In honor of the RUSA awards given out last night for the best of 2011's adult genre fiction and audiobooks which are posted here and here, I wanted to ask all of you about your favorite genre titles or audiobooks.
To be fair, you were all not reading the best of the last year for an awards committee, so instead of asking about your favs of 2011, I thought I would see what you have read or listened to in the past couple of years that has continued to stay with you.
I'll go first. Readers of this blog know that I enjoyed Before I Go to Sleep and The Night Circus both which appeared on the Reading List and I really enjoyed the narration of The Snowman which was on the audiobook list. (title links go to my reviews)
But in the past couple of years, I have to say my favorite audiobook experience was listening to Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. As I mentioned in my reviews, here and here, there is no way I would have gotten through the pronunciations of places and names in those books, let alone the complex plots, without the brilliant and steady work of Simon Vance's narration. I am now a Simon Vance fan for life thanks to his work on those three novels.
In genre fiction over the last few years, nothing has captured my attention more than The Passage by Justin Cronin in the horror/dark fantasy/science fiction genres (depending on your opinion on where it fits) or the pure enchanting captivation I feel when I enter the world of the Flavia de Luce mysteries by Alan Bradley. (link is to review of the latest installment; it contains links to other reviews). What is so remarkable here is how completely different these two series are, yet I am utterly infatuated with both.
Now it is your turn. What genre reads and/or audiobooks are among your favorites of the last few years? Share either or both.
You can follow past Monday Discussions here.
I have to agree with you about Justin Cronin. I never really got into audiobooks. If I have headphones on or a stereo going it has to be music. I did, however, really enjoy a portion of the child series A Series Of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket narrated by Tim Curry. His voice is just so naturally evil.
ReplyDeleteMy favorites these last few years have been Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman. I really enjoyed the southern accents and the colorful descriptions of the characters. It made the book and characters come alive. World War Z by Max Brooks was another one, I enjoyed this one so much and it also reminded me a bit of The Passage as far as the story line jumping around a bit and also the subject of the world ending.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I also want to mention that I loved the young adult audiobook of Inkheart. I fell into the story and the narration was engaging. However...the following title was read by actor Brendan Fraser, who is the actor in the movies for the Inkworld sereis, and it was awful. He did not pronounce the names of people or places the same, and it was not the same story. I was very sad because I wanted to continue the series, but chose not to because I could not stand his narrations.
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