Witches, Weres, and Vamps, Oh MY! discussion

I am new to audiobooks and recently finished a great audiobook that was read by the author. I am VERY interested in listening to other audiobooks that are also read by the author - do you know of any???

If not - who are your favorite narrators and I'll check out what they have available?

i really liked holter graham's version of acheron. he was able to make his voice sound different so you were like listening to different people for the most part. most audiobooks sound monotone to me.

Hmm...Favorite narrators? I've been listening to audiobooks for some time now, but it only been recently that I started to take note of certain narrators. Top of my head, I like Cynthia Holloway (Anita Blake and Cassie Palme series), Johanna Parker (Sookie Stackhouse) and Phil Gigante (Moning's Highlander series).

Another one is the deceased Anna Fields who did a great job in most of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' books.

I have to second loving Holter Graham and Phil Gigante. Graham also read Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs. George Guidall is another great reader. AS for an author that reads his own books, the only one that I am aware of is Neil Gaiman. He always reads his own for the audiobooks.

Cynthia Holloway did a great job of reading the first 3 Karen Chance books.

But my all time fav reader, hands down, no question asked, is Jim Dale. He read the Harry Potter Series and I have yet to hear anyone that comes even close to competing with him!

Honestly, I don't often find a reader that I don't like. A couple that I haven't liked that I can think of are Renee Raudman reading Magic Bites and Kate Reading doing The Host.

Thanks for your help!

I loved Neil Gaiman's reading & was worried that other audiobooks could sound boring if the reader wasn't good - but it sounds like that's rarely the case.

hmmm... maybe I won't just look for author read books. I like that I can do housework, drive & work while listening to a book - I think I might be a new convert to audiobooks.

What are your thoughts on Audible?

I LOVE Audible!!! It's fantastic! You can always listen to a clip of the book before you buy it, great way to make sure that you like the reader. I listen to a ton of audiobooks each month because I have a job where I can listen to them while working. I actually have 2 audible accounts. One is a monthly acct where I get 2 books a month. I also have one of the yearly memberships. Those ones you can actually renew whenever you want to. The only problem with the yearly is the fact that you have to pay a good amount of money up front.

Also, before you get audible, make sure that you have one of the mp3 players that are compatible, such as an ipod. Otherwise, you'll have to download the books and then burn them onto cd's. Which is fine, but you might have to buy a lot of disks!

I never cared for audiobooks until I listened to Jim Butcher's STORM FRONT. James Marsters, who played Spike on BTVS, is the reader on all the Harry Dresden books and he's GREAT!! I didn't like STORM FRONT when I read it, but I loved it when I listened to it.

Melodie wrote: "I never cared for audiobooks until I listened to Jim Butcher's STORM FRONT. James Marsters, who played Spike on BTVS, is the reader on all the Harry Dresden books and he's GREAT!! I didn't like S..."

Does he use the Spike accent? That would be too funny

I've found that some books I like better listening to them than if I took the time to just read it, especially books that are in written in first person. They work out really well in audiobooks!

Shanon wrote: "Melodie wrote: "I never cared for audiobooks until I listened to Jim Butcher's STORM FRONT. James Marsters, who played Spike on BTVS, is the reader on all the Harry Dresden books and he's GREAT!! ..."

Well, he does an English accent for Bob, which is kinda Spike-like!

never ever considered audiobooks:: our library has them::could be interesting::

Adrienne wrote: "never ever considered audiobooks:: our library has them::could be interesting::"

I listened to my first (whole) audiobook last month - Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. It was lots of fun & I've found that I don't mind some of those dreaded chores if I have a book to listen to.

I would recommend any of Neil Gaiman's self-read stuff, just because that's what I've already listened to & I've liked them all so far.

the good fairies of new york which is one of Neil Gaimans favourite books is on my TBR shelf::i also have the grave yard book::i'll see if our library has them::or your suggestion::thanks for the author suggestion and jogging my memory about both of them::

If you haven't listened to the Twilight books on audio, you should. I haven't even read the books because I was able to get the audiobooks from the library. Illyana Kadushin has a wonderful voice (and delivered the lines better than the actors in the movie.)

I'm a HUGE audiobook fan (of the 25 books I have from the library right now-17 are audio). You can get CD's from your library or a lot of libraries have access to online downloads from either NetLibrary and/or Overdrive. The selection available from these services depends on your library. They also have ebooks.

For non-romantic fantasy/sci-fi lovers, The Chronicles of Narnia audiobooks were good. They were each read by someone different (Kenneth Branaugh and Lynn Redgrave are two of the readers, and Patrick Stewart reads "The Last Battle"). If you haven't read them or want to re-read them, the audiobooks of His Dark Materials (and also Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North) by Philip Pullman are very well done. The author narrates them, but there is also a full cast. Also, if you like OSC, the audiobooks of the Ender's/Ender's shadow series are great, as was the Alvin Maker series. For just straight YA, I'd definitely recommend The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books.

