Recommended: A Wizard of Earthsea, Read by Ursula K LeGuin and Harlan Ellison. My son and his family drove an extra 30 minutes so that they could finish it!
Also, A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson, read by the author.
Don't bother: Eat, Love, Pray (self indulgence is worse read out loud); Annie Lamott (Monotone voice makes for a boring listen)
Ajay's (I think?) suggestion of episodes of BBC's Cabin Pressure saved us last week.
Or anything else with Peter Cook or Kenneth Williams.
Keep in mind that this is a 30 hour drive.
Or anything else with Peter Cook or Kenneth Williams.
Probably not Derek and Clive.
This isn't helpful, but the worst audio book I listened to was also supposed to be a mystery/thriller by an Australian author along the Grish\am/C|ancy lines. The plot turned out to be that the evil French were training "killer" killer whales to kill Patriotic 'Murican scientists in Antarctica. There may have been aliens involved, but we didn't make it that far.
For actually suggestions, I've enjoyed The Hobbit as an audiobook. For mysteries, if you can find Ms Smilla's Feeling for Snow or another book by Peter Ho/eg that might be good. If you want something more tongue-and-cheek campy, I like Elizabeth Pe/ter's Am/elia Pea/body Egyptology-themed mysteries.
So. Why in the world would you googleproof ubiquitous authors?
I second the recommendation for Bill Bryson. Anything by him. When Dr. Skull and I were driving cross country (A LOT) for his job, we listened to everything he wrote. Not mysteries, but great.
Mysteries -- I like the Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie King. And then the rest of the series. Kind of a sequel to Sherlock Holmes, but really well done, with a young female apprentice.
More mindless and much more fast-paced: the Robert Parker series about Spencer, set in Boston. You can start anywhere. I think the first one I read was Early Autumn.
9: we don't want them to find out they're being appreciated.
I forgot to say -- don't get the *new* Robert Parker books. (Post-2008.) He's been dead for some time now, and the new books are being written by other people. Very hit and miss. Some are readable, some are astonishingly bad.
You might also try Nero Wolf, especially the very early ones.
Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything is super long and each chapter includes a horrible way the earth may end. Excellent!
We listened to Rumpold books on tape as kids but may be an aquired taste.
I bet Agatha Christie would be entertaining.
I should say, this is just for Jammies and I. The kids will be sacked out watching TV.
Not that these haven't been great suggestions.
I'm going to try that beekeeper one.
8: I was amused to know right away which Australian you're talking about. His prose is indeed awful (what I remember is the otherwise matter-of-fact omniscient narrative voice busting out profane similes every so often), and the action was indeed ludicrous (seekrit space shuttle!), but the first book in the series is one of the only novels I've kept at specifically because I was captivated by its madness.
I meant to add: ...but I am confident that that gonzo badness would not translate well to audio, and it didn't recommend his other books to me.
I should say, this is just for Jammies and I. The kids will be sacked out watching TV.
Oh, in that case, I, Partridge.
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Blowing own trumpet:
Link to the actual thing in there somewhere.
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17
Ha! I bet it was easier to get through it as a book rather than audiobook, because you could skim and the voice reading the audiobook played it straight, which really pushed it over the top.
Highly recommend both Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, different readers and I do prefer the first but both excellent.
20 Awesome work ttaM!
I especially appreciate the cadastral map and portolan chart. Are you embedding geodata in the digital surrogates? If so what formats are you using (GeoTIFF, GMLJP2, etc.)?
anyone want to recommend iPad games for a two-year-old that don't require a data connection? we're going to be doing an 8-hour stretch across the upper Midwest soon.
I do love Wolf Hall & the sequel, but I wouldn't classify either as books not requiring concentration.
If you haven't read True Grit yet, True Grit was a lot of fun to listen to. Donna Tartt did our version; she was perfect.
Very little experience with audiobooks, but the boy and I really enjoyed Richard E. Grant reading Roald Dahl's The Giraffe, the Pelly, and Me. Since you're going with more adult-oriented stuff perhaps you'd prefer him reading this.
26: the toca boca series is absolutely amazing. Hawaii loved the doctor and the hair salon ones at that age, but they spend endless time on the grocery store, the restaurant, the train station, the housekeeping one...they are all great.
Also preschool monkey lunchbox.
Not strictly an audiobook, but you could download all the episodes of Thrilling Adventure Hour and listen from the beginning.
I was never into 'books on tape', but there are surely some podcasts suitable for extended listening sessions.
The first audiobook I tried was 'the stench of honolulu'. I haven't finished it yet, but that is more a reflection of my time spent driving, and need to listen to Waze directions and alerts.
We listen to a lot of Stuff You Should Know podcasts from the howstuffworks site. Two days into this trip and the decision to camp farther north at Canyon Vilage instead of down closer to the lake is looking better all the time.
I downloaded bill Bryson and early autumn. See you all on Thursday.
