I’m looking for easy-to-listen-to fiction audiobooks. Something I can tune in while doing other stuff without getting distracted.
I find some authors have styles that are a bit more sophisticated than others. The more thought-provoking, the more difficult I find to enjoy an audiobook while doing something else. I catch myself stopping whatever I’m doing to pay attention to the book, which is not what I want.
So for example I’ve found The Witcher books very easy to listen to, it wouldn’t matter if I missed a few seconds and I never found myself stopping to ponder about the text itself. The narrator was great too. Also bonus points as it was a long saga of books.
In contrast I would never want to listen to a Terry Pratchett book while doing something else. He’s probably my favourite English author but I find he’s too much of a genius, and my poor brain wouldn’t be able to digest it all if I’m not giving it my attention 100%.
I hope this makes sense?
How’s your experience with audiobooks?
Pretty much all major books are published as audiobooks as well. Even ones that have computer code written in them, which is not something that you’d ever expect to have read out loud.
It used to be that books would be “narrated for the blind” where not a lot of attention would be put into the audio. Nowadays, there tends to be a lot more effort put into them. I suppose that’s because they don’t need to be packaged as 12 to 20 cassette tapes or CDs any longer.
There’s the added element that a narrator can ruin or improve things. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is a wonderful book, but the narrator displays an unprofessionally slim knowledge of physics.
Then there’s World War Z. I’m not sure that there’s a better way to tell that story than the audio book. It’s the exact interview style that the author intended.
Orson Scott Card really likes audio books, so the Ender’s Game series is really good.