This post is sponsored by Audible Escape, formerly known as the Audible Romance Package.
The Audible Escape subscription allows you to binge listen to thousands of romance audiobooks. You can borrow up to 10 audiobooks from the subscription at a time, return them whenever you like, then borrow more.
If you’re new to Audible Escape, you can try it free for one month. Then, a subscription is $6.95 a month for Audible members and Kindle Unlimited members, and $12.95 per month for non members.
Shall we talk audiobook recommendations?
It’s driving and traveling and waiting in lines season, especially if you’re headed on vacation. It is that time of year, isn’t it? I usually listen to audiobooks while I walk my dogs, but when I’m traveling, I try to find a book that I can immerse myself in.
And if I’m driving, it’s great fun to have the audiobook and navigation going at the same time because invariably I’ll hear something like:
He turned to her with fury in his eyes, a slight quiver in his shoulders. After one terse breath, then another, he opened his mouth and said,
“In one mile, use the right two lanes to take the next exit.”
SO ROMANTIC.
I seriously cannot underestimate how much I love it when navigation interrupts the dialogue at exactly the right moment. Le swoon.
Since I’m a passenger on our next vacation and not doing much driving, I’ll be listening while I stare out the window, no navigation needed. But my deep dive into the available titles yielded a number of great options. If you’re looking for some suggestions, here are a few that might make your upcoming travels more enjoyable.
Oh, boy. Now that I look at this list again, I almost wish the upcoming trip were longer.
If you’re traveling for awhile, or the rest of your natural life, and you want to start a series:
Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh, Narrated by Angela Dawe
This is the first book in the Psy-Changeling series, and the first sixteen books of the series are part of Audible Escape. A quick tally using my phone calculator tells me that this is over 200 hours of audio, and I’m not sure what trip you could take that’s 200 hours long. Maybe if you’re in a rowboat around the world? These books are so great, you’ll certainly paddle faster!
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The Mane Event by Shelly Laurenston, Narrated by Charlotte Kane
Shelly Laurenston writes some fun, hilarious, campy shifter books, and this is the first in the Pride series. The next eight books are in the Audible Escape collection yielding over 100 hours, so again, perfect for a long, long trip. And any journey would be enhanced by shifters, right? Be warned: these books can be silly to the point where you laugh out loud, and extremely sexy.
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Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey, Narrated by Lauren Fortgang
This is the first book in the Kowalski series, and I really enjoyed this series. Book three, Yours to Keep, is also part of Audible Escape and is probably my favorite of the series. I recommend these books for readers who like romances set in large families with complicated, realistic relationships between smart, and very funny people. All nine books are in the Audible Escape collection, so you can spend a ton of time – 60+ hours – with the Kowalskis.
If you love contemporary romance, and especially if you like clever dialogue and extremely sharp characters:
A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole, Narrated by Karen Chilton
Naledi, said princess in theory, is hilarious, and Karen Chilton’s performance only highlights her intelligence, and her sarcasm. This is also more than 11 hours of audio, so you can savor the narration and travel the world with Naledi and Thabiso.
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The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang, Narrated by Carly Robins
Amanda absolutely loved this book, as did our guest-squee reviewer Brooke, and the narration adds to the emotional pull and the delight of the story. Robins’ performance includes a variety of voices that are distinct but not distracting – something I really value as a listener. And, if you loved The Bride Test, the performance by Emily Woo Zeller is also part of Audible Escape.
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London Calling and This London Love by Clare Lydon, Narrated by Emily Bennet
Tara Scott recommends the entire series, and says they’re “very cute and fun romcoms, very British. The second, This London Love, is my favourite. It’s adorable.” The first two are narrated by Emily Bennet, while the third through fifth are narrated by Lucy Price-Lewis. So if you fancy a trip to London while you travel in any direction, this is a great choice!
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Tara also recommends the French Kissing series by Harper Bliss: “The narration is A++ good and it’s like a soap opera style story, with a few different couples being followed throughout the series as they go through various stages of their relationships. Super filthy, tons of angst, lots of fun.
“I highly recommend, but maybe don’t power through them at once. The first one feels the truest to the episode format, and each episode of the ‘season’ was released serially. So I read them as they came out and it was awesome. When I listened to it back to back, it was a bit of angst overload for me.”
