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Three Heads Are Better Than One (or Two): Audiobooks We Love

3/9/2012

14 Comments

 
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With this post we are launching our new joint effort -Three Heads Are Better Than One (or Two) - a regular feature where we will present  our opinions and recommendations on many, many (mostly book-related) subjects. Three opinions, naturally, are much better than one (or two), right?

Today we are talking about our favorite and/or memorable audio books. The three of us are dedicated consumers, fans and self-proclaimed connoisseurs of books on audio. We have sampled a lot of them; we loved many of them. It was hard to choose, but we managed to narrow down our favorites to two books each - one adult and one YA/children's. If you still have not yet explored the wonderful world of audio pleasures, these books are a great place to start. Samples included.

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The Year of the Flood cover
The Year of the Floood
Author: Margaret Atwood
Narrators: Bernadette Dunn, Katie MacNichol, Mark Bramhall
Publisher: Random House Audio

An Excerpt of the Book

The Year of the Flood was written as a companion to Atwood’s disturbing dystopian release, Oryx and Crake.   In this world, the environment has been polluted and perverted by human carelessness and arrogance.  The lucky few live in pharmaceutical company owned compounds while the unlucky masses survive on the outside.  It isn’t really necessary to read Oryx and Crake first, but I’d recommend it – these two books together are brilliant.  Oryx and Crake centers around two boys growing up in the compounds, numbing themselves with a steady diet of violence, sex, and pharmaceuticals as they become more and more disaffected.  It’s a cold, disconnected book, which only serves to make its climax even more disturbing. 

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The Year of the Flood is the very different story of two women on the outside.  Both are members of the God’s Gardeners, a sort of environmentalist religious cult.  This book feels much more emotional and intense to me, and it made me love Oryx and Crake even more in retrospect.  This audiobook is really special, because it’s one of those that completely transports you into the world of the novel.  The book contains the hymns of the God’s Gardeners in between chapters, and here they are performed with musical accompaniment. They are very crunchy granola and a bit cheesy, which only makes them feel more realistic to me.  Bernadette Dunn is practical and introspective as Toby and Katie MacNichol is vulnerable but persevering as Ren.  I’ve heard that Margaret Atwood plans to continue this series with a third book and I’m very excited to read (or listen) to it.  

The True Meaning of Smekday cover
The True Meaning of Smekday
Author: Adam Rex
Narrator: Bahni Turpin
Publisher: Listening Library

An Excerpt of the Book

Okay, so this is actually a middle grade book, but I’m going to fudge “the rules” here because this audiobook is so spectacular!  I can say with complete certainty that this is the most clever and hilarious alien invasion/road trip/commentary on human ethics story featuring a sarcastic eleven year old girl and a quirky alien called “J.Lo” that I’ve ever read.  And not only that – it’s also illustrated. 

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J. Lo
Now, I know what you’re going to say:  Why on Earth would I listen to the audiobook when I’d miss the illustrations?  True. But here’s what makes the audiobook absolutely worth getting:  Bahni Turpin. She’s a genius.  She’s one of my favorite narrators (you may have also heard her in The Help, The Downside Ghosts series, or Push).  Her delivery of Tip’s dry, cynical comebacks is spot on.  And her take on J.Lo – squeaky, wavering, and silly – is so perfect.  This is a great audiobook for families to listen to together (I’d say it’s for ages eight and up) and you can always buy a copy (or a few copies) of the print version for the illustrations.  I’ve already given this book to several people!

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The Girl of the Dragon Tattoo cover
The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsson
Narrator: Simon Vance
Publisher: Random House Audio
An Excerpt of the Book


Oh, how I lamented not having a paper version of this book when I was listening to this Simon Vance's reading of it! He made me fall in love with this story. I enjoyed Vance's narration because his voice transported me into the cold and snowy world of contemporary Sweden. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought Simon Vance's voice had a very discerning Swedishness to it, that firmness and terseness. And I was thoroughly impressed by his ability to pronounce all these Swedish names with weird letters in them so smoothly - Hans-Erik Wennerström, Nils Bjurman, Hedestad. Tell me some more Swedish words, Mr. Vance!

The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian cover
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Author: Sherman Alexie
Narrator: Sherman Alexie
Publisher: Recorded Books
An Excerpt of the Book


Generally, I am not very fond of audio books narrated by writers. Even though I understand that they know their characters and their voices better than anyone else, they often do not posses the necessary acting skills.

Sherman Alexie is not a professional actor and reader and, frankly, he is not even a good amateur reader, BUT his voice is just the absolutely perfect fit for his narrator - 14-year old Junior, poor, handicapped, bullied, stuttering and at times foul-mouthed Native American boy. Everything is just so organic in this audio version of the novel - the accents, the stuttering, the rhythm of the humor. A seamless melding of the story and the narrator.

