Thank you - added to my queue
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The Teaching Company (rebranded as The Great Courses) offers mini-courses of 12-36 half-hour lectures by college professors on a variety of topics. Philosophy, religion, science, history, and so on. The primary focus was DVD but they also released many of the courses on CD and I was fortunate enough that our local library system had an extensive collection. I believe audible.com also offers many of the courses. So commuting to/from work I figured I might as well learn something and listened to many of them. I’m not sure how much I really retained since I needed to drive my car, but at least listening to them was interesting.
The Great Courses was sold a few years ago and many of the newer courses are “pop science” similar to ones you might see on some TV channels or just not college-level material. But when it was founded 20+ years ago many of the courses were amazing; you can identify them by copyright before 2010 or so. As the founder Tom Rollins wrote at the time
in 1989 I quit my job as chief counsel and chief of staff to the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources to found The Teaching Company. My goal was to find the best teachers in the country and make them available to everyone with a zest for learning."
The Teaching Company History (on Wayback Machine)
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I just finished listening to musician Michael McDonald read What a Fool Believes: A Memoir - listen through the acknowledgments as there’s an additional almost 1/2 hour conversation with Michael and (comedian/author) Paul Reiser who helped shepherd this project. Paul is noted as co-writer.
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Deleted – accidental post.
I mentioned Dungeon Crawler Carl in the book thread – One of the best books I've read in the last 6 months is . - #8920 by Data10 . See the previous post for a description of the book. In this post, I’ll focus on audio book vs written text book.
Dungeon Crawler Carl has had greater success as an audio book than a text book, although both appear on NYT bestseller list in corresponding category. The author appears to writes with the primary focus on the audio book, rather than the text book. He thinks about how the characters voices will sound on audio and in some cases writes detailed description about voices, perhaps in attempt for the text reader to get a better feel for the audio experience or perhaps to give clues to the audio reader. An example is quoted below:
This guy had an Eastern European accent, deepened and grittier because
of his race. It reminded me of Britney and Langley, but a little different in a
way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
The author has mentioned that he will kill off a character, if he doesn’t like the way the voice comes across in the audio book. I was surprised to learn that all of the voices with the many different accents/tones/inflections… are done by a single voice actor – Jeff Hays. He does males, females, the cat Donut, aliens, the snarky AI, … dozens of regular characters and hundreds of characters in total, including the NPCs and mobs. He does such a good job with the female characters that the author sometimes gets asked if particular well known professional voice actors are doing the female characters, who apparently sound similar to Hays. There are impressive videos of Hays going back and forth between the different voices in an instant, sometimes almost doing 2 voices simultaneously.
Overall I prefer the audiobook experience to the text books. The voices and are big part of this, but I also find the audio makes a more engaging experience… easier to picture the DCC world.
However, the text books also have advantages. It’s easier to choose my own pace (I realize you can change speed on audio books, and I do so). I miss less, particularly when something complex is going on, or when a character has a strong accent, such as cockney British. It’s not unusual for me to read a portion of the text after hearing a chapter on audio to review details I may have missed. Some information is also better portrayed as text, just as some is better portrayed as audio. Back and forth dialogue often works better as an audio book. There are many in game messages, which sound better when read, but details can be lost.
For example, Donut has a habit of messaging Carl and other crawlers in ALL CAPS, when the situation does not call for all caps . She also does things like typing depth charges as “death” charges, presumably thinking that is the what Carl was calling the object (originally being a pet cat, Donut’s starting knowledge of the world largely came from what Carl and his GF had on TV, and household experiences, so no previous knowledge of depth charges). Little things like that come across in text book, but not audio.
It’s also easier to pause and Google something when reading text books. For example, book 6 involves folklore characters in the region where crawlers choose to start. An Icelandic crawler gives Carl and Donut’s team Jola the Yule Cat. When the Jola is released, it looks at Carl and says “Hvar eru buxurnar þínar?” Googling, I see that’s Icelandic for “Where are your pants?”. Further Googling, I learned that Jola is an Icelandic folklore creature who eats children/people that don’t wear their Christmas clothes, so it makes sense that Jola would be sensitive to Carl not wearing pants, particularly given the timing of being near Christmas.
