It’s like having Walter Cronkite give us an evening news report on swordfighting aliens in bejewelled codpieces. His voice is perfect for this because it has that resonant, old-world newscaster gravitas. It’s all about narrative excess and unlimited imagination spurred on by a hidebound anglophile’s sense of language, and an awareness that one is being paid by the word. Listening to A Princess of Mars is like watching a science fiction rock opera by Queen. If I’m installing a toilet or stuck in traffic I go straight for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter series. When I read, I’m fond of minimalist, hygienic prose, but when I’m going through life with my earbuds in, I don’t like to have to hang on every word. It’s strange, but listening to books rather than reading them awakens in me an appreciation of the baroque and ornate, of bombast. He reads in a pleasant, Rod Serling baritone, but is not too dignified to act out the parts in silly falsettos and such. I recommend this particular version (version 3) because it is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville South Carolina, who is like the Ralph Richardson of Librivox. With audiobooks, you can get lost in a complex narrative, so it’s actually a blessing when Sherlock condescends to break it down for Watson and Lestrade.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are the quintessential listen-anywhere stories precisely because they provide so much juicy exposition. Remember when your English teacher told you that ‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’ is the secret to good writing? This is not always true for audiobooks. And be warned that items with broader appeal, like sci-fi and mystery short stories, are likely to be read in fake British accents by teenagers with retainers. The majority of works will be from before 1923, so be prepared for archaic style, diction and idiom. It’s a crowd-sourcing approach to providing digital content straight from the Guilded Age. These works are all drawn from the public domain and read by volunteers. If nobody has mentioned it yet, please include the very best podcast I know, “ The Tobolowsky Files,” in which the gifted actor Stephen Tobolowsky tells very, very compelling stories about his life. If you hate The Beatles, maybe you could buy this for your parents sometime. The audiobook of Geoff Emerick’s Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles is read by Marvin Jarvis the story requires about a zillion British accents and they are all amazing, perfect. Steve Buscemi reading Motherless Brooklyn is better than the book, I thought. By contrast, the “adapted” full-cast Lord of the Rings audiobook is mainly ghastly. So good, so absorbing you could easily crash the car into a pole if you don’t watch it. Pullman reads the narrative parts himself, and all the actors of the dialogue are superb, even the guys who voice Iorek Byrnison and Iofur Raknison. I’m a huge fan of those books and was therefore giving the very idea of an audio version the ferocious side-eye but man, it is awesome. There is a gigantor unabridged full-cast audiobook of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. A little bit of it is excerpted on YouTube, where Mr. This I suspect is the best audiobook ever recorded. My favorite voice in all the world (aside from that of my husband who has read, alas, no audiobooks) is Alan Rickman’s, and he has read just one: The Return of the Native. Some had specific recommendations (as well as titles to stay away from), while others had picks for entirely different entertainment options for your drive.
To find out the best ones, we asked an assortment of folks for their favorites. And what better distraction from an endless straight shot of highway than an audiobook? But, as anyone who has ever been stuck in a car for 13 hours with only a CD read in deadly monotone for company, not all audiobooks are created equal.
Summer is on its way (let’s ignore this dreary spring) - and for many of us that means climbing into a car and driving for a long, long time to reach wherever our vacation is taking us to (the beach! college reunions! Chicago!). What Are The Best Audiobooks For A Road Trip?
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