I listen to audiobooks constantly and I'd say 90% of the books I've listened to have had pretty good readers. There are really only 2 or 3 books where I thought "I really wish I had just read that one." (those being Dan Brown's novels and "The Magician" by Michael Scott). Those have been the only books where the readers just seemed uninteresting.

Oh, and I have "The Graveyard Book" as well. One of my best friends said the audiobook was great, it'll probably the next one I listen to have finishing the HP series again.

Sorry this was so long--I'm addicted to audio :)

I'm slowly getting addicted to audio as well!

I'm glad to hear that the Chronicles of Narnia & His Dark Materials are both good audio books. I have them eyeing me from my shelf right now!

Was it weird having different narrators though? I'm finishing up listening to the Wicked Lovely series & they switched narrators after the 1st book. They both pronounced things differently & it threw me for a loop.

If you liked The Graveyard Book you'll probably love Neverwhere. It's my favorite Neil Gaiman book so far & probably my favorite audiobook yet (bear in mind I've only listened to apprx. 10 audiobooks)

It was a little odd to have different narrators, but they all have such great voices and the main characters change between most of the books, so it wasn't like I really needed the consistency. For me, it was more odd to get used to listening to a full cast because it really was like listening to a play vs. listening to a book.

I haven't listened to The Graveyard Book yet, but it's up there for "in the very near future" aka within the next 2 weeks. I've only ever read one other Neil Gaiman novel and that was "Good Omens", which I definitely liked. I'm really looking forward to listening to The Graveyard Book, and I'll probably try get some of his other works in the future.

Hi I'm new to the group and I'm just loving going through the archives! You're reading my kind of stuff!

Just wanted to pop in say that I'm not audiobook fan, but that my 10 yr old daughter has severe dyslexia. It's such a trial for her to read anything. Now I'm a Twilight fan and saw her looking at the cover and flipping through the pages. I got her Twiglight on audio and it's opened up a whole new world for her! She's obsessed, and not just with Twilight.
So, I'm really grateful for what audio can do for a child wanting to read, but who is unable to !

Welcome to the group Sophie. My 10 year old son isn't a very good reader either & he loves audiobooks as well. His teachers have the kids listen to audiobooks during class sometimes and he's sure to share the stories with me. I get frustrated sometimes that his teachers & mother (I'm his step-mom) aren't encouraging him to actually read more but if getting him to love stories takes audiobooks I'm all for it. We read when he's here

There are a lot of great audiobooks for kids/teens out there. The Wicked Lovely series has been really good on audio. (Although the first book has a little scene with Oral Sex - but no real details - much less graphic then Breaking Dawn.)

Thanks for the heads-up. Good ideas for those looooong summer days! I'm sure the Wicked Lovely series would be something my daughter liked.

Thanks for the welcome to the group. I'm also a writer and have some deadlines in June. after that, I can't wait to join in your monthly reading events! I'm really looking forward to that!

Dori - I agree with you about the Twilight series, they were great. I actually have a copy of The Graveyard Book as well, but haven't listed to it yet. It should be really good because Neil Gaiman reads it himself. I listed to his reading of Coraline and enjoyed that.

I haven't listened to Wicked Lovely yet. I have heard great things about that series and I just noticed that the person that reads the audiobook is the same reader for the Harper Connelly series by Charlaine Harris so I'll probably give that a try. Shannon, are all three books on audiobook, or just the first? I just looked on audible.com and only saw the first one.

All 3 of the Wicked Lovely books are on audiobook & on audible. But you have to search by Melissa Marr, not Wicked Lovely.

Here's the links:
Wicked Lovely
Ink Exchange
Fragile Eternity

Ahh! That's why I wasn't finding them! Thanks! I downloaded the first one a few minutes ago, and will start listening to it tonight at work. If it's as good as I've heard, I'll pick up the other two. Thanks!

No problem - The 2nd two are read by a different narrator. It was offputting at first (especially since he pronounces Donia & Niall differently). But I think I actually like the 2nd narrator better. I hope you like them!

It is kinda odd when they change narrators. It's like the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon. I love that series, and some of the books in it are on audiobook. But I think that there are 3 or 4 different readers, and they all pronounce things differently! The other funny difference is on the Vampire Academy series. On the audiobook for the first book, they have one of the main characters portrayed with a russian accent (which he has in the book too) and yet, in the other books, no russian accent. lol!

It's kinda crazy, but I'm not too picky, I get over it pretty quick!

So I just spent the last 9 hours at work listening to Wicked Lovely. I only have about an hour left in the book. It has been great!!! Worth picking up, that's for sure! I really love Seth!

One thing that I just had to laugh at was Aislinn's name. I love Irish names, and that is one that has always stood out for me. I just thought that is was interesting that she used that name considering that it means Dream or Vision. And, well, she does have Vision!

The sookie stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris is great on Audiobook!
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss was great...
The inheritance series by Christopher Paolini was also great! :)