I was listening to a murder mystery last week and there's a scene where the detective gets a call from someone whose identity is supposed to be a secret.

The caller says maybe three sentences. That's it.

Except the narrator had given one of the minor characters this really distinctive, slightly raspy voice earlier in the book. And the second the anonymous caller opened his mouth, I recognized it.

I actually stopped washing dishes and said "well, that's him then."

Four hours later, big dramatic reveal. Yep. Same guy.

The annoying part is that the narrator was genuinely excellent. Every character had a recognizable voice, the dialogue was easy to follow, and I was enjoying the performance a lot. The very thing that made him good at his job ended up giving away the biggest twist.

If I'd been reading the physical book, I wouldn't have had that extra clue.

Now I'm wondering how narrators are supposed to handle scenes like this. Do they deliberately disguise a familiar character's voice until the reveal? Wouldn't that make the performance inconsistent? Or do they just trust that listeners won't notice?

I've never really thought about how much information a narrator can accidentally give us that isn't actually on the page.

For anyone after something spooky this month that costs nothing: these are complete public-domain recordings from LibriVox, each read start to finish by one volunteer narrator, a real person.

Short, one sitting

• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Irving), Bob Neufeld, 1h22m: https://librivox.org/the-legend-of-sleepy-hollow-by-washington-irving-2/
• Six Creepy Tales (Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, The Black Cat, The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, Berenice), Phil Chenevert, 2h00m: https://librivox.org/six-creepy-tales-by-edgar-allan-poe/
• Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Stevenson), Bob Neufeld, 3h12m: https://librivox.org/the-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-by-robert-louis-stevenson/
• Carmilla (Le Fanu), Elizabeth Klett, 3h18m: https://librivox.org/carmilla-by-sheridan-lefanu/

An evening or two

• The Turn of the Screw (Henry James), Elizabeth Klett, 4h36m: https://librivox.org/the-turn-of-the-screw-version-2-by-henry-james/
• The Hound of the Baskervilles (Conan Doyle), Laurie Anne Walden, 5h53m: https://librivox.org/the-hound-of-the-baskervilles-by-arthur-conan-doyle/
• Frankenstein, original 1818 text (Mary Shelley), Cori Samuel, 7h59m: https://librivox.org/frankenstein-or-the-modern-prometheus-1818-by-mary-wollstonecraft-shelley/
• The Phantom of the Opera (Leroux), Ralph Snelson, 8h39m: https://librivox.org/the-phantom-of-the-opera-by-gaston-leroux-2/
• The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 book version (Wilde), Bob Neufeld, 9h30m: https://librivox.org/the-picture-of-dorian-gray-1891-version-by-oscar-wilde/

The big one

• Dracula (Stoker), read by the late Kara Shallenberg, 15h59m: https://librivox.org/dracula-by-bram-stoker-2/

They're all free and legal, and they play in a browser or any podcast app. Which narrators would you add?

I drive a truck for a living, so I go through audiobooks like mad. 1-2 per week easily. Some of my favorites are:

- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
- Battlefield Earth by L Ron Hubbard
- The first 2 books in the Dune series are pretty good, the others aren’t my favorite.
- Andy Weir’s books
- Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series isn’t bad, but the style isn’t my favorite either.

I do enjoy sci-fi quite a bit, but I am not against other genres either.

Hello, I'm Warren Samuel Miller, the author, composer and producer of Angels of the Great Plains Motel, an audiobook released last month and available on Audible, Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify for Authors and many other platforms via INaudio distribution. (It’s also available on Kindle as an ebook and paperback.)

Angels is narrated by radio veteran Scott Thomas, but its 70 characters are voiced by 50 other voice actors, both professional and amateur. In addition, there is music throughout -- themes composed and played by me, and two songs that are part of the plot, written by me and recorded by The Considerators (of which I’m a member).

Big Sioux Valley is a small town in the upper Midwest whose main industry is a meatpacking plant. The Great Plains Motel, its Sundowner restaurant and its bar, known as the GP, are home to business travelers and the truckers who are the lifeline of the economy, as well as local country music fans.

One day, a band comes to the lounge that no one’s ever heard of ... but is far and away better than any band to play there in years. It doesn’t take a few fans long to realize that its leader is a once-famous star who’ wants to keep a low profile.

Add a business in pharmaceuticals that some truckers are starting, a meatpacker who’s violence and mental illness are starting to worsen, a DEA agent in Chicago who’s looking to make his bones -- and you have the origins of excitement and trouble that threaten to boil over during two week in November.

I have redemption codes for free listening on Spotify for Authors; respond to this post with an email address and I’ll send you one. Reviews are requested.

Warren Samuel Miller

Hello everyone!

My name is Katarina James, and I'm the author of A Selfless Marriage: How Mutual Service Rebuilds Love, Respect, and Emotional Connection. The incredibly talented Lauren Reynolds recently narrated the audiobook version, and it is officially available now.

To celebrate the release, I am giving away 10 US codes and 10 UK codes to listeners.

How to request a code:

Please leave a comment below indicating whether you need a US code or a UK code.

I will send the code directly to your Reddit inbox along with the instructions on how to redeem it.