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If you love historical romance:
His at Night by Sherry Thomas, narrated by Kate Reading
This is one of my very favorite Sherry Thomas novels, in part because the hero, Vere, is playing a very, very long con, allowing most of society to think he is a complete, though harmless, idiot, while really he’s more sharp and devious than all of them combined. “Learning the true you” romances where characters reveal their full selves only to one another are very much my catnip, and Kate Reading is a terrific narrator, too.
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The Governess Affair and the rest of the Brothers Sininster, narrated by Rosalyn Landor
Rosalyn Landor is a superb narrator, and if you’ve never tried one of her books, or you’ve never listened to Courtney Milan, hoo-wow are you in for a treat. The Governess Affair is the first novella in the series, which includes seven titles in all, so you can indulge in a complete romance in a little under four hours. That’s partway across Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh, or all the way through New Jersey and maybe Delaware, north to south if there’s no shore traffic, and if there is, no worries. Landor and Milan are a wonderful combination to distract you from highway parking lots.
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Indigo by Beverly Jenkins, Narrated by Robin Eller
Ok, first, I love this book. It’s one of the classic Beverly Jenkins historicals, and in 2012, waaaay back in the days of All Romance eBooks and the Smart Bitch Sarah Sizzling Book Club, this was a book club selection. This story has mystery, history, tense emotion, seriously hot romance, and a heroine who takes zero crap from anyone. And the narration of all of the above performed by Robin Eller is terrific, too.
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And here’s a bonus option from Ms. Bev: Nighthawk. I’m including this one for two reasons.
First, because the cover is a perfect compliment to the book cover, at right.
And two, the narration is performed by Kevin R. Free, and it is exquisite.
And, yes, it too is part of Audible Escape so if you subscribe, Nighthawk is included. (Seriously, y’all, this performance.)
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The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles, and the rest of the Charm of Magpies series, narrated by Cornell Collins
The Charm of Magpies series is very popular, but I hadn’t heard the narration until I’d listened to a sample while building this post. Holy smokes. Y’all. Wow! Cornell Collins narrates all five books in the series, which blends historical romance, alternate reality, magic, and mystery. That’ll take you on a fine journey, indeed.
If you like Jane Austen:
Emma by Jane Austen, Narrated by Juliet Stevenson
I’ve listened to Austen novels that I’ve already read a few times, and find that I discover new things about the story when I hear them. Juliet Stevenson’s performance is soothing and deft among the different characters, and made for an excellent listening experience.
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Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, Narrated by Rosamund Pike
I’ve mentioned this audiobook before, and I’ve listened to it twice now. No exaggeration, Pike’s performance of this book is freaking exquisite, and one of my favorites to re-listen to. It’s up there with the Richard Armitage narrations of Georgette Heyer (which are also, hooray, part of Escape but, alas, abridged versions). The Armitage Heyers and Pike’s performance of P&P are at the very top of the list of things I listen to when I’m stressed or my brain is scattered. I love this performance, so so much.
And don’t miss…
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon, Narrated by Sneha Mathan and Vikas Adam
Dual narration fans, heads up! The performance of When Dimple Met Rishi between Sneha Mathan and Vikas Adam is terrific. Carrie loved the book, too, calling it, “adorable and funny and utterly delightful.”
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Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, narrated by Gabra Zackman
I know many of you love this book. Amanda has said that she loved Poison Study so much, she owns it both in print and digitally. This book and the entire series is part of Audible Escape, all narrated by Gabra Zackman, and her performance really highlights the tension of the story.
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The Last Wolf by Maria Vale, narrated by Rachel Dulude
Another Amanda recommendation! Amanda listened to this audiobook while making chocolate souffle for a Soggy Bottoms post, and she very emphatically recommends it, especially if you’re traveling to a rather warm place: the series takes place in snowy, cold upstate New York. Per Amanda, “Vale knows how to write great atmosphere,” so if you’d like to cool off while you drive, this is a great choice.
What about you? Do you listen to audiobooks while traveling? Got any must-listen Audible Escape titles you’ve discovered recently? Any audiobooks you absolutely adored? Please share in the comments!
Several Mariana Zapata titles are on Audible Escape, including From Zukov with Love and my personal fave, Kulti. Anything Bianca Amato narrates is usually excellent; I loved The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Sylvia James, Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley, and Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl. The Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn is currently on there, and Lucinda Grant has several historical romances narrated by Alex Windham. For contemporary romances, I’ve enjoyed several titles each from Lauren Blakely, Emma Chase, and Melanie Harlow. I don’t keep the subscription all the time because I could binge myself comatose and never read any of the rest of my TBR list, but I think it’s worth a try if you love both audiobooks and romance.
