Here’s a new one – it’s a “Help a Bitch Out” for my own selfish needs. I’m home sick in bed (and all of my cats think this is purely a reason for me to pet them. I have four cats and two arms – it’s getting hairy over here) and am rather nauseated. Ergo I’m not reading anything – or wearing glasses or opening my eyes much, since doing so tends to make me want to boof. (No, I’m not in labor- baby is fine).
So I’m surfing Audible.com to download something to listen to, since I’m not sleepy but not really willing to use my eyeballs. Which romances-on-tape or even audio performers have you liked recently? I’m eager to listen to something – but holy cow, there’s a lot to choose from. Bring on the recommendations!
So sorry you’re not feeling well.
I’m not a big audiobook fan, but I keep hearing good things about the guy that provided the voices for Nora Robert’s Circle Trilogy. Very nice, very Irish, very sexy.
Ditto for any of her JD Robb books that have a guy voicing Roarke. Yummy.
For some reason having some guy with an Irish brogue read to me when I’m not feeling well sounds divine.
A good book is great, but a sexy voice reading it is even better!
Depends what you are in the mood for. Last thing I listened to was the latest Sookie Stackhouse, and I really like the narrator.
Barbara Rosenblat does all of the Elizabeth Peters books, but she’s done a slew of others and is always very good, IMO.
I just looked her up on audible and they’ve got a little of everything (Judith Ivory? I didn’t even know there was a Judith Ivory audiobook!) up there for her.
That oughta give you a place to start.
I don’t know if you have read the Laurie King Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell mysteries, but the narrator Jenny Sterlin is perfect and the books are wonderful.
The most romantic non-romance mystery ever, Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers, as read by Ian Carmichael is also amazing. The follow-up, Busman’s Honeymoon, is great as well.
Last but not least, the Jenny Crusie books on tape are uniformly good, with snark and passion captured equally well by the reader.
I like the Sookie Stackhouses, and Katie Macalister on Audio. The actors are good and believable.
if you can find anything read by Frank Muller, he really brings the stories to life!
did i hear somewhere that Fabio reads his own audiobooks? hmmm.
http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?productID=BK_BKOT_000879&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes
SEP’s Heaven, Texas read by the late and so much lamented Anna Fields (Kate Fleming). I was charmed by this.
It Had to Be You is much too exciting. I was driving and found that I was speeding while listening to the final chapters of that.
Any of the JD Robb “In Death” series. Brilliance Audio has them for a song.
I’ve also enjoyed the hell out of Janet Evanovich’s Plum books on audio. Laugh out loud, fun stories. Light and not a lot of brain power to follow.
Oh, and Nora Robert’s latest Eve Duncan Forensic Sculptor book. Danggit whatzit called. I just sold my CD’s on amazon.com.
Hope you feel better soon. A couple of suggestions: Barbara Michaels Vanish with the Rose and The Dancing Floor read by Barbara Rosenblat (sp?), she does a very nice job. I also liked Jennifer Crusies Faking It. For fantasy Diana Wynne Jones books are good, there are several good audio versions of The Lives of Christopher Chant (I got mine on bookcloseouts). I also recommend the In Death books.
(Nora didn’t write the Eve Duncan books.)
i don’t know about audiobooks-for me they are too distracting-but Ryan Adams” CD LOVE IS HELL is sooo good. Bookwise—-anything by Daphne Du Maurier(Frenchman’s Creek—Jamaica Inn—My Cousin Rachel—-and. of course,REBECCA—-not sure if these are on audio…but i don’t DO audio. anywho..i hope you feel better..and you can always listen to Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris…..
Lloyd James’ reading of The Curse of Chalion by Bujold is stunning. His weary, been betrayed by my comrades, tortured on a galley, now I just want a bit of peace but I see fate is not going to let me voice is terribly sexy. I’m currently listening to Volume 1 in the Sharing Knife by Bujold whose narrator is also good.
Also Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Scarlet Lion is good historical fiction.
I liked Ruth Downie’s Medicus—mystery set in Roman Britain.
