Like my fellow bloggers, I am a huge fan of audiobooks.  I have a long-ish commute to work and without audiobooks I would be lost.  Also, since having twins, audiobooks have become one of the only ways I can sneak in a bit of “reading.”

Our old friend Novelist can be of use to those of us who want or need to listen to our books.  For a refresher on how to use Novelist, reread this post.  It often seems to me that there is no end to the depth of fun available on Novelist.  I could lose entire days to searching its contents if I let myself.

For audiobook fans, there are a few Novelist features you won’t want to miss.   Novelist maintains an ever-changing audiobook page with featured, new and forthcoming and themed lists.  To get there from the Novelist homepage, select “Browse by” and then pick “Audiobooks”

Right now, Novelist is featuring audiobooks that share the stories of Holocaust survivors.  Also on this page, you’ll seeing Recommended Reading Lists including picks for fans of mysteries, general fiction, nonfiction, science fiction, history writing, life stories and audiobooks for children and teens.

Once you’re in an audiobook record in Novelist there are few handy features that can help you narrow your selection before you head to the library or download the file from Overdrive.   One is the Audiobook sample.  I don’t know about you, but for me, the narrator makes a world of difference in an audiobook.  Some books (which shall remain nameless) have been returned to the library unfinished because I simply did not want the narrator’s voice accompanying me on my travels for ten or more hours.  Novelist’s audiobook sample can help you avoid audiobook fails by allowing you to preview the narrator’s voice in advance.

Another feature I’m a fan of is the review of the audiobook available in audio.  If you want to listen to the book, it makes sense you may wish to listen to its review as well.  These reviews are provided by Audio File Magazine, which, by the way, publishes the annual Audie Awards for excellence in audiobooks.  The “audies” are another wonderful place to find the next book on your To Listen List.

And in case you don’t stumble across them in Novelist, here are a few of my favorite audiobooks:

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant.  This latest book by the author of The Red Tent has drawn both criticism and praise from West Branch patrons, but personally, I enjoyed the audiobook version.  Perhaps it’s because the narrator sounded like my grandmother telling me stories about her childhood.  Novelist describes The Boston Girl as having a sweeping storyline,  a dramatic tone and an engaging and richly detailed writing style.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  I don’t read or listen to a lot of adult fantasy (teen fantasy is more my speed), but I made an exception for The Night Circus and I’m glad I did.  This story of a dangerous magical competition is set in an intriguing black and white circus and I found it wholly original.  Novelist describes its tone as atmospheric and romantic and its writing style as lush.

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor.  This memoir written by the third female and first Hispanic justice to the United States Supreme Court struck me as honest and entertaining.  With her lifetime appointment, Justice Sotomayor’s book lacks the overt political agenda that is present in many memoirs of our public servants.  In keeping with tradition, she does not comment on any cases she has ruled on since joining the high court (in fact the book ends before she claims her seat), which left me hoping she’ll write a second volume of her memoirs once she’s retired.

For now I’ll leave you with just one more: Stalin’s Daughter by Rosemary Sullivan.  This is one I may not have picked up on my own, but it was a pick for the West Branch History Book Group.  It’s a real time commitment as an audio book at 19 hours and 48 minutes, but I was glad I stuck it out.  Svetlana Alliluyeva, Joseph Stalin’s only daughter, certainly had an interesting, dramatic and sad life.  She was as complicated a person as you would expect given her parentage and she certainly made her life much harder than it needed to be.  But she remains a largely sympathetic figure and her life as a resident of communist Russia, a defector to the United States and a writer makes for interesting listening.

Happy listening!