.
I am listening to Happy Place by Emily Henry and do not like it as a audio book at all. I have liked her other books for light summer, airplane, relaxing reads and thought I would try one on audio. I am not a fan of the narration by Julie Whelan and her switch to a male voice makes the character of Wyn sound like Eeyore. I was listening without airpods as I working and my husband joked that I was listening to soft porn - the āromanceā did seem to come across that way when read aloud! I feel like I am listening to a Hallmark movie with a lot more sex
Is it just me - I am guessing I would like to book if I read it - but audio is just too over the top. I think autobiographies and more in-depth descriptive fiction work better for me - Horse by Geraldine Brooks comes to mind as my favorite audio book this year.
Anyone else listened to this one - thoughts ?
Youāre not the only one. I just returned the book to Audible. I listened for about 3 hours, hoping it would get better. It didnāt. Iāve been listening to audio books for over 10 years and Iāve only returned a handful in that time.
Iām listening to A Billion Years right now by Mike Rindle, the ex-scientologist who spills all. Iām a little obsessed with cults. I donāt think I would have read through the whole thing but listening on 1.25 speed has made it go fast.
Tom Cruise doesnāt come off looking very good.
I put Spare on hold for both kindle and audio at the library and the book copy came first. If I canāt get through it on kindle, Iāll try it on audio. I think it will be better on audio as I can do other things at the same time.
On what device do you all listen ā on your phone? Do you use bluetooth ear things so you donāt disturb anyone else??
I listen on my phone with bluetooth earbuds, and love being able to walk around without being tethered to my phone. My husband uses wired earbuds, the only advantage being he doesnāt have to charge them regularly.
I occasionally listen on an old Fire Tablet, but itās very finicky.
If Iām not listening in my car while driving on Bluetooth I listen via my phone using ear buds. Even if no one is home I prefer to have the audio in my ear.
I listen with wireless headphones when I walk. If I am home alone, I listen with a wireless speaker while making dinner,. I sometimes use my headphones while doing mindless tasks like vacuuming or Iāll just use my phoneās speaker function.
In the car, I use bluetooth if Iām alone. When on roadtrips, Iāll use headphones if others are in the car with me. However, I just got a new car and cannot figure out how to use my wireless headphones. Even if I turn off the bluetooth for my car, the sound still comes thru the car speakers. It must be something with Apple Play b/c my old car didnt have that and I was able to use headphones. I need to figure it out at some point b/c we go on a lot of roadtrips.
You could just use some wired headphones/buds. There is an adapter so you can plug them directly into your phone.
I do 90% of my reading in Audio but donāt usually like romance in audio form and read those the old fashion way - I just canāt get into the characters/chemistry in the audio. It just makes everything sound extra cheesy.
Having said that, I liked JW narration of Thank You for Listening, which is her own book. I donāt remember it having much in terms of steamy scenes though, so maybe that is what is otherwise the problem.
She did a fantastic job creating chemistry between Addie and Luc in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, but that isnāt a āromance bookā per se either.
ETA: and ābeach read romanceā male narrators are usually horrendous. Has anyone found one they like?
I tried that but the adaptor doesnāt work. I need to be able to plug my phone into the USB port for Apple Play (to use Waze) so I used an adaptor that allows you to plug in wired headphones and the charging cord for USB port but that did not work either. I brought both my wireless and wired headphones for just this reason but neither worked.
I was so frustrated and needed to get on the road that I gave up.