Sarah, I hope you’ll be feeling well soon! As to audiobook recommendations—I’m afraid my adiobook-hymen hasn’t been breached yet (or at least not really) (or something), so, sorry, no audiobook recs from this audiobook virgin.
If you’re in the mood for a great contemporary mystery, the audiobooks of Ian Rankin’s novels are wonderful. Also, the audio versions of Alexander McCall Smith’s books are good too. If you’re interested in just a plain old good story, I HIGHLY recommend The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw. It’s her memoir of being the only female swordfish boat captain. (If you saw/read The Perfect Storm, she was part of that story, too.) But her books are much much better and less “Hollywood.”
I second Barbara Rosenblat. I always like listening to the Diane Mott Davidson books that she narrates when I’m cleaning.
Didn’t even know this Audible thing existed. Very cool
The narrator for the Janet Evanovich book is really good. Very funny. Does great voices.
If you’re interested in just listening to music, try pandora.com. It’s a create-your-own-radio-station sort of thing. Also it’s free, which is a delightful thing.
The first (and only, so far) audiobook I bought was also my first Crusie and it was Welcome to Temptation, read entirely by Aagne Vigaasa (sp?) and I loved it!!! Sex scenes and all. She did the diff voices and it was great, no confusion, nothing.
In fact, I think JC had a similar post on her blog. Let me look it up for you.
(my word: party26)
The two books that sprang to mind for great stories and amazing narrators were Alexander McCall Smith’s #1 ladies’ detective agency, and Libba Bray’s A great and Terrible Beauty. MCall Smith’s books are set in Botswana, and the narrator, Lisette LeCa (name may be off a little) is absolutely memorizing. Libba Bray’s book is the first in a trilogy of YA Gothic books set in a British girls boarding school in the *mumble mumble* century. I normally don’t like 1st person Gothic stories, but Libba’s was absolutely riveting, and the narrator did a smashing job of distinguishing between a wide array of female voices, both teenagers and adults, all with lovely British accents.
ok, found it (third world + technology = slow and clumsy kisses)
http://www.arghink.com/2007/07/09/do-you-hear-what-i-hear/
79 comments, including mine, so you should be able to stuff that mp3 thingie full!!!
These aren’t romances, but A Walk in the Woods and I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson, both read by the author, are very good.
Also, Audible has a pannel from the Bath Literature Festival called Reading Between the Lines: From Page to Production. It’s a discussion of the process of recording a book. I got it free months ago. The website is listing it for $40+ !!! which can’t be right. Cripes. It’s only an hour and 15 min!
The Sookie Stackhouse and Stephanie Plum recs are good. I also enjoy Meg Cabot, and they seem to do a good job converting her books to audio.
The only Jenny Crusie on Audible is Getting Rid of Bradly, which is abridged and the reader is a little weird, but I’ve still listened to it at least half a dozen times.
I have to disagree about the reader for Nora’s Circle trilogy. I started listening to one of them—I think it was the second book—and couldn’t take it. The accents were really intrusive.
better91- hope you feel better soon!
Eve Duncan is in a series written by Iris Johansen. Loved the books, haven’t heard the audio’s though…
Hmm, I haven’t listened to romances on tape since I had the rather cringing experience with one of a big-name author’s earliest works. Bad books are even worse read aloud.
But the woman who does Stephanie Plum is very good.
I listened to Blind Assassin on tape, and it was great. Don’t think I’d have finished the book otherwise, a very dark, wretched story. But her prose read so beautifully.
I, Claudius was fun on tape.
If you are in the mood to revisit a recent classic, Bridget Jones’s Diary was falling-down funny read aloud.
And what about the program that used to come on PBS, where stage performers read short stories? I always enjoyed those until my local station scrambled programming and I don’t know when it’s on anymore.
Hope you feel better soon, SB Sarah.
The Outlander series on audio is good for hours and hours and hours of listening, if you like them.
PS, stay hydrated or call your dr if you can’t keep anything down (or if it’s passing right through) as dehydration can cause preterm labor. I’m sure a smart bitch like you knows that, but an amazing number of women don’t.
Hope you feel better.
