<p>PLEASE keep the suggestions coming. I am looking for some audio books that both my husband and I could enjoy on the long drive from NY to Notre Dame.</p>
<p>I don’t know if audible has Diane Mott Davidson or Jodi Piccoult, but they’re definitely worth a try. Pretty light, so they don’t require concentrated attention.</p>
<p>I get all of my audiobooks from the library…still listening to cd’s also, but transitioning to digital since that’s the direction of recent library acquisitions. And I read 3-5 books a week.</p>
<p>In addition to Modern Scholar, the Teaching Company has a huge collection of college courses that are almost all entertaining as well as educational. Don’t know how many are available on digital audio from the library, though…our system is now getting almost all in DVD format, and it’s hard for me to sit and watch for any length of time.</p>
<p>H and I are taking a 10 hr road trip later this week, and we’ll be listening to the new Bill Bryson. His best is the early one about hiking the Appalachian Trail.</p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
<p>Angela’s Ashes read by Frank McCourt</p>
<p>I don’t listen to anything that is abridged.</p>
<p>My take would be to go by the reader, rather than the author. There are readers whose work is so great that it makes me enjoy writers whom I despise in print. There are readers who are so annoying that they destroy good books. </p>
<p>My favorite readers are Barbara Rosenblatt(reads Elizabeth Peters, Lisa Scottoline, the Bridget Jones books, et al), Stephen Hoye (Michael Gruber), Richard Ferrone (John Sanford), and Will Patton (James Lee Burke). I absolutely detest George Guidall.</p>
<p>If you can search by reader, look for John Lee, especially for any story requiring assorted accents.</p>
<p>I and my H enjoy David Baldacci. He’s listening to The Camel Club right now, I’ve listened to the whole series and it’s engaging without being too complex. One thing I like about this author is that he used two narrators, one male and one female. We’ve also enjoyed the John Puller series by the same author.</p>
<p>NYMomof2 -Elizabeth George lost me after she killed off a certain character. </p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestion to search by narrator -I will do that. </p>
<p>I like Scott Brick and Susan Bennet as narrators as well</p>
<p>Thanks again for all the great suggestions. Some of these I am familiar with but never read (or listened to) this gives me the push to try them out</p>
<p>The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon is a great audiobook. [Amazon.com:</a> Outlander: with Bonus Content eBook: Diana Gabaldon: Kindle Store](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Outlander-with-Bonus-Content-ebook/dp/B000FC2L1O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381152311&sr=8-1&keywords=outlander+audiobook]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Outlander-with-Bonus-Content-ebook/dp/B000FC2L1O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381152311&sr=8-1&keywords=outlander+audiobook) The reader Davina Porter, is excellent.</p>
<p>Our library has a huge audiobook selection and I always load up on two or three if we’re going on a trip more than 2 hours long. A fun one my husband and I both enjoyed was this one - Heads you lose by Lisa Lutz. A mystery with a sense of humor.</p>
<p>veruca, I couldn’t agree more. I have not recovered from that death, and I haven’t forgiven her. And I am not in the habit of caring about fictional characters! (Also, several of her books were not all that good, even before that ill-advised killing off.)</p>
<p>I agree about the narrators. The voice is so important. Some have such irritating voices that it is really hard to listen.</p>
<p>Will try the Lisa Lutz book, kathiep.</p>
<p>Ditto the comment upthread about Grisham books. We have several on CD for long car trips, and my Ds have enjoyed them as well. Just easy, mindless fun. :)</p>
<p>We also really like “Blessings”, by Anna Quindlen.</p>
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<p>One of my favorite readers was Anna Fields/Kate Fleming. I just couldn’t believe one of the novels she read had to do with the protagonist being locked in a basement and the water turned on to flood it and drown her. Unfortunately real life had a much much sadder ending than the novel.</p>
<p>Agree with the opinion about Guidall, BUT I like some of Robin Cook’s books, though. However, Scott Brick does keep me from listening to Steve Berry’s novels, though.</p>
<p>Wow, I’m a fan of George Guidall; when I first started listening to audiobooks (on cassette, more than 25 years ago), it seemed like he read just about every other book. I still seek out books he reads.</p>
