I am an audiobook noob. I only started relatively recently, this year. I enjoy listening to them on the way to or while setting up my campsite.
I used to listen to Spice and Wolf, until I ran into new volumes that are not available yet. I am looking for another fiction book or have recommendations for audiobooks that can fit a ~3 hour ride+~1 hour setup. S&W had 12 volumes, usually 5-7 hours. I need another thing that can keep me going.
Many consider Andy Serkis’ reading of The Lord of the Rings trilogy to be the top of the craft, including me.
Oh, of course! I haven’t watched it in over a decade, I bet it’ll tingle my neurons just right with familiarity and nostalgia.
Daniel O’Malley has real compelling audiobooks (~90 hours over 4 books so far). First book (Rook) follows the main character as she wakes up with amnesia in a park, surrounded by bodies and is guided by notes left by pre-amnesia her. It’s not directly Spice and Wolf, but you’ll know after 5 minutes if it’s in your wheelhouse.
That’s some serious runtime (guess it makes more sense to me now why spice and wolf is a ‘light novel’)! It sounds intriguing , Imma give it a shot.
When it comes to fictional audiobooks, I can recommend Librivox and Nolan Reads as sources. In the case of Nolan Reads, since this is a YouTube channel you will presumably need a way to download the audiobooks into an audio format using something like NewPipe, PipePipe, Yt-Downloader etc. Also, both Librivox and Nolan Reads largely focus on public domain works / classic literature.
Some Nolan Reads audiobooks I’ve listened to and enjoyed include:
- The Catcher in the Rye (6 hours) — one of the very few audiobooks he’s made of a copyrighted work, which resulted in it getting removed from YouTube for copyright infringement, hence why I’m linking to a reupload on Bilibili. You can download Bilibili through PipePipe, Yt-Downloader, yt-dlp or other YouTube downloaders.
- The Great Gatsby (5 hours)
- A Farewell to Arms (10 hours)
For Librivox, the only fictional audiobooks from there I’ve listened to aren’t in English, so I can’t really say I’ve vetted any audiobooks for you to listen to — you’ll just have to explore the site and see if you find any audiobooks to your liking. There are a lot of plus sides to Librivox, but since they’re drawing from a large pool of volunteers, one of the big downsides is that the readings themselves can be very hit or miss IMO. Nolan Reads has guaranteed quality, he’s a very skilled voice actor who really embodies the characters, knows when to be loud and when to be quiet for effect, that sort of thing.
If you give it a shot, lemme know what you think.
Yeah I started on The Rook. Interesting version of the world, sometimes I get a bit lost on what’s going on and all the names quickly being introduced but Imma stick with it and the series. Wish it had a male narrator tho, the woman narrating it has a bit of a sharp voice through my motorcycle helmet speakers, but it’s fine once I switch to my bone conduction headphones. I am hooked on the initial premise for sure and want to find out what happened.
That is great to hear! I’m glad it’s panning out. I think he’s a terrific writer.
I just finished The Rook. Am absolutely hooked into the world, loved the book, storytelling and progression. I love how there are still hints and aspects there unresolved.
I’m going to start on Stiletto, my understanding is that
Spoiler
It continues Myfanwy’s story while future books cover other characters. I really hope it uncovers why and who she got these warnings from. The sections explaining where she got the warnings leave me extremely curious and all felt way too random. I almost thought it was Gestalt time traveling before realizing they were a bad thing lol, but that means thats still open.
Thank you again for your recommendation, this is tingling just the right neurons.
Fantastic! I’m so glad it fit the bill.
There’s a good graphic audio of the storm light series by Brandon Sanderson, if you haven’t read it. It also has regular style.
Can explain in further detail what this means? I’m unfamiliar with the concept of ‘graphic audio’
Basically it’s a group of actors and each does the voice of their character, there’s also sound effects. The text is unchanged though. That’s the only one I’ve listened to but I loved it.
Ohhh sounds more immersive! I’ll give it a shot!
