Update: I used to hate audiobooks but a 12 hour drive changed my mind

I drove from Denver to Moab last month for a camping trip. 10 hours each way. I grabbed a copy of Project Hail Mary on audio because I ran out of podcasts. By hour 4 I was completely hooked. The narrator did different voices for the alien and it made the story way more fun than reading it on a page. I got back and told my book club I wanted to add audiobooks to our monthly picks. Has anyone else had a book work better as audio than in print?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamesc796d ago

Funny you mention the speed thing @white.keith, I actually landed on 1.3x for most narrators and it feels like the sweet spot where nobody sounds like a chipmunk. It's weird how some books just click as audio, like the voice acting adds a layer of character that your brain skips over when reading silently. My buddy swears the Harry Potter books are better with Jim Dale doing all the voices, especially for the goofy minor characters like the ghosts. There's definitely a pattern where comedies or books with lots of dialogue work way better in audio, while dense sci-fi or technical stuff still works best on paper for me.

white.keith7d ago

Try setting audiobooks to 1.2x or even 1.5x speed if the narrator talks slow. It took me a few tries to find the sweet spot but now I fly through books on long drives. Also check if your library has Libby or Hoopla, free rentals save a ton of money. Rocky and his crew in Project Hail Mary really pop with the audio version, some stories just need voices to land right.

the_drew6d ago

Whoa, wait. Rocky's in that book as an actual character, not just a project name? I totally need to check that out.