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Audiobooks? What is your take on them?
i think its great to listen to the book. but don't think skip parts?

I always pick the unabridged version, one where you get the whole book with nothing missing. I would never listened to an abridged one. It would feel incomplete to me.

I guess it would depend on how good the reader is..
It also depends on how fast or slow you are used to reading a book and if the reader is slower then you are used to, that might get frustrating.


However, I tried it again. I think it was an Anita Blake book, and I enjoyed it so much. Even when I read an Anita Blake book, it is the reader's voice I hear in my head. Same with Karen Marie Moning's Fever series. The reader's voice is now my idea of how Mac sounds.
Maybe it helps that I only listen when I'm driving and by myself. So I'm in an enclosed space and there is really no distraction, after all, driving work to home is almost mindless.
I have to admit I think I'm addicted to audiobooks aside from regular books. I picked up FaeFever, a Nora Roberts trilogy and Touch the Dark in audiobooks yesterday from the library. I never listen to the radio in my car, just audiobooks.

I would only recommend listening to unabridged stuff, though. I tried listening to an abridged Anita Blake, but it was impossible. They cut out a whole important development between Anita and Nathanial, which would've left me totally confused in the next novel if I hadn't gone back to skim the book.
If you like historical/action/chicklit, I'd highly recommend Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series on audio. The story and narrator are both top notch.

I love audiobooks too. I will check out your recommendation, plus it has a flower in its title.
thank u for letting know the difference between abridged and unabridged. If i am going to listen to a auto book i would want it to be the whole book..
I haven't really tired auto books before. for me it always felt like cheating. i couldn't say i read the book if i listened to it. :) but i think i might buy a few and check it out. cant hurt to try.
I haven't really tired auto books before. for me it always felt like cheating. i couldn't say i read the book if i listened to it. :) but i think i might buy a few and check it out. cant hurt to try.

Listening is actually a different skill than reading, and although it's not an active action, it still requires some focus.

It looks like you've got several of Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan books in your TBR list. I'd recommend one of them. I know they come unabridged, and the narrator is fantastic with the voices. I love the voice she does for Jenks!


All my Christine Feehan books I prefer in audio as well as Linda Howard and Janet Evanovich's romance novels. I like all of Susan Elizabeth Phillips in audio format, but it was more for the narrator, Anna Fields. That's also why I like Janet Evanovich's because of C.J. Critt.

You can also download them from iTunes if you want to pay (though they sometimes have some for free), or there's a service called audible.com that has a monthly fee, but if you sign up for a trial service they'll give you one for free.

One more question! How big are the books? I mean like would a 1g ipod be sufficient to hold 1 or 2?
Ok I lied, another question lol.. If I join Audible and pay the monthly fee.. the charge of the audio books are brought down? or are the books free with the monthly charge..
That site is confusing!

I don't own an ipod..*hangs head in shame*...LOL...but I listen in my car. Anna Fields did a great job in most of SEP audiobooks, it's a shame she passed away. She was a talented narrator.
I haven't listened to C.J. Critt yet, but I'm planning to read the Evanovich's books soon, so I might just her in audio.
I also like Phil Gigante, the reader of KMM's Highlander series. Joyce Bean and Christine Holloway are also good readers. The couple that also do the Suz Brockmann's audio books are also good. I can't recall their names at the moment.

If you use windows media player instead of itunes, I couldn't begin to tell you how to do it. lol :) Happy listening!

They advertise audible.com on a lot of the podcasts I listen to, that's where I heard about that.



I was like woah! I dont know if I could listen to the whole book that way lol.

Oh, and don't get me started when the reader starts reading the sexy parts. I remember listening to Anita Blake, and I was at a red light, and my windows are down, and it was at a raunchy part and another car stop beside me. I know the driver probably can't hear what I was listening to, but I actually lowered the volume down..LOL..

Speaking of Phil Gigante, doesn't he do Karen Marie Moning's Highlander series also? I've listened to all but 2 of those and I think he's the narrator. Some of the men are okay, but then again I haven't heard alot of them. Christine Feehan's Ghostwalkers series is read by a man, Tom Stechschulte. And her Dark series, I prefer the ones that are read by Richard Ferrone instead of those by Rebecca Cook and Juanita Parker. Those that are read by both male and female and great too.
As far as the ipod size, both of mine are 30GB. I have one with music and videos and the other with just audiobooks.


