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

[Stig]

1.3x is the most I go too as 1.5x starts to sound too stupid.

[morcs]

1.5x is like a cold plunge pool When you go back to 1x it feels like a hot bath of slowness.

[ZOK]

You speed freaks should be behind bars for the preservation of a decent society. 

[LaParka]

I listen to the Wheel of Time series at 1.8 because the guy is so bloody slow. Otherwise I hover around the 1.5/1.6 speed. 1x speed sounds too slow to my ears now.

[Retroid]

 Finished Necronomicon, loved it, Lovecraft has such a accurate way of describing the surroundings - it's very odd how detailed his mind is.. And how ahead of his time he was. The only downside is that the Chapters are just numbers making it very difficult to go back and re-listen to a specific story, I think the Rats in the Walls and the Colour from Out of Space are my standout favourites with a lot of the others not too far behind.

 

Currently on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, knew nothing going in and it's not what I expected at all. I'm finding it a bit of a mixed bag - loving the detective stuff but it feels like it's injected with strange sex fantasies that go against the grain of the characters; pulls me out of the immersion. Also I'll admit the amount of business jargon just bored the shit out of me at the beginning and I was really trying to get interested. I'll carry on because I'm invested in the mystery but so far I can't say it's the masterpiece it's been hailed as.

[deerokus]

It definitely isn't a masterpiece, it's just a solid novel that found huge mainstream popular fiction success that sold to people who don't read fiction and certainly don't read translated fiction. In one sense Dan Brown and EL James did the same thing (of course it is certainly a thousand times better than their outpourings). 

 

I thought both the Dragon Tattoo films were much better than the book, which can get a bit tedious and meandering, and seems quite badly translated at times - or it might just be a good translation of bad writing. The story and characters are strong and worked better for me in the more focused format. 

 

It did open up the market for Jo Nesbo, whose books are a lot more fun.

[Timmo]

Daily deals are 99p throughout Christmas. Today is Treasure Island. 

[deerokus]

Has anyone used libby? It is an app which works with your local library. Just sign in with your library details and you will find a range of ebooks and audiobooks you can borrow. In the US it supports Kindle e-readers, but not here, so the ebooks aren't very desirable unless you like reading ebooks on your phone or tablet. But the audiobook feature is handy and it's a pretty decent audiobook playing app. 

 

I assume the range varies depending on what your local authority has available, the range available to me wasn't huge but had some good recent books, so currently I am listening to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. 

[Danster]

Sapiens is a great listen.

[davidcotton]

Big Finish are offering a free episode download of The Avengers - Steed and Mrs Peel on their website. 

[Timmo]

I'm taking on Infinite Jest!

 

The endnotes (which I've read are vital) are in a separate recording so I'm going to have to flit between two. I'll report back how it's going.

[Hexx]

Any decent comedy/farce recommendations?

 

I’m sure someone recommend The Wilt Inheritence and others somewhere - can’t find the post though. Didn’t love TWI though 

[ZOK]

If you like Alan Partridge and for some reason haven’t heard it yet, I, Partridge is essential, one of the funniest audiobooks going.

 

Nomad much less so, but still a good listen.

[Vimster]

On 13/01/2018 at 09:26, Hexx said:

Any decent comedy/farce recommendations?

 

I’m sure someone recommend The Wilt Inheritence and others somewhere - can’t find the post though. Didn’t love TWI though 

That's easily the worst Wilt book, really disappointing.

 

I'd recommend Robert Rankin, start with The Antipope, if you enjoy that then you're sorted as the Brentford books are generally ace, well, the first 4 at least, it tails off a bit after that.

[morcs]

Getting right to the end of Lies of Locke Lamora, you're all right, it's brilliant. Both the story and the narrator.

[Delargey]

On 14/01/2018 at 16:58, Vimster said:

That's easily the worst Wilt book, really disappointing.

