Let’s Talk Bookish – What Makes a Good Audiobook?

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books & Dani @ Literary Lion, where they discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and spread the love by visiting each others’ posts.

APRIL 1: THE MAKINGS OF A GREAT AUDIOBOOK (MIKAELA @ MIKAELA READS)

Prompts: Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, what makes a good audiobook? Is it the narrators or does it depend on the genre? What are some of your recommendations for amazing audiobooks? If you don’t listen to audiobooks, why not, and do you ever plan on doing so?

Welcome back to LTB, everyone! Actually I don’t have too much to say on today’s topic, as I don’t really listen to that many audiobooks. That being said, it’s certainly one of my New Years Resolutions, and I think that it could be a cool new media to explore.

Instead, I got a treat for you all: I did an interview with Andge! I won’t quote verbatim everything she said, but I’ll certainly give the highlights of what she thought about audiobooks ever since joining the crew of audiobook listeners.

On Narration: Andge finds that narration was really important, but not the be all end all of the audiobook. Audiobooks can be many hours long, so an interesting voice (or at least, not dull) is important. Another consideration is that genre differences may also affect this; she said thrillers and mysteries should take on a more interesting tone, but for contemporaries, it isn’t as important.

Genre Differences: Andge doesn’t find the hugest differences between the genre, and that this probably depends mostly on your preference on how long you can listen to something without a visual. She finds that mysteries tend to work well, particularly if the narration is good to elevate and heighten the suspense. Contemporaries also work well, particularly romance. The pattern here may be that both these genres are typically shorter, whereas fantasies can run upwards for 15 hours.

Recommendations: Andge said there isn’t that much of a difference between what is amazing or not based purely on the media. Although she does note that These Violent Delights was a particularly good audiobook, because its lyrical prose really came through in the narration. Audiobooks can allow really great writing to show itself through the audiobook format when narrated well.

Convenience: Andge said that she generally chooses to read out of convenience. She still has the preference for physical books or e-books as a visual person, but does see the benefits of audiobooks when you want to read more but don’t have the time. Andge also finds that it can be helpful when trying to get through a more boring part of a book, since the audio forces you to keep going!

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Hope you enjoyed that! I know I certainly did. I definitely plan on picking up an audiobook sometime myself. One more note is that in our recent buddy read, Andge listened via audiobook and I read through an e-book, and we noticed a couple of little differences in our experiences. Check it out here (at the very end) if you want to read about that!