Audiobook Week: Getting Started, Genres, Favorites

Today is the final day of Audiobook Week 2010. This fabulous event is the dream child of Jen of Devourer of Books. Be sure to read her Audiobook Week information post and the post listing the great prizes available for participants! (I'll be offering one of those prizes on Friday, so be sure to come back!)

For the first four days of Audiobook Week, I posted on the daily topic. Today, I am going take a different path. I hope you take the time to visit all the participating blogs; you can find them by checking out Jen's blog and clicking on the Mr. Linkys.

Today, I'm talking about picking your first audiobook, audiobook genres, and some of my favorite audiobooks.

Picking Your First Audiobook

I am often asked to suggest a good audiobook for someone new to the medium. Picking your first audiobook can be daunting, but it doesn't need to be. There are two principal questions to ask yourself before taking the plunge:

• Do you want an audiobook just so you can see if the medium is for you?
• Do you want to jump in the deep end?

Testing the waters: If your goal is the see if audiobooks work for you, then I suggest going with a classic or an old favorite. Lots of people have talked about how much they loved revisiting the Harry Potter books through audio. Or try something older: Pride & Prejudice, The Secret Garden, or Jane Eyre, for example. The trick here is that you already know the story, so if your mind starts to wander a bit, it doesn't really matter much.

Diving right in: If you just want to give audiobooks a shot and you're not in the mood for a reread, then pick the next book in a series you are reading or a title from an author you like. That way, it's the medium that's new, not the entire experience.

For the truly adventurous, I suggest picking a book you just can't wait to read and start listening. You may be surprised by how quickly you are drawn into the story.

One more tip: don't just sit in a chair in listen, get up and do something--that's one of the big advantages of auodiobooks.

Audiobook Genres

Is there a genre that doesn't work in audio? Well, I haven't tried poetry, but I bet I wouldn't like it. Short stories and essays are also a problem for me on audio. Why? Because when I read a collection of work, I don' t necessarily read every piece and I don't always read them order. Audio would take away my ability to pick and choose.

I've heard some people say that nonfiction doesn't work on audio, but I've had great success with history and biography. It is true that I often pair my nonfiction audiobook with a print copy (usually from the library) so that I can see the maps, photos, genealogies, and other visuals.

In terms of fiction, I don't think there is a genre I wouldn't try. I'm more apt to turn down an audio because I don't like the narrator, because the book is abridged (should be against the law), or because it is advertised as a dramatization than because of its genre.

Do I have favorite audiobook genres? I love listening to mysteries and historical fiction on audio. I haven't checked my stats, but I would bet they are my two most-listened-to genres. Well, I've also listened to quite a bit of biography. And fantasy. And young adult. Okay, so maybe I don't pick my audiobooks by genre.

Some of My Favorite Audiobooks

Here, in alphabetical order are some of my favorite audiobooks from the last few years, divided into nonfiction, adult fiction, and young adult.

Nonfiction
About Alice by Calvin Trillin (read by the author)
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson (read by Edward Herrmann)
John Adams by David McCullough (read by Edward Hermann)
Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick (read by George Guidall)
Stiff by Mary Roach (read by Shelly Frasier)

Adult Fiction
Ceepak mysteries by Chris Grabenstein (read by Jeff Woodman)
Jack Aubrey series by Patrick O'Brian (read by Simon Vance)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (read by Kristoffer Tabori)
The Stolen Child by Donohue, Keith (read by Andy Paris and Jeff Woodman)
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (read by Bianca Amato and Jill Tanner)

Young Adult
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (read by Vane Millon
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (read by Debra Wiseman and Joel Johnstone)
Tomorrow series by John Marsden (read by Suzi Dougherty)
Willow by Julia Hoban (read by Kim J. Ulrich)
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (read by Jeannie Stith)

My All-Time Favorite Audiobook Ever
Wicked, Lovely by Melissa Marr (read by Alyssa Bresnahan)

There are many, many more audios that I have loved, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of the titles I've mentioned.

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Audiobook Week: When Do You Listen?

Today is the fourth day of Audiobook Week 2010. This fabulous event is the dream child of Jen of Devourer of Books. Be sure to read her Audiobook Week information post and the post listing the great prizes available for participants! (I'll be offering one of those prizes on Friday, so be sure to come back!)

For the first four days of Audiobook Week, I plan to post on the daily topic. On Friday, I am going take a different path. I hope you take the time to visit all the participating blogs; you can find them by checking out Jen's blog and clicking on the Mr. Linkys.

When Do You Listen to Audiobooks?

I listen to audiobooks almost every chance I get. Here are just some of the activities that go better with an audiobook.

