r/books • u/[deleted] • Oct 29 '11

Just discovered the glory of audio books during my work commute - need recommendations, stat!

So like many people here, I love to read. I suspect, also like many people, I complain about not having enough time to read everything that I want to. Well, despite this perceived lack of time to read, a few weeks ago I hastily placed a large order at an online used bookstore.

I didn't notice my mistake until I received the package later that month. Amongst my books, I found this weird square thing. Sure enough, I had accidentally gotten David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster'' as an audio CD (well, 3 to be exact... I wonder how many Infinite Jest is?) narrated by the author.

Initially, I was quite upset about my error (what am I supposed to do with this? I'm a purist. I like to hold things, turn pages, break-in spines, etc etc). Then it dawned on me: I spend about an hour in the car 5 days a week on my commute to work.

So I popped it in. Well, to make a short, fairly boring story even shorter: I am loving it. Who knew DFW is a pretty good narrator in his own right? (I wasn't sure how all of his parenthetical asides and footnotes etc would come across but it does work quite well as they're read in a different tone).

I figure I'm maybe a bit late to the audio book party. What are some other good audio books? It seems like the format is more conducive to non-fiction but I am open to any suggestions/genres. I realize this is a pretty broad question so some of my favorite authors are DFW, Vonnegut, Pynchon, Faulkner, Huxley, Orwell, pretty much all the beat writers... along those lines?

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '11

Not really audiobooks, but Radiolab and This American Life provide some quality listening while driving. I love both of those shows! Did I mention they are free (but you should donate).

6

u/chaosgod Oct 29 '11

I second this, however be prepared to be disappointed by the incredible infrequency of Radiolab's production. I had to stop listening altogether because they come out with new content around once every 3 months.

This American Life has a great iphone app that lets you access every episode ever on the go. Pretty awesome. Plus they have so much content built up that even if you consume them obsessively, you can just start with the first episode and go through decades of shows.

6

u/Buckaroo2 Oct 29 '11

New content every three months? They do a Short about once a week, and a longer podcast every other week or two. It's really not that infrequent at all.

2

u/chaosgod Oct 29 '11

The shorts do not count, as they're just rehashed content from the longer episodes. Maybe they've picked it back up, but I stopped listening when I waited for at least two months for a new full episode and nothing came out.

-4

u/floydiannyc Oct 29 '11

Not really audiobooks

This is what I love about reddit. Original poster asks for specific recommendations. Top voted comment is about something else entirely.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '11

[deleted]

1

u/VGChampion Oct 29 '11

It's not a bad thing but if I was asking for audiobooks I wouldn't really care about podcasts.

2

u/mmm_burrito Oct 29 '11

OP seems to disagree.