 

I'd recommend Robert Rankin, start with The Antipope, if you enjoy that then you're sorted as the Brentford books are generally ace, well, the first 4 at least, it tails off a bit after that.

 

The Toyminator is a great stand alone. A noir tale set in Toy Town. 

[Delargey]

My mum  lost her phone. She's got a new one but can't says her library is gone.

I think she may have signed in to the wrong account- It's attached to my bank card is there a way to recover everything?

 

I can't remember if I had to set up an amazon account for her or not.

[ZOK]

It may or may not be attached to an Amazon account, depending on how long ago you set it up. 

 

The books won’t be ever be gone, she’ll be signed in to a wrong account OR she has the right account, and selected the device bookshelf view rather than cloud, which obviously won’t show any books as it’s a new phone.

 

Quickest way to sort it if it’s the account and you don’t know the details is do it via Audible / Amazon’s chat.

[Delargey]

Cheers. My mum lives in Ireland so I'm not there to just sort it out for her. She's not that technical so its pretty awkward to sort.

[ZOK]

10 hours ago, Delargey said:

Cheers. My mum lives in Ireland so I'm not there to just sort it out for her. She's not that technical so its pretty awkward to sort.

 

She must be signed in to a different account, or not signed in at all. What I said before was wrong, you still see the books on Cloud view, just as undownloaded, this is how the two views look if she’s signed in to an account with books:

 

 

 

 

 

[deerokus]

Huh, that's not how it looks on android: device view only shows books that are currently downloaded. 

 

I know my mum had a similar thing of being logged into the wrong account, she had an old audible account from about ten years ago that had a lot of stuff, and a more recent amazon one with hardly anything on it. You can still merge them once it's all sorted out. 

[Exidor]

You all know about the big Daily Deal Throwback sale that's on now? Basically about 400 of those £1.99/£2.99 daily deal books back at £1.99/£2.99.

 

I can recommend not buying The Year of Living Danishly unless you like grinding your teeth and wishing suffering on someone you've never met.

[Scribblor]

Stay away from anything narrated by Susan Duerden. She reads in a dreadful breathy voice which I thought was her unfortunate 'normal' voice until she forgot to do it for a couple of sentences; she adds an extra syllable to any word at the end of a sentence and she makes every male character sound like a malevolent Terry-Thomas, which might be amusing if it was just one or two of them, or if it was just the villains. But no. Every male character. Young or old. Good guy or bad guy. 

 

I genuinely wonder how some of the narrators on Audible actually get work.

[ZOK]

Any fans of Jack Vance here? Arthur Morey’s reading of his stuff is amazing. Also, there is a simply sublime collection of tributes to Vance set in the Dying Earth universe by a panoply of incredible writers, also read by Morey.

 

It’s called Songs of the Dying Earth, and it’s right up there with the best stuff I’ve ever heard on Audible.

[Miner Willy]

Currently listening to the Marshmallow Test. It's read by Alan Alda, which probably makes it more enjoyable (though it's very interesting anyway).

[Hexx]

Aliens River of Pain is today's deal for £2.

 

(It's the Aliens prequel with the fall of the outpost).

It's tosh, but it's brilliant. Mainly because it shows audio dramas at their very over descriptive worst at parts. (Not far off "Look! Over there by the door! An Alien has come through! Oh no it's walking towards me! It's killing me" levels at points)

 

But it's very 90s-esq cash in story. Avoid is sensitive to that sort of rubbish

 

[Miner Willy]

Really enjoying Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman: really interesting and informative, and a great listen too. 

[Delargey]

Listening to Best Served Cold again, must be my 10th time now...The narration is impeccable.

[Timmo]

2 for 1 sale just started.

[Danster]

On 08/07/2018 at 09:55, Delargey said:

Listening to Best Served Cold again, must be my 10th time now...The narration is impeccable.

 

I've probably listened to over a hundred books on audible now, and Steven Pacey reading Joe Abercrombie is by far and away the best narration I've heard.