I found a few unabridged Heyer books in Audible Escape. I don’t remember which ones are though, and I haven’t read any because there are so many and I don’t know where to start. I did read several Beverly Jenkins, my last time through the Audible Escape package. The first two of Stella Riley’s Rockliffe Series are available, but since I get impatient and buy the books if I know I’ll want to read straight through, I don’t know if the other four are. Riley is a favorite of mine.
@Space Cadet: I think you’re referring to Lucinda Brant. 🙂
Alex Wyndham narrates all of Stella Riley’s books and is amazing!
I don’t typically listen to audio books as they generally put me to sleep (fortunately I’m not the driver on long car rides!) Two audio books that kept me awake were The Martian by Andy Weir and Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard.
I’m going to recommend a narrator — Lauren Fortgang, who narrates EXCLUSIVELY YOURS by Shannon Stacey, which was mentioned in the post.
Lauren narrates some of my audiobooks, along with audiobooks by Leigh Bardugo, Shannon Mayer, and many other authors. So if you’re looking for a narrator (or a new narrator) to try, you might want to check her out. Happy listening!
I listen to a LOT of audiobooks, but I never listen to romance books anymore. I’ve discovered that I while I like reading sex scenes, I don’t much like listening to them–and pretty much any romance has them (imagine that). I’ve also discovered that there are a lot of really really poorly written romances out there and while I can often ignore bad writing when I’m reading–I must skim over it or something, I can’t do that when I listen. I’ve gotten turned off of some favorite authors after listening to their books on tape.
So I just finished THE NEGOTIATOR series by AVERY FLYNN, and felt so lost for audio books. What to do? I go onto SBTB, and then this post pops up! Thank you!
Avery Flynn was excellent, btw – especially the first two books. Both Stephanie Rose and Tatiana Sokolov did good work.
Another recommendation: LAYLA HAGEN’s BENNETT FAMILY series. The Bennett family is big and charming, and Aiden Snow, Sebastian York and John Lane – all among my favorite narrators – appear during the series.
Anyway. I’ll try one of these recommendations now. Thank you!
@Stefanie Magura — Thanks for catching my mistakes on the names/spellings of Lucinda Brant and Alex Wyndham.
Yikes, caught myself in another typo courtesy: Syrie James (not Sylvia) is the author of The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte.
Hopefully my poor spelling and typing won’t deter readers from seeking out these authors. I identify myself as ‘Space Cadet’ in SBTB comments with good reason .
Additions to my original comment: I recommend Painted Faces by L.H. Cosway, narrated by Ali Coffey. I also enjoyed the first three Rugby books that Cosway co-wrote with Penny Reid that are available on Audible Escape; the fourth one hasn’t been added (yet?). The hero in the first book, The Hooker and the Hermit, was too much of an alphahole for my taste, but I’m glad I read it due to references in the later books.
How could I have forgotten to mention the delightful Escape to New Zealand series by Rosalind James? 11 out of the 12 books published thus far are part of Audible Escape, and I’m guessing the latest book will be added in a few months.
My husband’s the audiobook person in our family, but one he turned me onto is not a romance but it’s amazing : World War Z. There are multiple narrators – the story is an oral history of the zombie war – and it was amazing/fascinating to listen to.
Judith Ivory’s The Proposition, and Beast
four of Laura Kinsale’s books are on audible escape brilliantly narrated by Nicholas Boulton
Bec McMaster’s London Steampunk series
The Kraken King by Meljean Brook
@Space Cadet:
Here’s a typo we both missed. From Lukov with Love. 🙂
I wouldn’t have known how to spell Mr. Wyndham’s name, had I not been trying to search for books he narrates, and kept coming up blank. Such are the circumstances of a person who uses screen reading technology which reads things verbally. This technology is for those who have visual problems whether total blindness or something less extreme, but still significant enough to not be able to read print. Those who can, but would need it bigger would need screen magnifiers. Anyway, when you’re listening it can sound like it should be spelled a certain way when it isn’t, which is why I should have spelled it out first. There are ways to do that.
Lots of Kristin Higgins books are on escape and those work really well for road trips with people who may not like as much sexy times! Also hilarious.
Also there is a series by Molly Harper, starting with How to Tame Your Dragon, that’s delightful and hilarious!