<p>I’m actually not too picky about readers; Jim Dale is clearly outstanding, and there have been a few books whose readers were so irritating that I had to stop listening. I’m not a big fan of Scott Brick, although there are some series he does well. I just had the very strange experience of listening to Scott Brick reading The Heist by Janet Evanovich, co-authored by Lee Goldberg. He made the humor in the book very hard to recognize.</p>
<p>We’ve recently listened to a couple of Ken Follett books on very long car trips: Fall of Giants and World Without End. Both are historical fiction but set in very different time periods. Fall of Giants is part of the Century Trilogy and is set around World War I. Dan Stevens (who was Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey) was the reader; I thought he was pretty good but H didn’t care for the way he did women’s voices. World Without End is the sequel to another Follett book, Pillars of the Earth, and is set in the middle ages and the time of the black death.</p>
<p>When we returned from the first trip (with Fall of Giants) I read the 2nd book in the trilogy, Winter of the World (takes place during World War II). Looking forward to the third book’s release next September!</p>
<p>I am bumping this thread to get more recommendations.
I read in bed, but since my vision is spotty, I have been using an ereader with backlighting, but then the light keeps me from falling asleep.
I may try a kindle without backlighting to see if that helps. I like being able to adjust the font and have multiple books in one place.</p>
<p>Duplicate,</p>
<p>I recently enjoyed “Doctor Sleep” by Stephen King. Takes some of the old characters from “The Shining” and brings them into the future. Not as good as “The Shining” but I enjoyed it. The narrator is Will Patton and I liked him</p>
<p>DH and I have been listening to James Patterson’s Alex Cross series in the car. They are well read and move along fast. We’ve also been enjoying Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series. Myron is a sports agent who gets involved in whodunits. The reader to this point is excellent, the characters are well developed and the series is also really funny. We’ve found both to be a lot of fun. I have on my list J.D. Robb’s “In Death” series as I know many who’ve enjoyed it. </p>
<p>I find for house or yard work it is better to listen to a book with which I am familiar, so I can keep on track with the story. I have used Jean Auel, Clan of the Cave Bear series & also James Clavell’s historical fiction books from the 70s. I convinced DH to listen to a Clavell book on a road trip, he enjoyed it enough that he listened to the remaining 20 hours (58 hour book!) when we got home, but the story is so big and complex we would stop it every half hour or so in order to make sure he was keeping up on all the characters, especially if he had to really focus on driving for a while.</p>
<p>I liked John Lee as a reader in the Clavell books, great variety of accents.</p>
<p>The Dean Koontz books are horror, but not as scary as Stephen King and nothing bad ever happens to dogs in Koontz books so they are safe for me to read. I don’t enjoy reading books where had things happen to animals, even if it is an important part of the story.</p>
<p>The Lee Child books mentioned earlier where good on audio book. </p>
<p>If you have never done so, check out your local library, you can download most popular books directly to your iPod FREE, they don’t even expire when your “check out” time is up, but they don’t go on iTunes so you do have to delete them to put more books on, at least, though, it allows you the time to finish a book if you are behind.</p>
<p>Just finished listening to The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty. Good chick-lit. Something I probably would not have read, but enjoyed listening to. Here is a link to a review:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-the-husbands-secret-by-liane-moriarty/2013/08/08/7933c8d2-f862-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-world-the-husbands-secret-by-liane-moriarty/2013/08/08/7933c8d2-f862-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_story.html</a></p>
<p>I listened to The Patriarch, a bio of Joseph P. Kennedy on CD, and it was wonderful. There are a lot of good biographies out there. I second the recommendations for Jean Auel’s books (I read them many, many years ago) and Ken Follett’s books (I read them many years ago).</p>
<p>Our local library uses Overdrive. The books expire on your computer disk, but if you transfer them to your phone, they last as long as you need them to. </p>