I like Joyce Bean's work with some of the Amanda Quick and some Linda Howard that she reads with another guy...I can't think of his name right now.
I guess, I need to be more attentive on who the readers are. I just recently started paying attention, when I started to recognize their voices and realized I'm developing favorites.

As I've mentioned, I'm not a huge audio book listener, but that's pretty tempting.



Oh dear....Well, just put your name in...I'm sure you have plenty of other books to read in the meantime...LOL..so no rush to get to Sookie..LOL..


I was just looking at it, and their "special deal" is $7.49 a month - and you only get one book a month for that price. Regular price is $15 a month for one book.
That sounds like a lot to me. Does anyone here use audible?

I guess I won't be buying any audio books any time soon. :)



My library doesn't seem to have a huge collection of books on cd, though like Yz was saying, they have an option where you can download them, but it's complicated. You only get it for a certain amount of time and they come in a weird format that I couldn't figure out. It wasn't compatible with iTunes, whatever it was, and I would need to be able to play it on my iPod.



I've listened to both audiobooks. I love the performances in Into the Fire, and you just have to love Izzy's thoughts.
I have to admit the first time I heard a male reader do a female voice like Phil does, I thought it was comical too. But later I get lost in the story, and don't notice it as much. After awhile, I'm just used to it, having listened to his voice in so many audiobooks.
I know the next book The Hollow is narrated by a female. Maybe you should check that out and see how you like a female reader doing a masculine voice.


I've listened to Harry Potter audio books, but only after I've already read them myself. This was a refresher, something to listen to so I wasn't bored while cross stitching.
I've got a couple audio books in the house. One's abridged so I havn't touched it. The other, for some reason, I just havn't listened to yet. I'd prefer to read the book and I don't have a commute or anything to kill time with an audio book.

If you get a lot of audiobooks, and you don't have a great selection at your library, audible.com is great. Personally, I buy the annual package that is $229.50 and you get 24 books. It ends up making the books $9.56 each. You have a year to use up all of the credits for books, but it never takes me anywhere near that long, then I just renew the package again. It's a little harder to always pay the money up front, but in the long run it does end up saving me money. One thing that I always watch for though is that sometimes I can get a book on audible for less that the $10 so then I don't want to use up one of my credits for it.
As for if a 1 GB mp3 player is big enough, it really depends on the book. I have some books that are pretty small, like Anne Frank, it's only about 150 MB. BTW, there are a 1,000 MB in a GB. But then there are really large books. Currently, I am listening to Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon and it's 1.27 GB, so that would be too big for your mp3 player. But the book is also about 24 hours long so you could always put the first half on, listen to that and then put the second half on.
There are some books that I just can't handle the reader and have to put the audiobook down, but for the most part I haven't had that issue. It can take a bit to get used to a guy reading a romance novel, but if you get a good actor it's not a problem. If you've never listened to a male do a romance novel, start with the Highlander series by Karen Marie Moning. They are great! The Undead and Unwed series by Mary Janice Davidson are hilarious. The actress does a great job of playing a ditzy blond! If anyone's interested, I could give a list of about 50 great audio books. There are a couple though that I would advise people to NOT listen too though. The first is The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I love the book, hate the actress. Then the other day I decided that I wanted to start the Magic Bites series by Ilona Andrews because I heard that they are great books. I couldn't even get through the first disk (and there are 7 disks) because I didn't like the actress. It sounded like she was either grimacing or scowling the entire time that she read. I'll have to pick up the paperbacks for that series.
Anyways, sorry that I pretty much wrote a novel on here, hope some of my opions and info are useful.

I read rather fast.. I can finish a book in a few hours, if I am uninterpreted anyhow lol.
But the idea intrigues me and I know I will try it eventually :P
Books mentioned in this topic
Magic Strikes (other topics)Authors mentioned in this topic
Sherrilyn Kenyon (other topics)Karen Marie Moning (other topics)
MaryJanice Davidson (other topics)
Ilona Andrews (other topics)
Stephenie Meyer (other topics)
I have used it to catch up on my TBR pile and there are some books I prefer to listen to than read. I enjoy Anita Blake books more on audio than on print, although I've read them on both format. I listened to almost all of KMM's Highlander series on audiobooks and love Phil Gigante's narration.
How about you? Do you ever listen to audiobooks or you can't get into it?