Audible...and other audiobook delivery mechanisms that may or may not be available

[Stopharage]

JG Ballard’s complete short stories are down to £2.99 today. 

[ZOK]

Bear in mind that if the collection was priced at £299, it would still represent an incredible bargain. It’s over sixty hours of perfection.

[ZOK]

On 14/05/2020 at 14:11, scruffycat said:

Yeah both are, they are ‘light’ in a Banana Yoshimoto way, like a lot of contemporary Japanese Novels are,  but certainly worth the punt 

Just got around to listening to The Nakano Thrift Shop, and it couldn’t be more up my street if it tried. Lovely stuff, thanks for the recommendation! The narration is great too, by Alex Tregear.

[scruffycat]

Cool, glad you enjoyed it.

[Miner Willy]

Black Friday sale started with loads of £3 listens. I noted Wilding in there, which I listened to earlier this year and thought was brilliant. 

[Miner Willy]

... I bought Wolf Hall too, as I've never read it. 

[Stopharage]

5 hours ago, Miner Willy said:

... I bought Wolf Hall too, as I've never read it. 

Bring Up the Bodies is also on there for £3. 

[deerokus]

Obama's new book is a strong recommendation, he reads it himself and he's predictably brilliant at that. 

 

It's also much cheaper to buy it with a credit than buying any other format. 

[Stopharage]

On 22/11/2020 at 10:17, Miner Willy said:

... I bought Wolf Hall too, as I've never read it. 

The Mirror and the Light is down to £3 today as well.

[ChristopherBloodAxe]

Just listened to and highly recommend 'Piranesi' by Sussana Clarke.

 

Piranesi has always lived in the House and the House provides.

[Miner Willy]

Born to Run in today's £3 sale. I loved it. (and I don't run, apart from on the tennis court)

 

Edit: quite a few great listens in there actually.

[deerokus]

I'm loving Richard Armitage's narration of David Copperfield. 

[ZOK]

On 14/05/2020 at 11:27, scruffycat said:

I don’t have Audible so I don’t know if she is on there but a good contemporary Japanese author if you do like Banana Yoshimoto is Hiromi Kawakami. Or if you enjoy Crime thrillers Seichō Matsumoto.

Forgot to mention I loved Strange Weather in Tokyo too...man, that last line! Heartbreaking.

[ZOK]

I just polished off A Philip K Dick Collection narrated by Andy Hamilton, well worth a listen - it’s got all the classic shorts including Second Variety, The Defenders, Mr Spaceship, The Variable Man, Beyond Lies The Wub etc, and AH does a sterling job with the voices.

[Timmo]

On 28/01/2021 at 09:30, ZOK said:

I just polished off A Philip K Dick Collection narrated by Andy Hamilton, well worth a listen - it’s got all the classic shorts including Second Variety, The Defenders, Mr Spaceship, The Variable Man, Beyond Lies The Wub etc, and AH does a sterling job with the voices.

 

Will check that out, he's definitely top 3 for me but generally I prefer his novels to his short stories. Ubik and A Scanner Darkly are S tier.

[ZOK]

I’m the other way, I prefer his shorts (even though they have a toe in the Golden Age), Second Variety I regard as the single greatest SF short ever written. I urge you to read it before listening to it, it’s free on Project Gutenberg (if you do, skip past the images because they are spoilers!):

 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32032/32032-h/32032-h.htm

I re-read this over and over, once you have the whole picture it’s amazing to go back through and see how skilfully Dick scattered the breadcrumbs for the reader.

 

I do love his novels too though - check out Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Time Out of Joint if you haven’t already.

[Stopharage]

Current 2 for 1 is much better than normal. Adam Buxton’s Ramble book, Dear Joan and Jericho, Wenger’s autobiography, Wolf Hall, Stephen Fry reads Orwell, Normal People, Various Ishiguro, The Fifth Season etc might of interest to some. 

[ZOK]

I just listened to Bukowski’s Notes of a Dirty Old Man and More Notes of a Dirty Old Man, two collections of his newspaper columns, both read by Will Patton, and very excellently done.

 

[ZOK]

1 hour ago, Stopharage said:

Current 2 for 1 is much better than normal. Adam Buxton’s Ramble book, Dear Joan and Jericho, Wenger’s autobiography, Wolf Hall, Stephen Fry reads Orwell, Normal People, Various Ishiguro, The Fifth Season etc might of interest to some. 

