Audiobook Listeners?

[Fulcrum]

Anyone here avid audiobook listeners? 

If so, where do you purchase the ones you buy (e.g. Audible) and what subjects / types of books do you normally listen to?

Also, do you find you prefer audiobooks over reading?  Why?


I'm just curious...

[Arlo]

Never thought of it but now you have inspired me to check out this option:

http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/audio-books-list-genre/Military/91/

[tmetal]

I listen to them. Mostly during the drive to/from work. I get a few from Audible.com but most I buy on CD from half priced books.  I actually prefer reading over listening (and a real book over a digital copy) but I do enjoy both. I think I enjoy reading over listening because I get more into the book when I am reading, can't really get as deep into the book if I also have to watch traffic.

On a side note: Can anybody recomend a good book on the subject of the Bf110? not really a technical type of book but more a recounting of exploites by/about zerstorer missions and pilots?

[Randy1]

Before everything went digital, we would listen to tape audio books on car trips a lot.  I enjoy reading but I enjoy doing other things more so I found audio books a good compromise.

One of the discount book stores had a rack f dollar tapes.  They were short stories and some quite good.  Loved the old radio shows like Amos and Andy too.

[Gman]

If you're a runner or walker they can be a great way to pass the time.  Also, for long drives or plane flights where reading can get hard on the eyes, I've found them to be great. 

I've got the entire Game of Thrones series on audio, as well as some of my old favorites, like Red Storm Rising, Team Yankee, Red Pheonix, and a bunch of others.  If you want to try a chapter or two out, shoot me a PM Fulcrum.  Like I said, I've passed 10 hour drives in an eyeblink with them, as well as many, many long flights with my eyes shut but still awake, just listening.

[ink]

I don't think I could do it....listening to a book.......

[Halo46]

Anyone here avid audiobook listeners? 

If so, where do you purchase the ones you buy (e.g. Audible) and what subjects / types of books do you normally listen to?

Also, do you find you prefer audiobooks over reading?  Why?


I'm just curious...

Would not say I'm avid or even the average type user, but I have a dozen or so. I prefer to have the CD, but a series I like are only available at audible so I have signed up there for them. Mine are Si-fi/fantasy genres. I do not think I would ever get an audio book before I have read the book first. It is a different experience to reading and not even comparable in my opinion, two separate activities. I do not listen to music so much as hear it as background noise when on so I find it is easy to stop listening to them if your concentration wanes or wanders. I do not think I can ever listen to them driving, myself, as I have to rewind if I miss a part, but for a plane trip or something they can be ideal if I have a headache or eyes hurt too much to read or something. To me it is like listening to someone tell you a story I guess, or like listening to radio stories when I was a kid in western Australia with little TV to watch back in the early 70's. I scoffed at audiobooks for years and then ended up with one of the Harry Potter books from somewhere and found it helped me get to sleep when I put it on for my son at bed time, that's kind of how I came to and still use them.

[Randy1]

I don't think I could do it....listening to a book.......

Ink keep i mind it is also a performance by the reader-actor.  I think they are some free audio books on line might want to sample.

[ink]

Ink keep i mind it is also a performance by the reader-actor.  I think they are some free audio books on line might want to sample.

its too foreign to me, I am a Dinosaur....hell man I didn't get my first comp till I was 34


although I do enjoy the tablet....  (no mess)

[The Fugitive]

I think I'm closing in on 100 audio books now. I have bought about 40 of them from Audible.com, a few on CD, and the rest from on-line libraries.

I use to smoke cigars, but only outside once my wife became pregnant for our first. So while I sat outside smoking I would read. I'd go through a couple books a week. I had them on shelves all over the house. Started "trading" them at a second hand store just to cut back on the collection. Once I quit smoking the reading slowed... the wife was happy on both counts, no smoke, less books  Then my job changed and I was spending 4-5 hours to drive to NJ and NY, and ME, 2 and 3 times a week. A friend was listening to books and told me about it. I figured much like INK that there was no way I could do that!

Well I tried it and I get the same experience listening to the stories as I do reading them. Especially if the "reader" is good. Some are much better than others and will even "do" voices for the characters. I too listen to Sci-fi/fantasy, throw in the occasional piece os fiction here and there. I'm on the last book of the "Game of Thrones" for the second time right now. Many of my books I listen to more than once as they don't "stick" in my head as well as when I read them.