If you’re wondering where this post went and why is it back, I had to take it down to secure some permissions, and we are all good now, with recs galore. Sorry for the delay!
Smart Bitches, I love you. But do you realize you are doing a paid post for Audible just days before they plan to violate their contracts with ALL OF THE AUTHORS you are ‘promoting’ above by pirating the print rights of the audio books they’ve sold without compensation to the authors or publishers? Their new text initiative is illegal, there is no disputing that.
This is unconscionable. And I think it’s hypocritical at best for your website to be plugging Audible at this time.
Please refer to the Author’s Guild’s statement on this, linked below, or refer to the lawsuit filed by the Association of American Publishers late last week. Or the various articles in the news.
ps://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/statement-from-the-authors-guild-on-audibles-new-caption-feature/
Shame this service isn’t available in the UK. Currently have a free three month KU subscription which does allow you to borrow books in audible format so I’ve taken advantage of that.
@Liz
While I’m reflexively for David over Goliath and I definitely don’t know enough about this issue to be certain that authors vs Audible/Amazon is what this is, it seems more complicated than the Author’s Guild statement implies.
I found this discussion at The Passive Voice to be interesting:
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/amazons-upcoming-audible-captions-feature-unhappy-publishers/
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS POST! I’ve got 3 months of Audible Escape and Kindle Unlimited and am suffering from search fatigue. These are my favorite escape audiobooks so far:
Alyssa Cole’s novellas
Ann Aguirre’s Ars Numina series (starting with The Leopard King). These are SO GOOD that I jumped the gun and bought them before realizing they were escape. Menage in Demon Prince helped me get what the big deal with menage is. Same with the femdom stuff in The Shadow Warrior.
Melanie Greene’s Roll of the Dice series is GREAT. She plays with the (obvi. BS) concept of unlikeable heroines and I LOVE THEM.
Silent in the Grave by Deanna Rayburn. I burned through the audiobooks in this series until I had to tap out at Dark Road to Darjeeling. Old-timey colonizer racism is still racism. Same with old-timey abusive heroin loving heroes. YMMV
Thea Harrison’s Elder Races series is on there!
also:
Ruby Lang!
Rebecca Crowley!
Cathy Yardly!
Jo Goodman!
Kevin R. Free is the voice of Murderbot.
😀 I had to say it!
I do not use Audible, I still check out cds from the library to listen to in the car, but I recently listened to The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal and read by Judith Ivey. I highly recommend this book! Fantastic!
@Iris @Liz:
This sounds a lot like a similar controversy which erupted when Amazon made their Kindle books text-to-speech available. The Author’s Guild and publishers had a similar reaction, and what happened is that Amazon decided to make it an assistive technology feature meaning that when blind people such as myself have screen reading technology enabled, they can use this feature even though publishers had disabled it. Things have evolved and the books that are supported have a label on the product page saying so. There is a setting for iPhones and I assume other smart phones that allows those to turn on close captioning and subtitles. Those who are deaf need these. My point is that I wonder if Audible could make this available if people have that enabled.
@SB Sarah:
I had been wondering. Thank you. 🙂
I was wondering if something had gone sideways in the comments.
@SB Sarah:
There isn’t a way to see who likes our comments, is there?
As a follow-up to my earlier comment, the text-to-speech was included in Kindles and books in 2009, and it wasn’t to my knowledge made a feature of assistive technology until 2012. Before this point, I think to turn a Kindle on and enable this feature required sighted assistance, and I remember it being a pain in the neck to learn the new commands that came with the Kindle for PC application when I first downloaded it. Now, I can read with my screen reader on my laptop. This ability has existed on iPhones since probably 2012. This is part of a trend I’ve seen where iPhone applications are more accessible than their computer counterparts. Audible actually fits in that category, since the user interface on the Windows 10 app is not great, and on the iPhone it is very good for those who are blind. Thanks to great customer service representatives, I was able to learn the shortcuts for Windows 10 so I could get a measure of usability, but I really hope this will change in the future. I have a feeling that I might be the first to have brought this issue up. I hope that Audible has learned the lesson from their parent company and won’t take as long to work something out.
back to the topic at hand:
Since I have signed up I have seen several books and series have been added including some I own already. I particularly recommend the Tea Rose Trilogy by Jennifer Donnelly. The average length of these books is around 30 hours so you’ll have almost 90 hours of reading/listening.
