I listen to a lot of audio books while working outside doing chores. When done well they seem to bring another dimension to the story.

This one by Rudyard Kipling is one of my favorites.

They work well for traveling also.

Yep. I have the Audible app on my iphone (had it on my Droid, too), and it works great for this. Just plug in the car's stereo system and you hear it through the car speakers.

I drove well over a half million miles and at least half of those miles were while listening to a book.

We often circle the block a few times on the way home to allow a story to unwind to a good break point.

1B

Saw some comedy skit a while back where Gilbert Godfrey was narrating audio books. I imagine I'd survive about 30 seconds of that......

Wow, you're a slower reader than I am. I only take about a hundred thousand miles to listen to a book.



Gotcha!

Yes you did.

PM on the way.

I've found that the title is far less important than the narrator. My wife and I will listen to anything narrated by Barbara Rosenblat or George Guidall: two truly gifted readers.

Rocky, have you ever listened to any audio books narrated by Jonathan Lee? He's without doubt one of the best, IMO and his work on Ken Follet's Pillars Of The Earth was excellent.

Not yet, but I'll certainly look out for him. Thanks!

Related to the audio books are the audio courses. I have a miserable Northern Virginia commute so I listen to quite a few courses from The Great Courses (thegreatcourses.com)

I find Ken Follet's work alone to be very worthwhile, but add Jonathan Lee as narrator and the story takes on an even richer quality.

Follet's Fall Of Giants involved multiple subplots which all revolved somewhat around WWI and the events leading up to and beyond it.

Check out Frederick Davidson (David Case). He's gone now but he is superb.

I highly recommend any of James Lee Burke books narrated by Will Patton. Mr.Burke's books are good on their own but when Will Patton reads the stories,they are immensely better.
I also like Clive Cussler read by Scott Brick. Good stuff.

I once had the whole series of "The Corps" by W.E.B Griffin. That is an awesome series. I listened to the whole series one summer driving to and from the drill rig.

rkamp,

I litterally wore out three sets of New Testament and three tape players while I was a headbuilder. Once I had a handle on that I started listening to lectures. I didn't always agree with the speaker, but I did get an education.

Lately Sue and I have been traveling. We listened to all of John Grisham. Only one was not really fun. That was something about skipping Christmas. All the rest were good to very good. There were a few others which were fun also.

I also got into the habit whilst driving line-haul, I converted to MP3 and put the single file through MP3-gain to make the db the same for all files (89db), then converted to M4B which is an unprotected AAC that plays well with ipod.
I have 370+ books on file.

Plus one on both. I especially love Burk.

Absolutely on the money with Will Patton. You can see the bayou thru Patton's voice and inflection.

Next winter when the northerlies are howling and there is snow banked all around, listen to Don Simmons "Terror" about marooned sailing ships in the polar ice. It will spook you good.

Normally I agree totally on the readers' make or break role. But I once got ahold of Grant's autobiography to pass away the hours on a long trip. The reader was a real whiney type whose voice was like finger nails on a blackboard but the writing was first rate and carried me through.

IMO, Burk's books are good but too formulaic and too much alike. The best of them was "In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead".

1B

I listened to The Terror a few years ago and concur, it's a gripping story.

Just a note, our library has small MP3 players with a book loaded. You can check them out just like any other book.

I had a Tom Clancy novel read by Richard Crenna (The Hunt for Red October maybe?) As good as it gets. Edward Hermann is pretty good as well.