Audiobooks

Was this a professional production, or something like a LibriVox recording?

I used to have a reading of Tess of the d'Urbervilles and I still have one of Pride and Prejudice somewhere. Tess got lost in a tech failure but I imagine the P&P CDs are still around somewhere.

Loved Tess but P&P was abridged--didn't say so *anywhere* on the packaging--and as I know the novel so well, the cuts jarred on me. The reading was fine in both cases. Certainly no obvious mispronunciations that I recall.

Husband has Jonathan Strange on his phone. Needless to say, we have not yet listened to it all the way through (forty hours). Again, the reading seems fine.

I have only ever listend to one Audiobook: Archipelago, by Monnique Roffey, a writer friend of mine. It was a very professional reading by well-known Irish actress, Sian Thomas. Coincidentally I also have a friend with that same name and I thought it was her reading -- she's a poet! But it wasn't.

Anyway... I LOVED this book, and I think I love it especially as audiobook. When I finished it I listened to it all over again -- very practical form my commute!

I had only one quibble withthe reading. The narroator pronounced Latin-Spanish words like European-Spanish,
eg Chavez (Chaveth) and Manzanilla (Manthanilla). That really got on my nerves! Otherwise it was fantastic.
Strangely, however, I don't feel any desire to listen to another audiobook. As if it was that one time, and over.

For the most part, I hate aduiobooks. The best I can do is listen to short stories this way. It simply isn't reading, and I'd rather read.

If I'm going to listen to a story, I want it acted out with a different reader for each character, plus one for the narrator, if needed, with sound effects, etc. Essentially, I want it done like a radio play. But just listen to someone read a story to me? Nope, can't get through one.

I am currently working through Asimov's Foundation trilogy this way. This version is done pretty much teh way I like, has a different readers for each character, etc., but it's a long story, so I don't know if I'll get through.

Anyway, when it's done this way, when it's acted, rather than just read, I find the quality is usually much better, and I don't get bored by hearing the same voice drone on.

I agree. Actually, even with different actors, I'd not choose audiobooks. I like the control I have when reading that just isn't available with audio, no matter how great the pause and rewind and save functions are.

But I'm very happy audiobooks exist because I know more and more people who actually dislike reading on the page and would not interact with books at all were it not for audio books.

*realizes this is not answering the question!*

I love audiobooks and listen to at least one or two a month. When I began listening to them, it required an adjustment in the way I mentally take in a story, but it allows me much more reading time than I could currently get in other ways.

There have been times when a reader's pronunciation or voice has put me off, but typically stories are read by pros with pleasant voices and a good grasp of language. Having audiobooks as an option has been a great thing.

When my husband was buying War of the Worlds in audiobooks some time back, there were a lot of different versions on the site, so we listened to samples until we found a voice we liked.

Kylabelle said:

But I'm very happy audiobooks exist because I know more and more people who actually dislike reading on the page and would not interact with books at all were it not for audio books.

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It's not either/or. I still read a lot of print and ebooks. But I am also a huge fan of audiobooks (Audible platinum member), because they have more than doubled the number of books I can read in a year. I can turn a lot of other activity time (driving, exercising, yardwork) into reading time. I love the Audible app feature that lets me listen at up to 3x speed (it only sounds funny at first - then you get used to it and normal speed sooooooouuuuunnnnnnds liiiiiiiiiiiiike thiiiiiiiiiiiissssss).

Yes, the narrator does make a big difference, which is why I like professionally produced audiobooks, and I've even got some favorite narrators who will affect whether I purchase a particular audiobook.

When my wife and I go on a long trip we listen to audiobooks. have hear at least 100. they vary by reader. Some are excellent others weak. We take them out of our library so if it is a weak reader, we just pull the disk out and go to something else.

I get to hear many books this way that I otherwise would not get to read.

I'm a fan of audiobooks. But am very careful to listen to the narration sample.

But also to listen to the sample for more than like 30 seconds. Some audiobooks I've started out going "okay, no way" about the narrator, and later wondering what the hell was wrong with me - they're perfect! So I like to give the sample a good long go to get used to them.

My favourite book is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the audiobook I have of it is narrated by Stephen Fry. I'm a bit tired of Stephen Fry, but he can certainly narrate an audiobook, and has just the right voice for that book.

I mostly do audiobooks of books I already know, and I find that they give me something different, something extra about the story that I might not have picked up on in reading. There are some I found much funnier in audio then when reading for example.

Amadan said:

I love the Audible app feature that lets me listen at up to 3x speed (it only sounds funny at first - then you get used to it and normal speed sooooooouuuuunnnnnnds liiiiiiiiiiiiike thiiiiiiiiiiiissssss).

Yes, the narrator does make a big difference, which is why I like professionally produced audiobooks, and I've even got some favorite narrators who will affect whether I purchase a particular audiobook.

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3x speed?? I've tried to listen at 1.25 the speed, and I just couldn't do it! The narrator's voice changed too much.

I love listening to some narrators, Bahni Turpin is amazing, she changes her voice depending on the characters, so even with just one narrator, the different characters definitely have their place. She not only changes her voice, but her pitch, the speed at which she narrates etc. Especially in Stacia Kane's Downside Ghosts series, it's great to listen to her, because she does the accent (which doesn't really exist in RL) perfectly (ie the way I imagined it in my head)...

Other narrators actually put me to sleep! Maybe the 2x speed might work better for some

Though I've only narrated a few audiobooks, that type of error (mispronunciation) is a really basic one that any self-respecting narrator should not make. I suppose it's harder with fiction, but any author who wants it done right would give a pronunciation sheet for all the names/places/invented words that are not pronounced as one might expect.

aliceshortcake said:

The worst was the pronunciation of Dorian's mother's maiden name, Devereaux, as "Deverooks".