And slightly off-topic, I saw that there was an audio book of Winds of the Storm by Beverly Jenkins recorded, and I’m a little mad it is not available on Audible at all, especially since it was recommended at the end of another audio book of hers, the name of which I don’t remember, but I do remember reading it through Audible Escape.
Yeah, based on what I’ve read so far, I don’t have much sympathy for the Authors Guild/publishers position on the new Audible/Amazon initiative. It seems as if it’s basically like closed captioning for books. It’s not the polished text of an ebook, and it’s not saved for future reading. It basically assists people who need some extra help with understanding what’s being read aloud to them. (Personally, I process information better visually than audibly, so it took some “training” for me to be able to listen effectively when I first started with audiobooks. For other folks, especially those with hearing problems, it can be even more difficult.) This tech doesn’t take the place of print/digital books, but might actually bring more people to the audiobook format.
I’m a big audiobook reader. I listen every day, and usually manage to get some good listening time in on my work commutes, or any other time I’m driving, shopping, waiting, etc. I often listen to books I’ve already read for a slightly different experience. I’m not a huge romance listener (I tend to want to read those books) but I did enjoy His at Night and Slave to Sensation as noted above. I also really liked Thomas’s The Luckiest Lady in London in audio. (I wasn’t a fan of The Kiss Quotient, but that’s a book I only listened to and it might have worked better for me if I’d read it.)
I don’t rate many books as 5-star, but some memorable recent audiobooks for me have been Novik’s Temeraire series, pretty much all the Ilona Andrews books, Jordan Castillo Price’s PsyCop series, SK Dunstall’s Linesman series, Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock and Soulwood series, Jodi Taylor’s The Chronicles of St. Mary’s series, JD Robb’s In Death Series, Josh Lanyon’s Holmes and Moriarity series, Tanya Huff’s Torin Kerr books, and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. (It’s been several years since I listened to The Martian, but that was great, too. Artemis, OTOH, was unlistenable for me and I had to switch to the ebook.)
I also listen to a lot of children’s/middle grade audiobooks–Kimberley Brubaker Bradley’s The War That Saved My Life duology was very good.
I’m currently listening to Candice Fox’s Crimson Lake, a mystery set in Australia, and it’s great to be able to hear the accents. I’m not sure if it’ll be a 5-star book yet, but I’m enjoying it enough that I bought the second book in the series so I can start it as soon as I finish this one.
I could go on and on thru my GR list, but I’ll stop now. I’m just excited to see some audiobook love here. 🙂
I listen to audiobooks constantly, and I am continually trying to track down titles from whatever source I can: my library’s OverDrive, my other library’s Hoopla, Authors’ Direct, and of course, Audible, including its Escape package. I tend to buy paper copies of books I really enjoy, so I don’t like “buying” audiobooks, especially as I have a paranoid wariness concerning how long the technology will last. (I’m one who remembers switching from cassette tapes to the promised-to-last-forever CDs. Look how well that turned out! Yet somehow books I bought as a child can still be read.) So I always find it particularly upsetting when I can track down a few titles in a series but not all of them. Lauren Layne is one of my favorite go-to authors for well-written, delicious listening, and several (though not enough!) of her books are available via the Escape package.
@Susan:
I have yet another follow-up. I have never met anyone who is dyslexic, or gotten to know anyone who sues technology, but from what I know this feature would help them a lot as well, since they can learn to read by listening plus highlighting text.
Lol. OMG. I tried to change that to uses but wasn’t able to in time.
@Susan @Stefanie Magura
The future can only tell if the Audible Captions service is actually intended for use helping children learn to read. But I seriously doubt it. The books that are named in the suit are predominantly adult books that are already bestsellers, that highschoolers and especially not children are likely to read.
But literally, as someone who has experience with publishing and publishing contracts, I can tell you that when an audiobook is created the audio company, such as Audible, purchases the right to create an audio edition ONLY of that title. They do not purchase the right to create a print book or digital book. Creating a text version of audio violates their contract. It’s piracy, stealing. No getting around that.
This service is not the same as audio for the visually impaired. It’s the reverse. Text to speech is not the same as speech to text.
Audible for a long time was plugging it’s text to speech thing bundle hoping to get consumers to buy both an ebook and audiobook of the title. My guess, is that not enough people are doing that, so they are hoping to convince people to only buy the audio version and kinda sorta get the ebook as a bonus.