Picking berries, drinking coffee, playing computer games.

Cooking, driving, dusting.

Gardening, grilling.

Relaxing, walking.

Where and when do you listen to books?

(Pardon the poor quality of the photos -- one handed quick shots are not conducive to art!)

Audiobook Week Extra

Today's audiobook review, Bog Child, is set in Ireland. I've spent a few hours listening to Irish stories. Here some Irish audiobooks that I've enjoyed:

The Artemus Fowl series by Eoin Colfer (I've listened to six)
Irish Country Doctor series by Patrick Taylor (I've listened to three)
The Tavern on Maple Street by Sharon Owens (I know Owens has more out on audio)
Blessed Are the Cheesemakers bySarah-Kate Lynch (yes, that's the title & I reviewed it)

On my wish list are the Ireland books by Edward Rutherfurd: The Princes of Ireland and The Rebels of Ireland.

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Audiobook Week: Quick Meme

Today is the third day of Audiobook Week 2010. This fabulous event is the dream child of Jen of Devourer of Books. Be sure to read her Audiobook Week information post and the post listing the great prizes available for participants! (I'll be offering one of those prizes on Friday, so be sure to come back!)

For the first four days of Audiobook Week, I plan to post on the daily topic. On Friday, I am going take a different path. I hope you take the time to visit all the participating blogs; you can find them by checking out Jen's blog and clicking on the Mr. Linkys.

Audiobook Meme

• Audiobook are you currently reading/you read most recently: All Mortal Flesh by Julia Spenser-Fleming
• Impressions?: Excellent. A bit different from the earlier books in the series and it is definitely taking the main characters in a new direction (in a good way).
• How long you’ve been listening to audiobooks: I'll say 20 years, but I became a serious addict about 12 years ago.
• First audiobook you ever listened to: As I said earlier in the week, I think it was Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club.
• Favorite audiobook title: Waaaaaaay too many to choose from: I'll say John Adams by David McCullough for nonfiction, Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr for the production, The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien for pure indulgence.
• Favorite narrator: Can't answer this: Simon Vance, Davina Porter, Barbara Rosenblatt, Jeff Woodman, Scott Brick, Kate Reading . . . Sorry. Just don't have a favorite.
• How do you choose what to listen to versus read? I don't. If I can get it in audio, I will usually choose that medium because I have more listening hours in a day than I do reading hours.

Be sure to visit Jen's blog, Devourer of Books, for other posts on today's Audiobook Week topic.

Audiobook Week Extra

I didn't keep good records on my reading and listening until about 2006, but a quick search through my database shows that Davina Porter is my audio-narrator BFF. I have listened to 20 titles by her (including the entire Diana Gabaldon Outlander series) for a total of 394.5 hours. Yikes!!!

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Audiobook Week: How to Write a Audiobook Review

Today is the second day of Audiobook Week 2010. This fabulous event is the dream child of Jen of Devourer of Books. Be sure to read her Audiobook Week information post and the post listing the great prizes available for participants! (I'll be offering one of those prizes on Friday, so be sure to come back!)

For the first four days of Audiobook Week, I plan to post on the daily topic. On Friday, I am going take a different path. I hope you take the time to visit all the participating blogs; you can find them by checking out Jen's blog and clicking on the Mr. Linkys.

How to Write an Audiobook Review

Today's topic is all about writing an audiobook review. As with any book review, there is, of course, no right or wrong way, and individual style will play a role.

My personal approach is to write my review in exactly the same manner as I would have had I read the book in print. That is, I start with a summary and then get into the particulars. Finally, add a paragraph about the audio production.

Okay, so that wasn't exactly helpful. Here are some details, listed in random order.

While listening:

• If I hear a quote that I think I might want to use in my review, I make a note of a couple of keywords.
• I pay attention to how the narrator does accents, if they are needed for the book.
• I listen for sound effects, music, and other aspects of the audio production.
• I pay attention to the narrator's pronunciation of place names and other words.

When writing the general review:

• I use the "look inside" feature found on many bookstore and publisher's sites to check spellings and other details.
• If I want to quote the author, I use the look inside feature to search for keywords so I can find the passage.

When writing the audiobook paragraph, I always mention the narrator's name. When evaluating the reading, I think about these factors:

• Whether the emotional tones (or lack thereof) of the narrator's voice fit the plot.
• Whether the narrator's pacing was right for the story.
• Whether the narrator's characterizations added to or took away from the experience.
• Whether the narrator and/or production allowed me to get lost the book or whether there were problems that pulled me out of the story.

I also decide if I want to mention any of the items I noted under "while listening." The lists here are not all-inclusive, and I don't always address each of the issues individually. However, I've given you an idea of the factors that are important to my overall take on the audio production.

