I recently shared the benefits of listening to audiobooks. If your go-to reading style is a physical book and you’re hesitant to jump into audiobooks, I get it. Starting new things can be hard. It’s too much work. It’s intimidating. You don’t know where to begin! I want your first (or next) audiobook experience to be a great one, so let me help by sharing how to pick your next audiobook: 1) genre, 2) narrator, and 3) tech. And to finish it off, I’ll recommend 5 great audiobooks to choose from. They just might help you begin a life-long love of audiobooks.
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How to Pick Your Next Audiobook
Genre Matters
My husband and I like to have an audiobook for our car time together. Road trips, Costco runs, whatever. When we hop in the car together, we usually listen to a book. Our most recent audiobook was a classic, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. If you like classics, this is a good listen if you choose the newest version read by Dylan Baker. He does such a good job with the voices.
So I thought, let’s try another classic. How about Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury? My husband had never read it, and it had been many years for me. (I was blessed to sit at a lunch table with Bradbury years ago and hear him talk. Highlight of my reading life when he signed books for me.)
Anyway, sorry Mr. Bradbury, the audio version of this book didn’t work for this trip. I think we made it to the third chapter, and I realized it would put my husband to sleep, and maybe me. The narrator’s voice was soothing, and Bradbury’s writing is beautiful, lyrical, and reflective. A beautiful book but I’ll re-read the physical book (click here to read my review of Dandelion Wine–the non-audio version).
Not All Books Make Good Audiobooks
You can see: while the physical books you like to read will usually be the audiobooks you like to listen to, not all your favorite books make good audiobooks.
I like to read across many genres, and I’ve found that my best audiobook experiences are the page-turning stories, ones that have more action than character development. Not usually the classics. (I cannot imagine listening to Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, one of my all-time favorites.)
But the page-turning mysteries or family sagas or thrillers? I can get lost while I’m dusting and scrubbing, and before I realize it, I’m finished with the chore and I actually want to find another chore so I can keep listening. I will sometimes sit in my car once I’m home to finish the chapter. Or maybe I’ll walk around the block to finish that book.
If the story moves slowly or if there are too many characters and I can’t keep track of them, then the experience isn’t great. My mind drifts off to the grocery list and then I realize I have no clue what’s happening in the story. I need to rewind two or three minutes to find my bearings. (Easy to do but not as easy as flipping back a few pages.)
So, when considering how to pick your next audiobook, I recommend you choose a page-turner in a genre you usually love.
Narrator Matters
When you read a book to yourself, you rarely say the words out loud. Even if you do, it’s your own voice you hear, and usually that’s comfortable because you know it well. Our voice is “our unique signature,” according to one source. When we listen to audiobooks, we are listening to invisible strangers, and we can’t see them smile, grimace, or shrug. We are counting on their careful speech to convey lots of emotions.
What makes a good narrator? One quick Google search found a long list of qualities for an audiobook voiceover. They have to be good at things most of us don’t think about when we talk: articulation, breath control, timing, pacing, energy consistency. These are subtle. You won’t notice when it’s done well, but you will notice if it’s done poorly.
Probably the most important quality of a good narrator is characterization, bringing the different characters to life and making them distinct. I’m always impressed when a male narrator can take on the voice of a female, and vice versa. Or when a young narrator can make us believe she’s an elderly character. It’s a skill, an art, and it takes experience. It’s definitely important to consider when picking your next audiobook.
Why the Narrator Matters
I fell in love with the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear. They are wonderful mysteries featuring the title character, a private investigator building her business in England after the First World War. (It’s similar to the current Miss Scarlet and the Duke series on PBS.)
Then the narrator changed for one of the books, and it felt wrong. I later learned that some library audiobooks have different narrators, so if you come to like a particular narrator, check the narrator before borrowing or purchasing.
Top Audiobook Narrators
Everyone has a different opinion on which narrator is better than another. Audible has a top 20 that they selected based on several criteria: “a wide, varied, and vibrant body of work; exceptional listener reviews; and a commitment to the craft and education to spreading awareness of audio performance.” The list includes Edward Hermann who you might know as Rory Gilmore’s grandfather on the Gilmore Girls, Richard Gilmore!
