@lunalein@bookstodon one of the best I listened to was Gildart Jackson narrate Dracula. So so good. I'm currently listening to Andy Serkis narrating LOTR. When I finish it's on to The Silmarillion. I think the only book I stopped listening to was The Count of Monte Cristo but that was because Mercedes is like 17 or something and I couldn't get past her age. But I love listening to audiobooks and it was the best when I drove my kids to school. We'd listen to books together and then discuss them. So many good discussions around books.
@lunalein@bookstodon I've definitely stopped listening tbooks because the narrator was bad, or putting me to sleep. In fiction, I also try to avoid the Graphic Audio style "a movie in your mind" productions, and prefer either a single narrator doing all the characters, or at most two. How to lose the time war was a good example of that done well.
@lunalein@bookstodon I have quit listening to audio books if the author was someone I was accustomed to listening to (Thich Nhat Hanh, for example, or Richard Feynman) and the narrator is just...not them. I would rather hear the familiar voice inside my head saying the words as I read them myself. My favorite is when the author narrates their own work, but obviously that's not always possible. OTOH Ron Butler narrating The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E Baptist helped it to stand out in my head to this day
@lunalein@bookstodon The narrator of one of my favorite novels ruined the audiobook version by misquoting one of my favorite lines, which is a pivotal line in the story. (The novel is Jay McInerney’s “Bright Lights, Big City,” one of the few books to successfully tell an entire narrative in the second person without readers rebelling against their being constantly and personally thrown into increasingly ludicrous situations.)
@lunalein@bookstodon I love second-person narratives too — when they’re done right. The trick is to get readers comfortable inside someone else’s skin, so that readers really empathize with their assigned character, rather than automatically say, “I would never do that!” Many writers can’t sustain that sense of empathy without making the assigned character bland or generic, but McInerney’s “Bright Lights” successfully puts you in the shoes of a distinct individual.
@lunalein@bookstodon Ironically, “Bright Lights, Big City” did such a great job of convincing readers that they themselves were the main character that many of those readers rebelled against seeing someone else play “them” in the movie version. Hollywood cast Everyman actor Michael J. Fox, who appeared on movie posters as a reflection in a car window, from viewers’ POV, as if saying, “I’m playing YOU.” He did a great job, I thought, but not all readers agreed.
@lunalein@bookstodon Michael J. Fox actually made the character fairly relatable, IMHO, although — yes — more conservative fans of “Family Ties” may have objected to seeing him as a cocaine addict.
I love audiobooks, although I can't read everything that way - if there's a lot of back and forth over time periods I love track.
I haven't heard enough to have favourite narrators, although I did love Lesley Manville's reading of Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club series.
I have come across narrators that turn me off though. The main one I've noticed so far is that I just don't want to hear Jane Austen read by Americans.
And yep, I definitely do refer to it as having "read" the book.
@lunalein@bookstodon I don't process audio only well enough to read (yes it's the same as any other way of experiencing a book) audio books, but there are a few I've enjoyed. Emma Newman for her own book Planetfall, Mary Robinette Kowal on her Calculating stars, Chiwetel Ejiofor reading Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, Simon Prebble for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
@lunalein@bookstodon I listen to audiobooks sometimes. Sometimes it’s easier to just listen while I’m driving or doing chores around the house. Idk that I’ve listened to enough to say that I have a favorite narrator, but I will definitely stop listening to something if I don’t like the voice. And yes, I count listening to audiobooks as reading bc it feels weird to say “Oh, I listened to that book.”
My two favorites are 1) David McCullough. Besides narrating Ken Burnes’s Civil War, he narrated many of his own audiobooks. He just felt the the voice of Americana. And 2) Roy Doltrich. It’s so sad that he won’t be the narrator for the entire ice and fire series, because his voice is just synonymous with the books.
I listened to Moby Dick via the Big Read, so it was a variety of readers and some were not great. I probably didn’t stop listening because each was only one chapter.
I generally say I’ve read it unless there’s some unique feature about the audiobook that I’m trying to discuss with someone.
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