"As we've talked about before, an audio book's narrator can make or break the listening experience"

Don't remember that thread, maybe I wasn't a participant. Forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but...

I don't feel the same way about it. I understand your perspective, alisande, but the narrator is really not an important factor for me. When I read printed matter, the voice i hear in my head is my own voice, so anything in an audio book will sound different than "normal". Maybe I ignore that.

There are some vocal actors who I think are quite good (Dick Hill comes to mind as the guy who has done much of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series and many others). For me the experience is about the book, not about the voice. No better example for me to mention is Michael Connolly's works including the Bosch series. I think there have been at least four different readers of his works. I've read all of his books in audio book form and the differences and why I like or dislike one more than another is always because of the story lines and characters and not the readers.

I've given up on several audio books recently due to the accents or tenor or voices portrayed by the reader/actor. If I have to replay portions over and over to try to understand what he or she is saying, I would rather read the book. I suffered thru one really long one but the whole time, I kept thinking that I could have done a better job with it, it was so flat and the southern accents were so bad. And a couple I quit on were the author's fault. Hearing "he said" "she said" after every single sentence will drive me insane.

Some books are read/performed so well, I google the reader's name to find others she/he has done if there aren't any others in the same series.

I have definitely experienced this. I can't remember any off the top of my head, but when I go to the library to check out audio books (I still do CD audio books in my car), or download them on my ipad, I always get at least 2-3 because either a book sometimes turns out to be a dud or I don't enjoy the voice.

Then there's the matter of females reading in male voices and vice-versa. I sometimes wish they'd abandon the idea of trying to sound like the opposite sex, and just speak in a normal voice. The fake women's voices, especially, can sound unbearably silly. Other narrators can pull it off beautifully.

FlamingO, Robert B. Parker did a lot (a LOT) of "he said" and "she said." I got used to it, and then grew fond of it. Joe Montegna does a great job narrating Parker's books.

I love listening to audiobooks when I go for my walks. Bluebell66, that is my experience with audiobooks also. I stop listening when I don't enjoy the content or the voice and so I have other audiobooks available. One such book I stopped listening to was a nonfiction about experiences during Hurricane Katrina and there was a bit of an echo in the narrator's voice, almost as if he had his head in a pail LOL! Another audiobook had music in the background, very distracting. Without a doubt, the best audiobook I have ever listened to (I had featured it on Book of the Week) is Overboard! : a True Blue-water Odyssey of Disaster and Survival by Michael J. Tougias. The nonfiction story is very gripping and the narrator is excellent.

Snidely, I have a Michael Connolly book lined up on my iPod. I am looking forward to trying it out, because if it's as action-packed as The Lincoln Lawyer, it will make for very entertaining listening.

When my kids were listening to the Happy Potter audios way back when, I couldn't stand the narrator's voice--he was just too excited at all times, for me. Everyone else I talked to felt differently--they loved it.

stacey, you don't mention which Connelly book you have teed up, but if it's one from the Bosch series, I do recommend reading them in order because of the character development over the years. Unlike many authors as they break into the biz, I think his earlier books in the series are some of the best.

He has his Haller series and also stand alone books. Of those, I think The Poet is one of the best.

Enjoy my favorite author, there are no bad choices from his body of work.

I am listening to Gone With the Wind now. I would never be able to get through all 41 CD's if the narrator wasn't any good. Thankfully Linda Stepens is doing a beautiful job. When I read a "real" book, I do "hear" their voices. But it's not all about me - each character has their own voice. Some of my favorite narrators are Frank Muller (now deceased), Stephen Lang, Dick Hill, Kate Mulgrew and Susan Ericksen. Most often, I do not enjoy listening to authors reading their own books. Tony Morrison reading Tony Morrison really turns me off.

There are some readers I just can't listen to.

In one book she was a whining child, and she always sounds like she is irritated. I think its Susan Erickson. Now I will look at the narrator before I get it. Also some narrators sound like they are just reading at you. I hate that too.

I've found that for me, the narrator is the determining factor whether I like it or not.. If I don't like the voice, I give up on it. Fortunately, this doesn't happen too often.I DO have favorite narrators as well.

Don't blame Joe, Sleeperblues; that's the way Parker wrote. :-)

It can be irritating (and some people feel it violates one or more rules of good fiction writing), but I grew to love it over the years.

The new Parker books are MUCH better, the are written by others using Parker's characters. The he said she said book I referred to was the same one sleeper is talking about, Montegna read it, Parker wrote it. His Jesse Stone books are better to listen to, IMO, especially the later ones in that series.

Listening to someone read is like a tranquilizer for me. I can't listen very long, they put me to sleep. I just started listening to audio books so I'm not familiar with how they are read, I was surprised when I was listening and the narrator was using "voices". Like for an old lady's lines, he tried to make her sound like Katharine Hepburn's voice. I found that to be sort of annoying. I wasn't expecting different voices.

A narration shouldn't sound as dramatic as a radio play but different vocal tones are used so that a listener can distinguish when a different person is speaking in a conversation (and who that person is). I found that I had to "learn" through practice how to effectively listen to an audio book. It wasn't automatically easy or comfortable for me, but that came with more time and experience.

I generally agree that authors often make poor readers for their own books. An exception I recently came upon was the author David McCullough reading his book "The Wright Brothers". Most of you know him from his longtime association with shows on Public TV, though his main gig through the years has been writing award winning non-fiction books. His exceptional voice and intonation put most audio readers to shame, it was as good a book to listen to as I can remember.

As for living and retired authors and estate managers who authorize ghost writers and "co-authors" to continue the production of books in another's name, I think the practice is outrageous. It's an inexcusable demonstration of greed. I stop reading any work of an author who begins that practice, I don't care who it is. Imagine what the reaction would be if it were announced that new books from Mark Twain and Charles Dickens would be written by Bob Robertson and released next year. Or four new paintings by Van Gogh, or by Renoir, or by whomever, were to be produced by Fred Funk and released in the spring. People would be outraged by that. Why is it an acceptable practice for authors?

Snidely, I agree that once an author is deceased, he/she should stop writing, LOL. The only exception I can think of is MAYBE having someone finish a book that was in progress at the time of the author's death.

I agree with you about in-progress works, donna. An example is what William Manchester did at the end of his life. He decided to write a comprehensive biography of Winston Churchill. His health declined after writing the first two volumes. He had finished research but had not gotten far in writing the third volume. A stand-in, a journalist and friend, was auditioned (by being asked to review the research and write a passage about one of the events in the time period) and his work passed muster. The full story is in the attached link to a NY Times article.

The book wasn't completed until several years after Manchester's death. I've read all 1200 pages of volume 3, it was very well done.

Completing Manchester's trilogy