Do you enjoy Audio books?

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Do you enjoy Audio books?

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1Starmap
Edited: Apr 25, 2010, 7:53 pm

I see on the SK site there are ten new never-before released audiobooks coming out now and in May sometime.

Do any of you Addicts listen to audio books? I did try some awhile back, but did not enjoy it at all I have to say.
The new samples on there don't really do it for me either.

In my mind I don't read like how they read aloud. Maybe it's the voices, but anyway I enjoy reading the actual books myself and I think thats the case for most people.

2Raychild
Apr 26, 2010, 8:42 am

I've only listened to 2 audiobooks and one I enjoyed, On Writing, and the other, Cell, I thought was ok. I feel like if I'm going to listen to the book, I want some sound effects to go along with it. It felt a little strange. Maybe it's just something I need to try a few more times to appreciate.

3Starmap
Edited: Apr 26, 2010, 9:34 am

I listened to On Writing as well, Eight hours I think it was. I did enjoy that actually, he read it in a very natural tone. Sound effects would be awesome yes!

41dragones
Apr 26, 2010, 9:31 am

I experimented with audio books in the past; I mainly don't care for them. They don't hold my attention like a printed book... plus, I get distracted and miss parts of the story. That does not happen with a printed book.

One of my "experiments" was The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Of course, the touchstone isn't going to take you to the audio version - if there even is one catalogued... but I digress. I not only didn't like the audio format, I'm not inspired to buy the novel in any print media. I hated the book entirely, and it's probably the only Stephen King book I can't stand, though I don't own them all. I'll not be buying any more audio books, as I prefer the print media myself.

5einy69
Apr 26, 2010, 7:22 pm

I can't stand audio books for the same reason I hate people reading anything to me, the vocal cadence is irritating to me and interferes with my mental image of what I see going on pictorially in my head.

6vancelot
May 2, 2010, 5:28 pm

Well put einy. I was thinking the same thing, just wasn't sure how to verbalize it. Listening to audiobooks just doesn't seem to allow me to get good mental images, which takes the fun out of it.

7lsepulveda
May 10, 2010, 2:49 pm

English is not my first language, so I enjoy to listen the audiobook along the standard reading (because is difficult to understand the audio alone for me). I tried "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and it was OK!

8bertyboy
Oct 10, 2010, 8:00 am

The trouble with audio books, in my opinion, is that they are usually abridged versions of the stories. That being said I think they could be beneficial to people on the move or in hospital etc. There must be a market for them but they are not to my taste.

91dragones
Edited: Oct 10, 2010, 8:41 pm

I've listened to two SK audio books. One I hated; The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and one that was okay; Blood and Smoke containing 3 short stories which were later printed in Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales. I prefer print versions - or, at least e-books in text or Kindle formats. Audio books seem to take forever to get finished... but, at least with the short stories, I could stop at the completion of a particular story... or, as happened with one of these three, when one side of the tape finished. The novel didn't seem to have ANY good stopping places; so I stopped whenever I got bored or sleepy.

101dragones
Oct 10, 2010, 8:40 pm

8.> Even when the audio books are unabridged, as most of mine were, they are a tad inconvenient if one is attempting to do anything else. If you're not good at multi-tasking the audio books either are distracting or get neglected in favor of something else, and part of the story missed or misunderstood.