Audiobooks

[Cosmic]

Let's hear some recommendations for audiobooks. I'm mainly interested in history, mystery, sci-fi and fantasy. I also like radio shows, and audiobook performances with multiple narrators, music and sound effects.

 

[bunk]

Well the Lord of the Rings are always fun read aloud.

 

[Sam Fisher]

Star Wars Radio Dramas

 

[Cosmic]

Those are both great ideas. I read LOTR back in the summer of '97. I might be inclined to listen to audiobooks on a long road trip. And I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, but it's just one of those things that I never really get tired of.

 

[Addendum]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

[VampElvis]

I've heard some of those Star Wars dramas and they are quite entertaining. Of all the audio books I've listened to these are probably the closest I know of to what you seem to be asking for. AND you can find a lot of them at your local library (usually) which is a LOOTTT cheaper than buying them.

A few months back I bought one of The Dresden Files audio books off a clearance shelf and it was pretty good. Not a cast, no sound effects, but there are around 10-12 books in the series and all of them are read by the same guy, James Marsters who I thought did a great job.

A sort of history, non-fiction at least, audion book I'd recommend is The Proving Ground : The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race. Again, not a radio drama, but a real entertaining audio book.

 

[Cosmic]

I bought a collection of THHGTTG audiobooks on cassette tape ten (!) years ago. It was narrated by Douglas Adams. I got it for pennies from a short-lived discount bookstore on one of my all-too-long lunchbreaks at work. Listening to that for the first time was wonderful. I wish I still had those tapes.

 

[Cosmic]

Some of you might enjoy this website:

http://librivox.org/

It's a treasure trove full of free audiobooks for download.

 

[Manic]

I've been listening to the Twilight Zone radio dramas. It's a bunch of the old stories Serling wrote for the original TV show, slightly revamped* for radio and recorded by some of today's popular actors. They got Stacy Keach to do Sterling's old narration pieces in every episode. They're available at TwilightZoneRadio.com, where you can order full CD boxsets for about $40. Each volume contains 10 episodes, and they have a "buy one, get one free" deal going, so you're really getting 20 episodes for $40. OR you can download individual episodes for about $2 each.


*The revamping isn't too extreme. They expand Serling's old 30 minute scripts to 60 minutes, which usually involves adding an extra scene and a few throwaway lines to existing scenes. For the most part, they don't change Serling's dialogue; they just add stuff around it.

 

[Cuyan]

Star Wars Radio Dramas

Actually most of the Star Wars Audiobooks, have pretty amazing production quality and voice talent. The more recent the work, the better.