Is the first sentence of 36 also related to the link? I intend to believe it is.
iPad games for a two-year-old
Toca Train is a hit, as are Stumpy's Alphabet Dinner and Endless Alphabet. A drawing game would also be good; I can't remember which one we have.
To the OP: Have you listened to Strange and Norrell yet? It'll last ya.
Roald Dahl is great for parents. Really defines bad parenting/adult behavior down. I couldn't even be as big of an asshole if I tried.
I do a huge amount of driving lately and listen to a lot of audio books. Here are some that I've enjoyed quite a lot very recently:
Station 11 -- though totally derivative of every other post-apocalyptic story ever, and especially The Stand, a genuinely entertaining and sometimes even quite lovely book.
The Stand -- It holds up after all these years! In fact, it's interesting to realize how much source material it provided for just about every post-apocalyptic everything that has come since.
The Martian -- aort of crappy in some ways, I guess, but very, very good fun and quite engrossing.
40: How do you stack up against Danny's father?
Code Name Verity is also exceptionally engrossing. All of the above are, to my ear at least, quite well read.
Oh yeah, the Martian would have been fun, too. Maybe if we run out by Amarillo, I'll download it.
Marginally close topic. Can anyone recommend a service for converting 1970's audio cassette tapes into MP3s or something similar? Family stuff, no copyright issues. I was just listening to my long departed father in the car, because that's the location of the last remaining cassette player.
I just re-read The Earth Abides, and yes.
I'd forgotten how depressing it was, though.
Now I am re-reading all the abysmally depressing books about How The World Ends. Just finished Nevil Shute's On The Beach. That's a great book. And OMH.
I recently enjoyed The History by Herodotus - lots of short and cool stories, plus insane amounts of horrific nastiness. Also The Twelve Caesars is good if you are into that sort of thing. I recently listened to Sex at Dawn and American Savage. Can recommend the latter, the former is based on seriously iffy science. It's not Aquatic Ape, but it's not especially rigorous.
It never occurred to me to listen to Herodotus as an audiobook or I would have done it long ago. I pick it up every now and then and read through a bunch of it. Bloody great bloody stuff. Do you have a link to a good reading?
48:
I'm glad that a reader on your level thinks highly of On the Beach, which I haven't read.
Shute has never had any reputation among literati, but his memoir, Slide Rule, about his years as an aeronautical engineer and executive from the 20s through the end of the war is a great book of its kind, full of amazing experiences and insights. It's wonderful for its portrait of his boss, Barnes Wallis, one of the greatest and most fertile aeronautical engineers ever. The only figure I can think of offhand in the same class is Tupolev.
The movie version of On the Beach was way bleaker than I expected. It made me happy to have grown up in the comedy and action movie Cold War 80s instead of the we're all going to die, many in a boom, then the rest slowly, inevitably, 60s.
More seriously, or at least literarily, the "we're all going to die" fear seeps through in a few other late 50s, early 60s writings, like William Appleman Williams' Tragedy of American Diplomacy and, more relevant to the blog's current reading, The Fire Next Time.
It made me happy to have grown up in the comedy and action movie Cold War 80s instead of the we're all going to die, many in a boom, then the rest slowly, inevitably, 60s.
Threads was in 1984.
Spies Like Us was 1985. I never heard of Threads, thank Reagan.
53: And When the Wind Blows was '86.
(The other obvious counterexample is The Day After.)
Thank you ogged, heebie (apo) for the responses to 26. Someone was just talking about the hair salon. Will have to download!
I didn't know until recently that On the Beach is supposed to lie behind both "Every Day Is Like Sunday" and Einstein on the Beach, but that knowledge certainly filled in background on this scene.
You can have my 80s memories only if you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
The Day After was 1983. It was the American Threads.
On The Beach terrified and obsessed me when I read it as a very young teenager. The movie too. There was also a fairly recent fairly decent remake if I recall correctly. Haunting in parts.
Wikipedia tells me that there's a pretty big difference between what people do at the end of On the Beach and what they do at the end of Threads and The Day After. Spoiler sensitivity prevents further conversation.
I didn't know Nevil Shute did a memoir.
It sounds exactly like something I would love -- thank you!
The plot turned out to be that the evil French were training "killer" killer whales to kill Patriotic 'Murican scientists in Antarctica.
Prior art:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Dolphin
UNWITTINGLY, HE TRAINED A DOLPHIN TO KILL THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - best poster line ever.
And I'm glad to hear that Cabin Pressure is being appreciated. I have most of it on my phone and listened to a lot during the volcano-induced travel traumas of the last couple of days - doing a six-ep Cabin Pressure marathon and then getting on a passenger plane is a bit of an odd feeling though.
One that I found even more terrifying than On the Beach was Triumph! by Philip Wylie. I was really, really scared of nuclear war when I was a teenager and to sublimate my fear devoured anything I could find related to it, even Herman Kahn's books about "escalation ladders" and such.