Sometimes things like the leaderboard below appear in the book, which is printed in the text and read/summarized in the audio. Obviously this type of table works better in a text book than as an audio book.
However, the biggest reason why I favor audio book or text book is overlap with what activities I happen to be doing. My dog and I average 8-9 miles of walking/hiking each day. I can listen to an audio book, which enhances the experience. I find DCC audio books are also an outstanding way to pass the time while driving… better than podcasts, as they are more immersive and can go longer as set it and forget it, without clicking buttons. For example, I’m currently on book 7, which has 29 hours of audio. Text books often work better when I am home and want to read.
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Ahhh…Steve Martin (the Steve Martin) posted this yesterday! (it’s on my list!)
I prefer autobiographical audio books read by the author.
Loving Dianne Keaton’s “Then Again”.
Her laugh and insights.Her attitude.
She even sings a bit.
Beautiful.
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I just finished this audio book (last chapters while in London 
) and really liked it. With Love from London by Sarah Jio | Goodreads
The story goes back and forth between daugher (current) and her mother (telling the whole story of why they have been apart). Most of the book is set in London, mostly in Primrose Hill neighborhood.
Note - There has recently been another best seller with similar name. I have not read that one.
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Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Meryl Streep is the reader. Fabulous!
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I really liked that book. Audio version with Meryl Streep does seem like it would be fabulous.
Javier was amazing as a kid…went to middle school with GosD.
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Here’s another recommendation…
Just finished Not My Type - incredibly written and brilliantly read by E. Jean Carroll (she is a writer that sued Trump for defamation and battery)
Did someone here recommend Remarkably Bright Creatures? I can’t remember who suggested this audiobook to me, but I just finished it and it was wonderful.
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As soon as I heard the dedication, I knew it would be a great book. 
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I didn’t recommend it, but I too loved it. The narrator was just perfect.
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Yes, both of the readers were great, and Marcellus was * chef’s kiss *
Michael Urie is a fantastic narrator. He’s done a few other books as well. Lily and The Octopus was one, although that has much less to do with an octopus than Remarkably Bright Creatures. 
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Oh my goodness! So this recommendation is not for the faint of heart or pearl clutching contingency…
I laughed, I wept, and everything(!) in between…listening to Leslie Jones tell her stories in Leslie F*cking Jones - she doesn’t read her stories, she tells them. She laughs and cries (sometimes even sobs) as she shares how she got to where she is and how she became who she is.
She wrote the book (which won the 2024 Audie Award for Humor) but eventually decided against just narrating it, instead she opted for a much more personal experience. It’s incredible.
I’ll quote The Book Nut Girls: this audiobook is NOT the book. Well, it’s loosely the book. But you will get an entirely different experience listening to it than reading it. See, Jones says “Chapter X” and then just takes off. Like pretty literally. It’s a 16-hour audiobook for a less-than-300-page book. This is not a criticism. Once I realized that she was riffing on the book, taking the chapters and just going with the flow, telling you her story, I got into the groove of the insanity and enjoyed myself. At a certain point, when she said “Hey, I like what I wrote here, let me read it” I pretty much figured that if I wasn’t willing to change my expectations about this book, I needed to get off the train.
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Ok one more in the Oh My Goodness category! My turn finally came up at the library for Barbra Streisand’s audiobook My Name is Barbra - I’m 10 minutes in and can already tell I’ll have a hard time “putting it down” which is good news since I only get 21 days to borrow it and it’s 48 hours long! Yep! But already loving it.
Get on the waiting list. I hope I don’t have to get back in the queue for a renewal if I’m not done.
Just placed a hold and remarkably I’m 2nd in line, so should get it soon.
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