Audiobook Week: How Do You Choose Audiobooks? #JIAM #listenlit #audiobookweek

Audiobook Week badge imageToday is the second day of We’re Listening: Audiobook Week 2013. Hosted for the fourth year by Jen at Devourer of Books, Audiobook Week runs June 17–21. It’s a fun way to find other audiobook bloggers/readers and see what everyone’s listening to these days. Click here to see other posts on today’s topic, How Do You Choose Your Audiobooks?.

How do you decide what you’ll listen to?

Starting an audiobook requires a bigger investment of time than picking up a print book to see if I like it (because of the whole converting CD to MP3, etc. that I still do a lot of) so I tend to be a little more choosy about audiobooks. Usually, but not always, I choose one that I’ve been wanting to read in print but have heard around the blogosphere is even better on audio, or one that has won an Audie or Earphones award (in certain categories) from AudioFile.

I also have favorite audiobook narrators who can entice me to read something I might not otherwise. Here are just the top three (only because I didn’t have time for a longer list):

1. Jonathan Davis is always going to be #1, after Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I raved about him last year, too, and he visited my blog and recommended some of his favorite narrations. (One recommendation was The Watchers by Jon Steele, which I got from the library with Disc #6 totally blank, so I’m still waiting to start it.)

2. Ralph Cosham is going to be #2 for at least as long as Louise Penny continues her Inspector Gamache books. He also does a great David Copperfield!

3. Hillary Huber was a new discovery for me last year just before Audiobook Week, when I had just come out of the deeps of The Night Swimmer by Matthew Bondurant with her.

I’m sure I’ll be discovering more audiobook reviewers this week to add to this list, but for now these are the bloggers I turn to for recommendations that match my own listening tastes:

Beth Fish Reads (I want to read everything she reads. How does she do it?)

Devourer of Books (our fearless Audiobook Week leader and literary fiction and nonfiction listener)

The Guilded Earlobe (S/F, zombies, epic fantasy battles? He’s your man!)

Literate Housewife (She turned me on to The Good Thief’s Guide to… mysteries by Chris Ewan, which I still haven’t reviewed, and is also the executive director of the annual Armchair Audies.)

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Michelle Erin (@michelleerin)

Love all of those bloggers! I don’t think I’ve listened to any of those narrators. Must check them out.

Bella
10 years ago

I haven’t listened to any of these narrators but I’m going to check them out. I’m the same with narrators I pretty much think I would listen to any book by Simon Vance, Khristine Hvam or Xe Sands.

Lucy
10 years ago

I haven’t listened to any of those narrators yet. Thanks for the recs! Good point about the cd-mp3 conversion- that time consuming process also plays into the decision making.

Kristin T.
10 years ago

I end up getting lots of ideas of what to listen to next from other bloggers, too. I get most of my audios from the library, so what I choose to listen to is dependent on what’s available at the time I’m there.

~Kristin @ Always With a Book

Beth
10 years ago

I haven’t heard of those narrators–I’ll have to add them to my list to check out. I’ve been thinking about starting the Louise Penny series, too, so good to know that the audio is worth listening to.

Beth F
10 years ago

Ha!!! My secret?? I don’t sleep. LOL

lakesidemusing
10 years ago

I can’t wait to discover Jonathan Davis through The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Hilary Huber is one of my favorite new narrators this year.

a library mama
10 years ago

Thanks for the many recommendations, both for narrators and blogs, all but the Devourer of Books new to me!

Care
10 years ago

YOU have been a very influential audiobook recommender, too! 😀

WordsAndPeace
10 years ago

thanks for mentioning these narrators, I am not yet familiar with them. But I do follow these 4 bloggers!

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