50: I don't recall the reader, but I just went with the audible.com version and found it quite satisfying. The guy has a very professorly voice and it almost sounds like it's Herodotus reading it.
51, 63: I strongly recommend Shute's Slide Rule. It's well written and full of cool stuff about the early days of aviation. There's a vivid scene that stands out in my mind where he described fixing a broken wire on the R100 dirigible, standing on top of the airship and admiring the view over the St. Lawrence Seaway. I love dirigibles, so I'm biased, but it's a cool book. Others that touch on the same sort of sexy engineering stories are Ignition! about the early days of developing rocket propellants, written by Isaac Asimov's PhD advisor (perfect gift for a Chemist, incidentally), and Orion about the proposed development of a spaceship powered by nuclear explosives, written by George Dyson (whose Baidarka is also well worth a read). Now I'm just rambling, so I'll stop. But seriously, dirigibles.
67 is me.
More on-topic. I enjoyed the audiobook of Mary Roach's Bonk about sex research, and I'm partway through her Stiff about what happens to bodies after we die, but it's not quite as good. Neither is really appropriate for a car ride with kids, though.
Combining some threads, if you sign up for the one month Audible trial right now BTWAM is the free book.
I thought Stiff was a terrible audiobook, but I don't have much patience because readers are so terribly slow I can't handle it. There were some drastic mispronunciations in that one, but it's been many years and I no longer remember what made me so ranty. (Progress!)
It would be rather good if audiobooks had a variable speed function to cater for different listeners. Words-per-minute scale from "aged John Wayne" to "coked-up Robin Williams".
71: The Audible Android app lets you speed up by a factor between 0.5 and 3, with magical adjustments so the voice does not get squeaky. I don't use it, but it's there.
Is young John Wayne still lower than sober Robin Williams?
Ignition! about the early days of developing rocket propellants
Making rocket fuel is extremely dangerous chemistry, this is a great book, punctuated by descriptions of colossal surprise explosions.
Free pdf, fun to skim at random on portable device.
http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf
Personally, I can't stand audiobooks. Books are for reading. Cars are for rocking out, listening to amusingly stupid local sports radio guys, and Unfogged commenting.
I'm largely with Tigre. I'm not someone who listens to books. For some reason I'm OK with spoken word stuff in the car if, for example, it's a radio documentary, or something similar, but books read aloud ... no.
Last time I was addicted to Euro Truck Simulator 2 I listened to an audiobook while playing it. Really added to the simulation aspect.
ETS 2 is also a great accompaniment to podcasts. Or vice versa, depending on your perspective. Also, this is a great way to enjoy ETS 2.
You just drive a truck around Europe in real time?
We are back (like AWB's tales of her students) in 'some people are completely alien' territory.
You just drive a truck around Europe in real time?
It's not real time, and you also have to park the trucks and "manage" a fleet of vehicles, but yes. It's hard to explain the appeal, but it's very soothing. American Truck Simulator is coming out shortly if you can't face playing as a euro-weenie.
I'm generally with 75 as well, but certain books meant to be read aloud -- Paradise Lost, for example -- work read aloud. I have that and Moby Dick on my iPod, and it's always kind of fun when some random excerpt pops in when I've got it set to shuffle.
Not even hating, I'm impressed. When they release the Oculus version maybe I'll spend a few weekends escaping from work and family by being a fake truck driver.
It's already Oculus compatible.
82:
That's an interesting point, and I wonder if it's also true about The Faerie Queen.
A few months ago I was reading Wallace Stevens' The Necessary Angel and he makes a reference to the experience, I suppose then recent for him of immersing himself in TFQ so that he inhabited its world and sensibility, and I thought that I couldn't imagine being free enough of distraction to do that.
But it might be possible with an audiobook.
Whoever reads the copy of Moby Dick I bought from Audible 10 years ago is pretty good. But not good enough to keep me listening to Walden.
"The palm at the end of the fake European truck stop"
I could not have lived without audio books when Dr. Skull and I were driving for a living.
Now I mostly just read books, yeah.
Mary Roach is great. Packing for Mars is my favorite, for obvious reasons.
Also, yes on Herodotus. I read him for the first time back when I was studying for my PhD. He's just excellent.
65: Very much appreciated. I'd been having a bit of a rough time with my little boy, and we were heading out on a long trip (in the direction of, but not nearly as far as, Qikiqtarjuaq). As we ran out of episodes we started to ration them into shorter and shorter bites. Today we came very sadly to the end of "Zurich". Great show.
The Moby Dick one chapter at a time thing that some Brits organized a couple years ago is super-great. Chap. 1 is Tilda Swinton (or similar), but it's mostly little-known poets or nobodies. I'd wish for slightly better recordings (a couple chapters are nigh inaudible due to reader mumbling and/or ignoring of the mic), but it's a pretty great experience IMO.
idp -- Thanks for recommending Shute's Slide Rule! I am loving it!