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Audiobooks and Audio-articles

Ethan Safron · February 22, 2012 at 1:10am

I've spent the last couple of days listening to Peter Robinson's reading of his own book "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life" and it reminded me that I've always wanted to start a discussion on Ricochet about listening as opposed to reading.

I can't deny that I often listen to audiobooks because I'm lazy. But in some cases, such as with Peter's book, it's entertaining to hear the author read it. Mark Steyn narrated "After America". It's 10+ hours of listening to Mark Steyn! How cool is that?

Beyond that, each night I listen to NRO's podcast. "NRO has a podcast?" Well, it has a few, but the one I'm talking about is a daily reading of around three articles. Here's the iTunes store description:

Podcasts of your favorite National Review Authors - Victor Davis Hanson, Clifford May, Katherine Jean-Lopez, Daniel Foster & Stephen Spruiell, Jim Geraghty, Ramesh Ponnuru, John Derbyshire, Conrad Black and many more.

It's narrated by a rotating group of people whose identities are hidden for security reasons. Here's the link to the iTunes page.

In this case, I probably have no excuse. I just prefer listening to reading. How can I play Doodle Jump on my iPod if I'm reading something? In all seriousness, does anyone here have a taste for audiobooks?

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show Basil Fawlty's comment (#1) ←

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Re: Audiobooks and Audio-articles

Basil Fawlty

Ethan, I've been a member of Audible.com for eleven years and love audio books. I've got about about 250 of them in my library. They're great to listen to while exercising or driving. I have no idea what your tastes are like, but my favorite listens are the Patrick O'Brian Aubry/Maturin novels narrated by Patrick Tull.

#1 ·
February 23, 2012 at 4:31pm ·
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show David John's comment (#2) ←

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Re: Audiobooks and Audio-articles

David John

While driving and walking.

#2 ·
February 26, 2012 at 12:23am ·
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show PJS's comment (#3) ←

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Re: Audiobooks and Audio-articles

PJS

Not so much audiobooks as podcasts, although I do have all seven Harry Potters read by Stephen Fry. I even got an iPod nano just for podcasts while walking, running or working out. I also listen while I'm doing housework, laundry and Minesweeper.

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February 28, 2012 at 5:17am ·
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show Paul Cuenin's comment (#4) ←

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Re: Audiobooks and Audio-articles

Paul Cuenin

I am a huge fan of Audio books. They make much more sense in today's busy world. I listen to them mostly at work but it is a great way to keep myself intellectually in-gauged, work hard, and get things done.

If it wasn't for audio books, audio articles, and podcast probably would have never found Ricochet.

The one negative of audio books is that skimming is hard, and a reader can make or break the book. I think audio books are great and I wish I had used them more when I was in college.

Also I have a feeling in the future more and more sites will have text to speech plug-ins so that everything can be audio. That could be really cool.

Here are some of my favorite recent listen s(mostly business and motivational) :