Audio Books

This is a blog for people who think they might want to listen to audio books. I've listened to quite a few and find that I prefer non-fiction or mystery/thrillers. I rarely read mysteries. The last book I read was the new biography of Bonhoeffer, and before that, I reread Witness, by Chambers. I think I like mystery/thrillers on audio because I listen to books when I am driving or doing something in the kitchen, so I need a book I can listen to and still focus on what I'm doing.

The most important thing in an audio book is the reader. I'll use the Daniel Silva books as an example. I can't remember why I chose one of his books; I think I might have read a review of his latest novel. I checked one of his older ones out of the library and loved it. He writes well and uses a lot of historical information, which I like. Most important, the reader pronounced foreign words correctly and handled all of the different accents really well.

Later I bought two less expensive, abridged versions of Silva books and found that the abridged versions weren't as good, but also that the publisher must have gotten discount readers as well. One of the readers did such a poor job--making the protagonist sound as if wood were trying to speak--I barely made it through and wouldn't have listened to the other books Silva wrote if that had been my introduction to his work.

I've bought a couple of his unabridged books and find the reader, who is not the one on the first couple of books, to be quite good, able to carry the accents and pronounce foreign words correctly, although he's not as good as the first reader.

I also have a couple of audio books read by the author. Neither was very good. On one, the author's voice became so soft I could hardly hear her and then so loud I had to turn down the volume.

I hate to say this, but I've also found that women's voices can be too high pitched to listen to for long periods. For that reason, some professional readers (women) lower their voices. The issue then becomes, at least for me, that their voices sound unnatural or, in one case, kind of spooky and depressing.

One exception to this is the audio version of The Thirteenth Tale, which is great. The book is kind of long and would have been better if it had been edited. Still, the characters are compelling. The audio version has two actresses reading the two narrators, and they are both excellent. Their voices are perfect for the characters and their pitch is perfect.

Essentially, my lessons are this:
Unabridged is better than abridged because you probably get the best reader
Cheaper versions seem to have less well-trained readers
The author is not necessarily the best reader of his/her work
Women's voices are not always as well suited to audio as men's

Having said all of the above, I have to add that one of the best audio books I've listened to was read by the author, who didn't read that well but is great anyway: Douglas Adams' Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. I liked it better than his more well-known Hitchhiker trilogy, although I liked that, too.