Some great stuff in the sale - I got Enemy at the Gates, Buddenbrooks, True Grit (narrated by Donna Tart!) and The Tailor of Panama.

 

I noticed they have Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes in the sale, that is an excellent narration.

[Danster]

And the Beastie boys book too, which is excellent listening with lots of guest readers from the world of music.

[Stopharage]

1 hour ago, ZOK said:

Some great stuff in the sale - I got Enemy at the Gates, Buddenbrooks, True Grit (narrated by Donna Tart!) and The Tailor of Panama.

 

I noticed they have Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes in the sale, that is an excellent narration.

Great, I’m going to have to buy some more credits now. You swine! 

[ZOK]

On 09/05/2021 at 13:57, Stopharage said:

Great, I’m going to have to buy some more credits now. You swine! 

I started listening to True Grit, Donna Tartt’s narration is great.

[Stopharage]

8 hours ago, ZOK said:

I started listening to True Grit, Donna Tartt’s narration is great.

Looking forward to this. She’s probably my favourite writer and she’s got a wonderful voice to boot. Just wish she was a bit more prolific. 
 

Ended up getting Something Wicked, the Orwell Collection, Centuries of Change, the Arsene autobiography and Dear Joan and Jericha from the 2 for 1. On top of The Premonition by Michael Lewis and Press Reset by Jason Schreier. 
 

Going to need to go out for a lot of long walks to get through that. 

[Miner Willy]

I've almost finished The Premonition. It's great. 

[Laine]

Anyone spotted anything good in the £3 sale?

 

I’m listening to Melmoth by Sarah Perry, narrated by Emilia Fox and really enjoying it.     I gave up on The Secret History as I really didn’t get on with Donna Tartt’s voice! 

[hub2]

I recently finished 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and 'The Body: A Guide for Occupants' by Bill Bryson, having never read (or listened) to anything of his before, I really enjoyed them, especially the latter with his narration.

 

However, I'm now almost finished Notes From a Small Island, and while not narrated by him, he comes across a bit of a dick. Probably an artifact of "acerbic early 90's wit" which passed as humour back then. Or perhaps anyone writing a travelogue in rain sodden 90's britain travelling by British Rail would come across that way.

 

Anyway, hasn't put me off listening to 'The Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America' next to compare and contrast small town america to small town UK.

[the_debaser]

Fancied a re-read of the Dark Tower series so got the lot on audible instead. Done 1-3 so far and they’re better than I remembered. Just starting Wizard and Glass now with the guys puzzling Blaine the Mono at the start, it’s so well written. I love it. 

[Danster]

Just finished The Space Between Worlds (from a recommendation on here I think). Good story and well read, I zipped through it, can always tell a good book when I make excuses to listen more (hmmn think I should clean the kitchen again....or play games that don't need me to concentrate on what's being said)

 

The story is about a Traverser who travels to parallel universes - only snag is that you can only travel to universes where your equivalent is already dead, so the ones who can travel to a lot of universes tend to be those who have had rough old lives.

 

Good story, really about people and prejudice. Worth a listen for sure.

[Vimster]

I have managed to get a bit of a backlog going as I want to stop my Audible sub for a few months, although when I tried it last time they try and keep you in. Anyway, picked up Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy recently which is a good 85+ hours. Read the first book back in the 90s and remember really enjoying it so I'm looking forward to getting into that. 

 

Right now I'm enjoying Alphabetical written and read by Michael Rosen which is, not surprisingly, about the alphabet, but it's so much more than that. Each chapter starts with a brief history of each letter but then looks at a theme, like G is for Greek. Michael Rosen has one of those voices that remind me of being a child as he was on all those ITV schools programmes, so it's a real pleasure to hear him read this. Thoroughly recommended.

 

Anyway, I have two more credits, can anyone recommend some decent SF, preferably something either expansive or maybe a bit of cyberpunk that isn't William Gibson or Bruce Sterling. Cheers. 

[Timmo]

23 minutes ago, Vimster said:

Anyway, I have two more credits, can anyone recommend some decent SF, preferably something either expansive or maybe a bit of cyberpunk that isn't William Gibson or Bruce Sterling. Cheers. 

I've listened to quite a lot. These three stood out:

 

1984

Ender's Game

Ubik