I rarely separate my experience with the audiobook from the book itself; unless I've read the book in both print and audio, I wouldn't know how to make such a distinction. On the other hand, if the audio edition is poor and/or distracting I encourage my readers to read the book in print.

Audiobook Week Extra

The narrator of today's review book, Charm City by Laura Lippman, is Deborah Hazlett. Because I know her only from the first book (Baltimore Blues) in Lippman's Tess Monaghan mystery series, I have now linked Hazlett's voice with the main character. I am happy to see that Hazlett continues with Tess (at least for the next two books). I'm am not a fan of changing narrators partway through a series. It is a disconcerting thing to hear one of your favorite characters speak in a new voice.

Be sure to visit Jen's blog, Devourer of Books, for other posts on today's Audiobook Week topic.

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Audiobook Week: Why Audiobooks

Today marks the first day of Audiobook Week 2010. This fabulous event is the dream child of Jen of Devourer of Books. Be sure to read her Audiobook Week information post and the post listing the great prizes available for participants! (I'll be offering one of those prizes on Friday, so be sure to come back!)

For the first four days of Audiobook Week, I plan to post on the daily topic. On Friday, I am going take a different path. I hope you take the time to visit all the participating blogs; you can find them by checking out Jen's blog and clicking on the Mr. Linkys.

Why Audiobooks?

I know that some of you have heard my story before, but I'm going to tell it again! In 1984, while still in graduate school in an unrelated field, I launched my career as a freelance editor. Although I absolutely love my job--I get paid to read!--it has a down side. After reading carefully and closely for fifty or more hours a week, I am not always in the mood to sit and stare at the printed page yet again.

Now let's jump to 1989. I was out of school and my business was chugging along nicely, but, sadly, the number of books I was reading for pleasure had dramatically decreased. In addition, I had given up my office at the university and decided to stick with editing from home full time, which meant I risked becoming very sedentary. I needed to find a way to read in the evenings, rest my eyes, and be active all at the same time. Enter my first book on tape, which I think was Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. I have no idea who the narrator was, but I remember loving the idea that I could listen while working in the garden and making dinner.

I remember I had no problem listening to the story or getting lost in my first audiobook. Perhaps it was the audio production of the Tan book or perhaps I'm just a good match for listening, but in either case, I was sold on the medium . . . mostly. I was not an instant convert, however. Several things help me back:

• Audiobooks were expensive.
• Books on tape from the library were unreliable (broken, stopped working).
• There didn't seem to be many titles on tape.
• My Walkman used up a lot of batteries.
• My husband didn't always want to listen, so I couldn't count on using the boom box.

Then one day I was on my dial-up Internet connection using, ummm, would that have been Windows 3? I discovered Books-On-Tape had a rental service. For a monthly fee, they would send me books on tape, I would listen, and then I'd send them back. There were no late fees, no trips to the library. I could do everything on the computer. That was the day my reading life changed.

I rented (and sometimes bought) hundreds of books on tape and books on CD through Books-On-Tape, Recorded Books Direct, Kitabe, Simply Audiobooks, Audiobook Stand and more. Suddenly I could get almost any book I could think of on audio, and my wallet wasn't suffering . . . much. Eventually, I started ripping CDs, merging tracks and files, and transferring everything to an MP3 player.

The next step in my addiction to audiobooks was my discovery of Audible.com and the convenience of digitally downloading directly to my player. Oh boy! Instant gratification; dangerous to the pocketbook (or credit balance at Audible) but so easy and wonderful. No more scratches, no more stretched tapes. Soon other companies followed suit, and now I can even download audiobooks from my library!

I have never counted the number of books I've listened to, but I kept decent records for about six years before I started blogging. A few days ago, I commented on Jen's blog that my record for audios in one year was 86 books. I was wrong. That was my total in 2008. In 2007 (I checked on Sunday), I listened to 113 titles! That's a lot of hours of walking, gardening, cooking, driving, and so on.

So why audiobooks? Because I love being read to, because it gives my eyes and editor's brain a rest, and because I truly cannot escape books. I listen so often, my husband is fond of saying, "God forbid you go one second without listening to a book." He's right.

Audiobook Week Extra

One of the narrators of Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver (my audiobook review for today), is Jenna Lamia. I have spend almost forty hours with her voice in my head. Here's the list:

• Shiver
• Firefly Cloak
• Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
• The Secret Life of Bees

She also narrated The Help and The Adoration of Jenna Fox, both of which are on my MP3 player right now.

Be sure to visit Jen's blog, Devourer of Books, for other posts on today's Audiobook Week topic.

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