Visiting that list and sampling a few narrators might be a fun way to find an audiobook to try!
(That web page also features Rick Lewis–his voice introduces every Audible book by saying, “This is Audible.” One of Audible’s first employees. Thought that was kind of a fun tidbit!)
Tech Matters
Finally, your tech and equipment matter.
Like with any audio, you have a handful of options for listening to an audiobook: straight off your phone speaker, connected to your car or home speaker, or with your earbuds or headphones. Each approach works for different situations.
If you’re folding laundry, you might be okay to listen to your book with your phone tucked in the back pocket of your jeans. But if you have a house full of family, they may not want to listen to your story! Personally, I like using earbuds, even if I’m the only one home. It’s easier to hear the story when the words are delivered straight to my ears.
When you’re walking or biking, make sure you choose something that still allows you to hear your surroundings. These headphones are a great option. You can also try keeping one earbud out and the volume down.
Driving while listening to an audiobook requires some awareness of safety and laws:
- Check the laws in your state and any states you’ll be driving through if you’re road tripping. Some states (Michigan included!) have hands-free laws. That means that you can’t hold your phone in your hand at all if you’re driving. You can, however, have your phone mounted on your dashboard. Look for a mount like this one.
- If you’re the driver, use the car feature on your listening app. This makes the pause, play, backup 30 seconds, and bookmark buttons extra large so you can see and tap them as easily as you can change the radio station on your car’s dashboard screen.
- Pause your book when you’re in traffic or need to navigate complicated highway interchanges. You’ll probably miss that part of the book, anyways. Keep yourself safe and give 100% of your focus to the traffic around you.
- Sometimes, my husband and I want to listen to different books. As the passenger, I can safely put headphones in. My husband the driver, though? That’s not so safe. In that case, he uses those sport headphones I mentioned above that allow him to hear his surroundings without filling the whole car with the sound like the car speaker system would.
5 Great Audiobooks to Start With
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens is a page-turning historical fiction and takes 12 hours of your listening time. It’s a mystery and a coming-of-age story. My Goodreads review from a few years ago: “A gem. I haven’t read a book like this for a long time, one that kept me “clicking” play (since I listened to the Audible format) to see how Kya’s life unfolds. I know nothing about the marsh lands Owens describes so beautifully, but she carried me there to the shores, the boat — to hear the birds, the insects — to feel the beauty and fragility and complexity of it all. Poetic writing but also filled with a compelling narrative and rich characters. I didn’t want it to end.” But I couldn’t wait to hear the ending.
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Coming in at almost 41 hours, Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth is a great book for long road trips. I read this book when it was first published in the late 1980s and I watched the television series, so I wasn’t sure I also wanted to listen to it – again. But I’m so glad I did. Quite a page-turning story of a twelfth-century monk determined to build the greatest Gothic cathedral. This has it all. Romance, castles, action, and rich characters. You’ll get a lot of cleaning done listening to this!
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures is such a lovely story! It’s similar to A Man Called Ove but the curmudgeon is Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living in an aquarium. I know, when I first heard that I thought, nah. I’m not in the mood for a talking octopus. But really, readers, give this one a listen. It’s a charming story about a widow and her friendships and how this conniving octopus solves a long-time mystery about what happened to her son. (This is on my February book list!)
The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal is probably one of my favorite audiobooks because it made me laugh out loud. It follows several generations of a Minnesota family establishing themselves in the brewing industry. The narrator nailed the Minnesota accents. Pure fun and also has a hopeful message.
Still Life: Chief Inspector Gamache, Book 1 by Louise Penny, narrated by Ralph Cosham
Still Life: Chief Inspector Gamache by Louise Penny is great book either way, but it’s easy to listen to Mr. Cosham, the long-time narrator for most of Penny’s series. She’s releasing the 19th book in the Gamache series this coming fall. I’ve read almost all of her books, and some I like more than others, but you can’t help but connect with Gamache and all the Three Pines characters and the murder mysteries that just keep happening in this remote and mostly peaceful Quebec town. If you like this one, then you have 18 more audio books to read. That will halt the “What should I read next?” questions.
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