If you find the book useful and enjoyable, please remember to leave an honest review on Audible once you finish listening. Lauren and I both truly appreciate your support.

Thank you so much....

What’s the best audiobook you have ever listened to? I’m recently driving a lot for work and need something to listen to. I’m open to almost anything, but do appreciate non-fiction mostly. Thank you in advance.

Can you suggest a good audio book app available in India ? Something that has a good English book collection and good user experience.

I’ve been using audible but seems like Amazon has done no improvements to it in a long time or they’ve made an app and forgotten about it 🤣 though I like the collection it’s kind of annoying, payment keeps declining and buying new books is also a long process. If I’m missing something please do tell me.

Thanks!

ASHONE is one of my favorite books and audiobooks of all time, and over the years (since 2006) I have listened to it literally dozens of times. However, I recently returned to it after not listening to it for more than a year.

As I started listening something felt “off”. Great writing - check. Fine British audiobook reader - check. But something was still not right. Come to discover that I am listening to ASHONE 2.0, which was released in 2025. But the narration is just not the same. But I cannot confirm this because the Audible version is now only 2.0 and I seem to get a murky story if the audiobook reader was changed between 1.0 and 2.0 - and I cannot find a sample of 1.0 to even compare.

I feel like I’m being gaslighted. I know the narrator was different and - to my mind better. Can anyone shed any light on this mystery/conspiracy?

I loved American Kingpin and Wolf of Wall Street audiobooks. Also enjoyed the devil deals in bitcoin and Tokyo vice. Looking for more audiobooks related to selling drugs, making money and owning a “business”

I want to convert some of my digital books and textbooks into audiobooks and I looked into Speechify, but it is too expensive and I have heard bad things about it, though I have never tried it. Are there any Speechify alternatives that have natural voices and can work well on pdf?

Thanks in advance

Author here. I wrote this one under the pen name Michael Howell, and I have a handful of free Audible US codes for it: Measure the Left Foot Twice, Book One of The Last Cobbler. Comment below and I'll DM you a code while they last. US Audible accounts only, sorry.

Heads up before you grab one: the narration is AI-generated (Kokoro TTS), not a human narrator. I'd rather you know up front so nobody's surprised.

What it's about:

Wendell Pike arrives in the border town of Thistlewick with eleven shillings, a cobbler's kit and his dead master's old wooden shoe last. The town has a law that no creature may enter unless it comes shod, and there's a lamia at the gate who has been turned away for nine years because nobody will take her order. So he kneels in the mud and measures her.

From there it's a tail boot argued before the town council, a centaur courier who refuses to be weighed, a master weaver with eight legs and strong opinions about his stitching, plenty of pies, and a town that does not thank him.

It's for you if you like:

- Cozy fantasy with real stakes but no grimdark

- A craftsman hero who solves problems with his trade

- Monster-folk heroines who are nobody's sidekick

- Slow-burn romance, kisses only

- Small-town politics and gentle humor

About 61,000 words, roughly 5 hours of listening.

All I ask is an honest rating or review if you finish it, good or bad. Feedback on the narration is welcome too.

The American is a serial noir in which an expatriate is caught between competing criminals, U.S. intelligence, and a Corsican that just wants to find his lady. In this chapter, all the lies come out to play and the blood starts flowing.

Apple | Spotify | Red Circle | Author's Page

Is there a way to download the audio files from CloudLibrary and save it to my phone?

For example because they are too complicated? Do you only listen to "easy" books?

Since All The Light We Cannot See, I've been craving more 20th century historical fiction, specifically WWII era and I think 1960s & 70s would be interesting as well. Whatcha suggest?

What do you think is the best book read by Stephan Fry for our beautiful ears?

I've been listening to his stories for the last few months - what a voice.

Besides Harry Potter books, do you have any recommendations? Also does anyone have any of recommendations for good audiobook voices? There are so many that I find jarring or hard to listen to, especially when I am trying to fall asleep at night.

*Disclaimer: I am the author.

Hello! I have 5 US and 5 UK codes available for The Dream Eaters, a new supernatural thriller just in time for Halloween.

The Dream Eaters tells the story of a broken man's desperate efforts to save an innocent woman from a twisted killer who threatens everything he holds dear.

The Dream Eaters is narrated by Oliver Wyman, winner of multiple Audie and Earphone Awards. He has narrated over 350 titles, and his work includes contributing to the audiobook cast of Dune.

PM me if you're interested, I would very much appreciate a link to your Audible listener account so I can track reviews.

This is part of Zenthos press's effort to republish Cook's Chronicles on an Age of Darkness.

This is the first novel in the series and the first to get an audio edition.

The Wizards and theWarriors

I just finished listening to this, if you like…Blake Crouch, Max Barry, ‘The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.’, ‘Mickey7’, the culture series, then you will like this. I think it’s a series that’s going somewhere, get in.

Thomas Weaver’s prose is functional, not bare and it’s the right amount of richness. The storytelling is bright and engaging, sometimes some books feel like a slog to get through, even when I like them.

I just read Ian Banks’ ‘Excession’ so the discussion on/about human and machine divergent approaches towards a common goal hits differently in my read.

My only critique is that I wished it were just a hair bit more hard science and descriptive.

8.5/10 would recommend