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Even if the narrator didn't know the correct pronunciation, it seems as if someone among the producing staff would catch that error. Even someone with high school French would notice.

Jamesaritchie said:

If I'm going to listen to a story, I want it acted out with a different reader for each character, plus one for the narrator, if needed, with sound effects, etc. Essentially, I want it done like a radio play.

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That sounds really cool. I didn't know there were audiobooks produced like this.

If I owned a radio station, I'd have a show like that - reading a book with live voice actors and sound effects.

Now all I have to do is win the lotto and buy the radio station ...

juniper said:

That sounds really cool. I didn't know there were audiobooks produced like this.

If I owned a radio station, I'd have a show like that - reading a book with live voice actors and sound effects.

Now all I have to do is win the lotto and buy the radio station ...

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I think those ones are usually called "full cast audio." They still have the narration, but different actors for different characters and sound effects and even music. So they are kind of halfway between a straightforward reading and a dramatization.

aliceshortcake said:

there were quite a few mispronunciations that threw me right out of the story. The worst was the pronunciation of Dorian's mother's maiden name, Devereaux, as "Deverooks".

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Actually, I think this is one of those names that the English pronounce in a way that seems very weird to the rest of the world - like 'Menzies' being pronounced 'Mingies' or 'Featherstonhaugh' being pronounced 'Fanshaw'. See this list of counterintuitive pronunciations, or this page - both of them list the 'correct' UK pronunciation of Devereux as 'Deverooks'. I'm pretty sure that's how Wilde and his friends would've pronounced it.

Amadan said:

It's not either/or. I still read a lot of print and ebooks. But I am also a huge fan of audiobooks (Audible platinum member), because they have more than doubled the number of books I can read in a year. I can turn a lot of other activity time (driving, exercising, yardwork) into reading time. I love the Audible app feature that lets me listen at up to 3x speed (it only sounds funny at first - then you get used to it and normal speed sooooooouuuuunnnnnnds liiiiiiiiiiiiike thiiiiiiiiiiiissssss).

Yes, the narrator does make a big difference, which is why I like professionally produced audiobooks, and I've even got some favorite narrators who will affect whether I purchase a particular audiobook.

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But audiobooks are not reading, they're listening. The two are entirely different things. Even a completely illiterate person can listen to an audibook. This is probably a good thing, but listening to a book being read to you is not reading

Jamesaritchie said:

But audiobooks are not reading, they're listening. The two are entirely different things. Even a completely illiterate person can listen to an audibook. This is probably a good thing, but listening to a book being read to you is not reading

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It serves the same purpose - the words and the story are processed by my brain, and I have experienced the book. I am just as capable of discussing, analyzing, remembering, and being affected by a book I listen to as one I read. When I talk about a book I've read, I can't always even remember whether it's one I "read" as an audiobook or not.

I don't classify them differently. If I listened to the audiobook, I read it. Neuroscientists may have something to say about how the experience differs based on which sense I used, but they aren't retained in my brain differently.

So insisting that listening to audiobooks isn't "reading" may be true in a pedantically literal sense, but not in any meaningful sense.

I'm probably in the minority in that I don't care for audiobooks. Yes, both audio and "regular" books are forms of story-telling, but listening and reading are two completely different experiences for me.

Zaffiro said:

Actually, I think this is one of those names that the English pronounce in a way that seems very weird to the rest of the world - like 'Menzies' being pronounced 'Mingies' or 'Featherstonhaugh' being pronounced 'Fanshaw'. See this list of counterintuitive pronunciations, or this page - both of them list the 'correct' UK pronunciation of Devereux as 'Deverooks'. I'm pretty sure that's how Wilde and his friends would've pronounced it.

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Agreed. It's a perfectly correct way to pronounce the English surname 'Devereux'.

I had trouble when I first started listening to audio-books, but I've adjusted and now I love them. I started with light non-fiction (lots of celebrity autobiographies, humour, etc.) and that helped me develop my listening skills, and now I can absorb just about anything through audio books. Good for people with long commutes!

My favourites are still probably David Sedaris books. His voice is actually kind of irritating, but his writing is funny and you get the PERFECT timing when he's the one reading his own words.

In terms of mispronunciations - one of my books that was audio-ized includes the word dressage several times and the narrator pronounced it DRESS-ige. I can't listen to my own stuff being read at the best of times, but that narration killed me when someone told me about it. But it never would have even occurred to me to give a pronunciation guide for an English word...

(There's a later part in the same book where the characters joke about all the different words for 'knight' in different languages, and I've never been able to make myself listen to it to find out if the pronunciation is similarly unfortunate).

Zaffiro said:

Actually, I think this is one of those names that the English pronounce in a way that seems very weird to the rest of the world - ... both of them list the 'correct' UK pronunciation of Devereux as 'Deverooks'. I'm pretty sure that's how Wilde and his friends would've pronounced it.

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I used to read a lot of British lit as a teen and in my 20s, and the strange (to me) names always left me puzzled. Especially when there was some indication that a name wasn't pronounced the way it was spelled. I eventually learned about Cholmondeley and some others, but still ... would be interesting (well, maybe only to a few people) to chase down the history of the pronunciations. Did people just mumble a lot? Or was it because they were mostly spoken and not written down?

Captcha said:

In terms of mispronunciations - one of my books that was audio-ized includes the word dressage several times and the narrator pronounced it DRESS-ige.

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That's a word I wouldn't know how to pronounce except I used to know someone who rode dressage.