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Dune
Author: Frank Herbert
Narrator: 
Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, Simon Vance
Publisher: Macmillan Audio

An Excerpt of the Book

 I think my absolute favorite part about audiobooks is that I am able to do things while I'm listening.   This whopper of an audiobook is over 21 hours long. While listening to it, I commuted back and forth to school a few times and then drove from Boston to Philadelphia and back again. I'd heard over and over that every sci-fi fan had to read Dune but frankly, the length was intimidating. It won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novel and when I was researching this audiobook, I also found that it won the Audie Award for Science Fiction in 2008. Very deservedly, if you ask me, because I found this cast and overall production to be superb. The world, the number of characters, their names, the plotlines--it is a huge undertaking. The audiobook has a few bizarre touches that make it unique. For example, each narrator takes turns with chapters rather than having the narrators voice specific characters. Also, there are a lot of background musical touches interspersed in the production. Both of these features would normally turn me off in an audio production but the former didn't bother me and the latter added to my absolute immersion in the world. The 21 hours just flew by and I plan to listen to it again before I go forward with the series. It makes me happy that even while no proper movie has been made to capture the amazingness of this novel (This is arguable. Certainly the Kyle McLachlan/Sting in a diaper version is no one's perfect movie version. The miniseries one was pretty good.), this audiobook does it right.  If you ever plan to give Dune a try, or want to read it again, I recommend listening to this production. 

Stolen Lucy Christopher audiobook cover
Stolen
Author: Lucy Christopher
Narrator: Emily Gray
Publisher: Recorded Books
An Excerpt of the Book

This narrator is amazing. Emily Gray voices an Australian young man and a British teenage girl seamlessly in this young adult audiobook. While I was listening to it, one of my sisters was in the car with me. After about a 20 minute drive, she went home and just started it herself from the beginning. We would have daily discussions until we both finished it, which definitely gives me some happy memories of this audiobook. Before I started, I was skeptical about how much I would enjoy a book about what basically amounts to a teen girl held captive in the Australian Outback and her relationship with her captor. The answer is a ton. The narrator is perfect and I've recommended this audiobook to several other readers who've enjoyed it as well. If you're thinking of reading it, listen to it instead. I'm sure the book is great as well but this audio performance is not to be missed.

What are some of your favorite audioboooks?  Who are your favorite narrators?  We love getting recommendations so leave us a comment!
14 Comments
Sash from Sash & Em link
3/9/2012 02:58:52 am

Just finished The Book Thief by Markus Zuasak on audiobook and LOVED it. :)

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Flannery (The Readventurer) link
3/9/2012 03:08:48 am

Did the narrator/s do all the accents? Was there any music? *sigh* I can only imagine how good that one is on audio.

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Heidi @ YA Bibliophile link
3/9/2012 03:05:44 am

I LOVED The True Meaning of Smekday. Such a great audio. Nick Podehl is my very favorite narrator. Two of my favorite audiobooks are Chime by Fanny Billingsley and The Knife of Never Letting go by Patrick Ness (all the books in the trilogy!) Thanks for your recommendations.

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Flannery (The Readventurer) link
3/9/2012 03:07:49 am

Ah! Thanks for the for letting me know that the Chaos Walking books are great on audio--I'm going to read those this year and that is so exciting. I hadn't heard anything about them as audiobooks.

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Catie (The Readventurer) link
3/9/2012 04:35:55 am

Flannery - the Chaos Walking books have GREAT narrators and they handle the "noise" excellently. Nick Podehl has the dreamiest voice...

Also Macleod Andrews is in the third one. (He's also amazing in The Spectacular Now).

Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
3/9/2012 03:39:56 am

Oh, the movie version of Dune. Lynch surely made Vladimir Harkonnen the grossest SF character ever!

I liked this audio too, only I had to first read a few chapters of the actual physical book to catch up on the lingo. I was like - Bene Gesserit what? The cast is fab though.

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Lucy link
3/10/2012 06:15:44 am

Nice audio recs! I've been interested in reading True Story and Stolen so may have to try them in audio format. I didn't realize True Story is narrated by the author. Glad to hear he pulls it off so well.
I'm currently listening to Clockwork Angel and enjoying it a lot. It's long (13 discs) so it's taking me a while to get through it, but the narrator is superb.

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
3/10/2012 06:40:19 am

Trust me, Lucy, 13 discs is not a lot. Diana Gadandon's books are around 50!

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Maggie, Young Adult Anonymous link
3/10/2012 07:10:08 pm

This is such a great (and helpful!) post. I'm fairly new to audiobooks and have a free Audible trial that I didn't know what to do with. Thanks for the great suggestions.

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Flannery (The Readventurer) link
3/12/2012 05:08:54 am

Oooh, I'm curious what you'll pick as well, Maggie. I always tried to use my Audible credits on books I really wanted that were super long. I think I used my first credit on Dragon Tattoo, which was great and got me hooked on audiobooks for life.

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VeganYANerds link
3/11/2012 04:25:08 pm

I loved this post! I have never listened to an audiobook but I'd really like to starting buying/borrowing them because they'd be great in the car or while on the treadmill. Great suggestions, I am going to look these up!

Flannery - I liked your comment yesterday! It's always me (Mandee) commenting on blogs and on our twitter account :)

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Flannery (The Readventurer) link
3/12/2012 05:11:10 am

I'm glad you clarified--I always just pretended I was talking to just you because I don't really know your cobloggers:) Perhaps it would've been funnier if you just let me continue on having no clue who I was talking to, hahaha.

I know Nomes has gotten a few audiobooks from her library in Aus--maybe your lib has some as well. YA ones are a good entry point because they are much, much shorter than adult titles. (5 or so discs rather than 11-20 or so)

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Missie, The Unread Reader link
3/12/2012 06:03:01 am

Audiobooks are my new addiction, so I really appreciate the post and the suggestions in the comments.

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