So, I've been meaning to make this thread for quite a while now. I'm quite surprised we don't have one already actually, considering that we're a forum about books.

But yeah, f any of you guys haven't tried out Audiobooks, I heartily recommend it. They're fantastic, and you can listen to them while doing everything. I listen to mine when cooking, commuting, walking places, working in the garden, doing shit around the house etc. Can make you very productive when you have a good book, as you'll want to just keep listening.

Mainly, I'm after recommendations for great audiobooks. I mean, I love fantasy, but I'll take any genre as long as they're interesting and have good narrators. List of what I've already listened to is below, with my recommendations.

Here's a couple of my recommendations to start off with. Audiobooks are interesting, as not only do you need to have a good book, but you need to have a good narrator as well. A bad narrator can easily ruin a good book. Unfortunately, vice versa doesn't seem to work. There's nothing quite so good as a good audiobook with a good narrator though.

I started off listening to the Dresden Files, so I'll start by recommending this first. If you haven't listened to audiobooks before, and you're not sure if you want to. Start with this, it's absolutely fantastic. James Masters is Dresden as far as I'm concerned. I don't need to tell everyone on here just how good The Dresden Files are, but I can tell you that James Masters Dresden is incredible, go listen to it.

The Name of the Wind, and WMF have two different narrators. When you listen to these books, you'll want to listen to the ones by Nick Podel, he does a fantastic job, though he may seem a little jarring at first.

The Wheel of Time has to be on here as well. Just a warning, it's 461 hours long, thats roughly 20 days. It's read by both Michael Kramer, and Kate Reading, and it's done fantastically. Both narrators are incredible, and Sanderson really nailed the last 3 books.

Those are probably my favourites, but The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie is fantastic as well.

Codex Alera, The Lies of Locke Lamora are the others I've listened to. Very good, but not as good as the others on here.

Also, if you guys have any questions about audiobook acquisition, feel free to send me a PM.

 

Neil Gaiman,himself does the audiobooks for most of his books and they are all awesome.

Stephen Fry read Harry Potter is superb.

The Discworld audio books.

I read a novel called Ready Player One a few days ago. Will Wheaton did the audio books for that one. So it should be good.

 

I second the Discworld ones, but not the audioplays. A lot of Pratchett's humour comes across in the wordplay and narration, which is completely cut in the audioplays.

On the completely opposite note, I do recommend the Doctor Who audioplays. The majority of the original actors were involved in making them, so it's like having a couple hundred extra episodes of Classic Who to listen to.

 

Yeah, DF and Ready Player One are the two audiobooks I've really enjoyed and I second those recommendations.

The audiobook of Good Omens by Pratchet and Gaiman is also quite good.

 

I just finished listening to the audiobooks of the Iron druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne and narrated by Luke Daniels.

The books are about a druid who has survived for 2000 years as the last of his kind. It reads a lot like the dresden files so if you enjoyed those then I definitely recommend this series of books.

 

Anything by Scott Sigler, especially his Infected/Contagious series.

 

Tell me more about the Iron Druid series, is the narration good? That's one of the ones I've had my eye on, as well as Prince/King/Emperor of thorns one. However, after The First Law series, I'm after something a little bit more... happy.

 

The narration is very well done. the characters have their own distinct voices and accents which he does superbly as well. there's quite a lot of comic relief strewn in through out the books, I highly recommend it.

 

If you're up for some non-fiction, then I'll recommend A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I find most audiobooks jarring, but this is one of the few i really enjoy.

 

World War Z. Works way better in audiobook format than just reading it; it's a series of interviews about the titular war, and the storytelling flows damn well with the voice acting. Some neat names behind some of the characters, too - Mark Hamill gets some fun on one of the best ones. A couple of the stories are missing due to time, but hey there's still a six hour fun time to be had.

 

I'd suggest the Dark Tower series. I've maybe listened to the entire series maybe a dozen times and even though the guy who did the narration for the 1st three books died before he was able to finish the series, It still is one of my favorite series in audiobook or paper format.

 

The Harry Potter audio books were well done.

I also listened to Red Seas Under Red Skies which I would not recommend. The Narrator enhanced Lamora's whinny ass attitude almost to the point that I couldn't get through the book. I didn't listen to The Lies of Locke Lamora so I cant say if it was the same.

If you could expand on your review I would appreciate it and if you've listened to the third as well.

 

The the Drizzt Do'urden series with Victor Bevine as the narrator was really good