Why would Audible/ Amazon want people to buy the audible edition rather than just the ebook? Because Amazon makes more money that way.
Side note, Amazon is one of the largest corporations on the planet. Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest man in the history of the world. Nothing they do is for altruism. It’s about profit. We re kidding ourselves if we think that writers and publishers are the bad guys and Amazon is Robin Hood. Most people who work in book publishing—especially the romance books on this site you all love, make very VERY little money doing it. If we as consumers do not support the books we love, we will not be helping the future of literature. We will be the problem that helps end it.
@Susan – You’ve described my audio experience almost exactly! I’ve made some progress toward listening to audio books I haven’t read, but I still almost always listen to books I’ve read and liked enough to “read” again. And I so know the “I’d have liked it more if I’d read it” feeling! I recently saw an article on a study comparing brains reading and listening that concluded they were virtually the same experience. I side-eyed that pretty hard.
I can recommend two audiobooks where the narrator enhanced the audio to as good or better than the reading experience. The Curse of Chalion read by Lloyd James and Howl’s Moving Castle read by Jenny Sterlin.
@Liz – If Audible Captions truly is a captioning service, then it’s nothing like an ebook. There have been plenty of times when I’ve not understood something in an audio book and would have been glad of captions to see what was said. Authors/publishers seem to be saying that listeners should buy the ebook so they can pause the audiobook, search through the ebook to find the right spot, and read the part of the book they didn’t understand. That’s completely impractical. Audiobooks are mostly for people who want to “read” while doing other things. Very few people are going to actually sit and read a book while listening, but a lot of people would be glad to glance down at their device to catch something they missed.
This isn’t audio for the visually impaired. It sounds like text for the audio impaired. Like captions for TV and movies. Do film creators get paid more when captions are included on their work? I don’t know, but nobody suggests that people who want captions should buy the script instead.
I personally don’t care how big and rich Amazon is. (I don’t like the anti-library effect created by their exclusivity practices, but publishers aren’t very library friendly either.) They got that way by innovating, pursuing technology, and catering to their customers while everybody else was twiddling their thumbs and hoping technology would go away. I don’t have much sympathy for those who are now shocked to find themselves up against a monolith.
@Liz @MaryK:
I realize very well that this isn’t audio for the visually impaired. Simply, because I am a visually impaired person, and don’t see how I would use subtitles/captioning unless I was watching a movie that didn’t have audio description. As I said earlier, the publishers/author’s guild reaction to this and the text-to-speech do strike me as very similar though. On a related side note, Subtitles do show actions as well as dialogue, don’t they? This shows you much how I use them. When I did accidentally turn them on in a video streaming app I was using, hearing the dialogue spoken by my screen reader and the person onscreen was a hilariously bewildering experience. I could see myself using subtitles if I turned off the speech and read them using a Braille Display, which is a device which allows those who are blind to read in Braille what is on the screen.
The people for whom I think this captioning service would absolutely be helpful is the dyslexic population whether child or not. This is something that
Audible has mentioned in their material on the subject. In fact, the first time I ever saw anything similar was when an organization which serves both the blind/vi and dyslexic population did something similar. It also seems from Audible’s material, that the user’s ability to use this feature will have to be enabled on the user’s end even if it is packaged with the audio book. I’m interested to see if I am proven right. It does make me wonder how well Whispersync is doing since this is being thought up. In fact, I was talking to my sister earlier today about this controversy, and she had never heard of whispersync, and she uses Audible somewhat regularly. My response was that they weren’t doing their job.
As far as getting e-books from Amazon versus other places, if I knew that I could get every book I want from another retailer, or that resources available to the blind had every book I wanted to try, I would do that, because even with using whispersync, it can be expensive. Furthermore, the amount of books, whether audio or e-book available on resources meant for the blind is miniscule compared to mainstream ones even if they aren’t owned by Amazon. I don’t think Amazon is the best ever in spite of what I have written above, but I think the contributions they and others including publishers have made in making e-books available have certainly leveled the playing field more and I wish this access had been more readily available even ten years ago when I was in college and had to buy a hard copy of a textbook in hopes that I would maybe get an e-copy from the publisher. It seems that now in general, accessibility is more at the forefront, and I think and hope that is a good thing.
@Liz: I’m not dismissing your arguments, but I disagree. Again, the text that is generated is ephemeral and not saved for future use, so it isn’t comparable to someone obtaining a clean, digital copy of a book for their personal library. It is generated while someone is actively listening to the book as a different sort of input to provide more clarity. Literally, totally analogous to closed captioning, which most people would agree is a beneficial thing.