 Audible has a monthly fee which ends up being about the same price as a hard back book. They also have deals where you can buy credits so cut cost down to a third or more depending on the "sale". Once you buy it, it's yours and you can download it from your "library" as many times as you want.

On-line libraries allow you to "borrow" books for limited times. They also only hand out a few copies at a time and so you sometime have to sign on to a waiting list.

While I no longer do those long drives I do spend a lot of time in my work truck going from place to place to fix things. I hung a bluetooth speaker in the truck and have the books loaded on my phone. Works great and I can do two things at once!

[xbrit]

If you're a runner or walker they can be a great way to pass the time.  Also, for long drives or plane flights where reading can get hard on the eyes, I've found them to be great. 

I've got the entire Game of Thrones series on audio, as well as some of my old favorites, like Red Storm Rising, Team Yankee, Red Pheonix, and a bunch of others.  If you want to try a chapter or two out, shoot me a PM Fulcrum.  Like I said, I've passed 10 hour drives in an eyeblink with them, as well as many, many long flights with my eyes shut but still awake, just listening.

At last someone who enjoys Red Storm rising like I do. Back on topic, my house is full of audio books but due mainly to my wife being blind and getting her books from the Library of Congress and yes I all of the "Jack Ryan" series from Tom Clancy on audio for when we travel.

[gyrene81]

if i could get kaley cuoco in my house nude to read a book to me...hell i'd listen to 50 shades of gray.

[Brooke]

I'm an avid consumer of audiobooks from Audible.com.

I listen to them every day in my drive to and from work and during a daily half-hour walk.  I've got twin 3-year-old girls, so reading is gone for now; but Audible's assortment is large enough to keep me very happy.

I listen to military history, economics (I highly recommend Basic Economics, by Sowell, or if you are limited for time, Economics in One Lesson, by Hazlitt -- economics plays an enormous part in the world, and every American owes it to himself and the nation to read one of those two books), world history, biographies, and political/social topics, and fantasy and science fiction.

Audible has an awesome coverage of military history.  In the WWII category, I've listened to the following, many of which are awesome books (let me know if you want any recommendations   ).

A Dawn Like Thunder
The Day of Battle:  The War in Sicily and Italy
Intrepid Aviators
South Pacific Destroyer
The Twilight Warriors
Finish Forty and Home
With the Old Breed
Neptune's Inferno
Whirlwind:  The Air War Against Japan
Unbroken
Fighter Pilot
To Hell and Back
Red November
A Measureless Peril
Intrepid:  The Epic Story of America's Most Legendary Warship
No Simple Victory
Iwo Jima
FLAK
Blind Man's Bluff
Fly
Into the Rising Sun
The Bravest Man
One Man's War
Ship of Ghosts
Roughneck Nine-One
Beyond Band of Brothers
Brotherhood of Heroes
The Jedburghs
The Greatest Aces
Flying Through Midnight
Midway
Brothers in Arms
Silent Running
Ghost Soldiers
WWII Airmen
Patton
Combat Swimmer
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
Angles of Attack
Beyond Valor
Citizen Soldiers
The Wild Blue
An Army at Dawn
Band of Brothers
We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young

[Brooke]

Audible also has a couple that were great, but I happened to read them instead of listen to them:

The Few
Masters of the Air

[Fulcrum]

Ink keep i mind it is also a performance by the reader-actor.  I think they are some free audio books on line might want to sample.

  this.  You have to understand that in many cases the narrator is acting the book out.  The narrator is, for me at least, VERY important. There have been a few audiobooks I've listened to where the reader's voice or style (i.e. excessive pausing, breathing, etc) just drove me up a wall and caused me to stop listening to the book.  Thankfully Audible allows for limited returns so it isn't an issue for me.  I always recommend to new audiobook listeners to listen to a sample of the book before purchasing, if it is available, to be sure the narrator 'works' for them.

Most of my listening is Sci-Fi / Fantasy and History.  I buy most of my books from Audible but also have purchased books from other vendors. 

I buy a lot of stuff from The Black Library.  I like Warhammer / Warhammer 40K books, despite never having played the games, because of the extensive background history of the "universe" developed by Games Workshop.  I'm pretty well hooked on the Horus Heresy novels, and thankfully most of them are available in MP3 now.  If you think you might like military sci-fi mixed with an odd sprinkle of sword & sorcery in a grim futuristic setting (i.e. The books all state that "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.") give it a try.  I'm currently listening to "Helsreach", which I've already read in print but the narrator is so good I had to buy it.