Moosferatu

Audio books

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Cheers Alistair and Nappi. I don't have much of a commute - which is nice of course - so I think my best time to listen would be either when I'm making dinner or before bed. On the latter a while ago I listened to a hell of a lot of I Am Legend while asleep and not very much while awake...

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I need a new audiobook! I was thinking some of the other David Foster Wallace stuff, as I've only read (and loved) Infinite Jest. Any recommendations there, or in general? I would prefer something in the ballpark of 20 hours. (~600 page). Fitting the bill there is Broom of the System, Pale King, and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.

 

Audiobooks I have previously enjoyed:

 

Wolf Hall

Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

The Flamethrowers

Red Mars

Perdido Street Station

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I used my Idle Thumbs free audio book token! I used it to get The Devil in the White City, based on real people and events, it's about both the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and Dr. H.H. Holmes, a serial killer who was active in that period of time. Both fascinating (the Fair part) and terrifying (the Holmes part). I wasn't actually familiar with Holmes, but he murdered at least 27 people and had an entire building block, which you could say functioned as a disguise for his activities. The guy had a secret chute in his office that he used to drop his victim's bodies down to the basement. Trapping people in the basement, floors covered with acid, or in an incinerator. Fucked. Up. All that said, the book luckily doesn't try to shock you with gory imagery. It kind of doesn't have to, as a description of the events is more than enough to creep you the hell out.

 

The Chicago's World's Fair part was just fascinating. The vision behind that event; I don't think anything like that would ever come to fruition in the modern day. The book does an excellent job of weaving known facts (it frequently uses writing and correspondence from the characters) with flourishes that make the period come to life. I thought it was a good book to listen to!

 

 

If I'm not mistaken, Ken Levine has mentioned that often in discussions of the genesis of BioShock: Infinite.

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I highly enjoyed my reading of Daemon, by Daniel Suarez. Listened to it twice, the first time on my own and the second time along with my girlfriend. The narrator, Jeff Gurner, has done quite a few audiobooks and I've actually picked up further books that he's read simply because he did them. The thing he's best at in my mind is doing voices that don't sound overly forced, but allow you to differentiate between characters quite easily and make the reading more entertaining.

 

I'm also endlessly chugging away on Game of Thrones, which is also narrated quite well though not in the same acted fashion as Daemon.

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Oh man, audiobooks!

Terry Pratchett is great, and there's heaps of it!
There's a bunch of 2000AD / Judge Dredd audio drama's that are pretty entertaining
And also the Warhammer , in small doses
The Flight of the Conchords BBC radio series is hilarious
The MIghty Boosh (BBC series) is pretty good as well, pretty much exactly the same as the show, so depends if you like that

so much British stuff...

Mary Roach's 'Stiff' and 'Packing for Mars' are light-hearted/ entertaining 'factual' stuff
in the same vein as Bill Bryson who's good to listen to as well
Some sci-fi that was great to listen to was 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldemann
Also the Hunger Games was surprisingly good

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Update!

 

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is really fascinating, but a few points more challenging than I enjoy in an audiobook. The second essay is on TV, irony, and what it all means for fiction writers that is just amazing, but it's a bit heady, and I have to focus more intently on every sentence than if I were reading it, which is kind of hard on a commute. 

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Where to start with Terry Pratchett? I've already got Good Omens...

 

Also, I'll second the Douglas Adams suggestion. Not on Audible last I checked, but I recently found of copy of him reading Last Chance to See, which was fantastic. 

 

And check out One Man's Wilderness. Dick Proenneke

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Agatha Christie read by Hugh Frasier. The other readers suck. I can listen to him read the slowest of her books. These are pretty good if you like mystery games, cause her formula is similar to a game. There is always a closed system of suspects that all have motives. The poriot series is the best.

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