Time Traveler’s Wife download is great
I don’t think any Brilliance Audio titles are carried through Audible.com (otherwise I’d be on it like Hoff on cheezburgers), but I’ve found Susan Ericksen who does the JD Robb books to be a good reader (a friend of mine thinks she makes Peabody sound like a rube), I also enjoy the Evanovich books on audio (‘bout the only way I’ll read them now), lurved the reader of Northern Lights – Gary Littman, and I also like JAK/AQ on audio.
Brilliance does have a download site at audiobookstanddl.com, but if you’re using iTunes/iPod, you’ll have to jump through some hoops to get it onto your device.
Oh yeah, “You Suck” by Christopher Moore on audio was pretty darn funny. Hope you feel better!
Sorry to hear you’re under the weather! I really enjoy listening to Susan Ericksen (she does a phenomenal job with Nora Roberts’ Eve Dallas series) and I also like Jan Maxwell and Sandra Burr.
I am really into the paranormals, so I can second the Sookie Stackhouse recommendation. I also liked Karen Marie Moning’s Darkfever—two of her Highlander novels have just been released on audio. Any of the Kelley Armstrong titles are good.
You guys are awesome, and man, I am going to have a good old time commuting to work if I can’t read on the bus (which happened with my pregnancy with Freebird in the last months) and need to listen to books.
And yes, ma’am, I am staying on top of the hydration, and I’m not having any contractions, but thanks for the warning – you are wise to remind me!
Really hope you feel better soon.
My only audiobook experience are the first several Redwall books by Brian Jacques. Charming & highly recommended. They are well done, read by the author himself (bonus=correct pronunciation of his name), charming accent, and Freebird may enjoy them also.
I would second the xhrisopher moore, I LOVE whoever did hte voice for You Suck. My mother and I listened to it while doing a drive to tx and back and there were points where we had to pull over cause we were laughing so much.
jordana
Stardust is lovely as an audio book. Hell it’s a lovely book, but the audio is a great deal of fun especially if you get the added discussion by Gaiman at the end.
Ditto on Barbara Rosenblat! She does an incredible job – love her for Elizabeth Peters, and the only way I read Amanda Quick.
Ditto as well on the Gabaldon Outlander series – I prefer the unabridged version – so if you plan to stay in bed for a month or so…
Add another voice to the JD Robb throng, great characterizations. Suzanne Brockmann’s books are read by the same couple for the male-female POV in those stories and I’ve enjoyed all of them.
If you want to laugh your butt off I highly recommend the Merry Gentry books by LKH. To her credit, the woman who reads them does a good Merry, but when you hear her try to do the voices of the 8 trillion men in Merry’s life, that is when it gets HILARIOUS.
And laughing for a completely different reason any of Terry Pratchett’s books on tape especially The Wee Free Men or his collaboration with Neil Gaiman Good Omens
Looks like a lot of great suggestions. I love audiobooks. They make housework go by much faster. My biggest piece of advice is to stay away from anything read by the author, unless the author is an actor or comedian. You really need a pro to make it tolerable. My best friend and I always swap our audio books to cut down on cost. She bought “A Wrinkle In Time” read by the author. 5 CD’s and after the first one was over I was ready to pull my hair out! I have yet to listen to the other 4 and I have had it since May.
Feel better soon Sarah! I had a stomach virus when I was about 7 months pregnant with my son. The worst part was that I couldn’t curl up into my favorite tummy soothing fetal position. No fun.
I get a lot of my audio books from kitabe.com – they work rather like Netflix, and are one of the few sources for Brilliance books – and Brilliance publishes all the Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb books, as well as a lot of other great romance or romantic suspense.
(I just noticed that a Nora Roberts book, The Last Honest Woman, is the current #1 download from audible.)
(oops, that last is in the romance only category; I forgot to refresh my screen for general downloads)
Nora Robert’s Carnal Innocence was great in audio. The narrator nailed the sexy, Southern drawl (and I’m from AL so it would have driven me batshit if it wasn’t right). I think the hero is the same character as in High Noon. I could totally hear his voice as I was reading her latest.
I cannot help but come out of lurkerdom to say that the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix is FABULOUS on audio!
It’s read by Tim Curry and is absolutely wonderful, though not romance.