The first person I thought of when I read about this tech on another site was my brother, who said he had reached well over 60 years of age (including graduate school) having read–no joke–only about 5 books in their entirety because of reading impairments. He’s incredibly smart, but was educated in an era when no one had ever heard of dyslexia. So, he excelled in math/science, is an articulate speaker, but struggled with the written word and was totally written off by his teachers. When I gave him his first Kindle and introduced him to audiobooks a few years ago, his world changed and he is now an avid reader–but is saddened by all the lost years and how little time he has left to catch up on the world of literature he missed out on. He often reads along on his digital copy while he listens to books to increase his reading proficiency. I think he, and others like him, would greatly benefit from this technology. Someone like me would probably use it only intermittently if I didn’t understand the occasional passage. Like MaryK, I don’t care that it was developed by Amazon, what their motives were, or how much Jeff Bezos’s net worth is. I’m also unconvinced that this is a contract violation or that it will negatively affect sales. But, bottom line, I think the benefits far outweigh any perceived impact on authors/publishers. (Again, based on what I’ve read elsewhere, I’m pretty convinced a challenge won’t hold up in court, either. Maybe someone more knowledgeable, like Courtney Milan, will weigh in somewhere.)
As another aside, I personally own a truly massive number of digital and audiobooks, with many books in both formats. But, when I say “own,” of course, I mean “rent” since digital content is not treated in the same way as print material. Due to publisher greediness and DRM, I am unable to share most of my extensive library with others in the same way I could with other media. I also will never forget the collusion between authors, publishers, and Apple to keep ebook prices artificially high. None of them can claim the high moral ground again. No white hats there.
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Sorry for going off-topic. I hope more people post some of their favorite audiobook experiences. I don’t really need to add to my TBR pile, but am enjoying seeing what others like. Heck, a monthly Whatcha Listening To? in addition to the now bi-monthly Whatcha Reading? would be great. 🙂
@Susan:
I’m glad to know about your brother’s experience. I have an uncle who grew up in the same era, and would probably benefit with immersion reading, but considers himself too old for technology.
@Stefanie Magura: I started my brother off with a cheap Kindle since I wasn’t sure he’d like/be able to use it–honestly, I thought it was hopeless so I didn’t want to make a big investment at first. But it was easier for him to read on a screen than it was on a printed page. (I know this has been studied and that there are reasons for it.) It also helped that he could easily look up words he wasn’t familiar with in writing without having to break and use a dictionary (which he also had problems using anyway). He’s very tech-savvy, but I think Kindles and audiobooks are pretty user-friendly for all levels of users. I gave my mom a Kindle when she was in her 80s, and she did pretty well with it, too. It’s not too late for your uncle–I hope he finds the right medium (or mix of media) that he can use. I really think captioned audiobooks could help a lot of readers of all ages. There’s a whole world of wonderful books out there waiting for him!
@SBSarah:
I bought Indigo before the Audible Escape package existed, and afterwards the Library of Congress started adding commercially produced audio books. Indigo was one of these. Go figure.
Like others, I find contemporary and/or steamy romance less than satisfactory in audiobook form. My favorite (audio) books this summer were “The Alloy of Law,” “Shadows of Self” and “The Bands of Mourning” by Brandon Sanderson and read by Michael Kramer. A key characteristic of one of the main characters (Wayne) is his ability to appropriate and use accents, often carefully pieced together as part of his disguise. (That and hats.) Michael Kramer does an exceptional job with these accents. His men’s voices are exquisite! It took me a couple of chapters to get used to his women’s voices, but once acclimatized, the whole package was great. I was painting (and wallpapering) through a lot of the listening — and it was a LOT of listening — but I often went back to the paper books to go over some of the text after I finished for the evening. Without the audio, I doubt I would have liked them half as much. And this from someone who (also) had to train myself to comprehend audio input as an adult.
I listen to audiobooks a lot and have Audible Escape. Sarina Bowen’s books are my current obsession. They’re contemporary with dual narration, and beautifully done.
There are a few Laura Kinsale books on there narrated by Nicholas Boulton
Thanks for the suggestions. I also want to point out that a lot of Pamela Clare audiobooks are on Audible Escape. Currently going through the Blakewell/Kenleigh series. They also have the I Team series which I hear is great.