
Ask YC: Road trip. Which audio books would you recommend? - groovyone
I've got to go on a road trip for a few days. Which are your favourite and most inspirational audio books?
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strick
Radiolab. It is a podcast, not an audio book, but I would recommend
downloading the entire set at <http://feeds.wnyc.org/radiolab> and listening
to all of them.

Listen to them in order, oldest to newest. I would not recommend starting with
the most recent "Jad and Robert: The Early Years" which is mainly about the
hosts.

And if you want to cherrypick one show to start with try: Musical Language.

~~~
dbreunig
Can't second this one enough. This is by far the best show on air.

As it relates to business: the show is a veritable collection of case studies
revolving around people, culture, and science. Myself: I'd recommend the Space
episode.

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edw519
This brings up a good point. What would it take to put "Hackers and Painters"
and "Founders at Work" onto CD? I can't imagine anything I'd rather listen to.
And both are perfect for short trips because each chapter is stand-alone.

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altay
Podcasts from www.venturevoice.com.

Great interviews with entrepreneurs, and they're each about an hour long --
perfect for road trips.

Complete list here: <http://www.venturevoice.com/library.html>

~~~
inovica
Wow, these are great!

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yossren
"A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. It's not a technically
a business book, but it's incredibly interesting for anyone who enjoys
science. It does have one good business-related concept - it reinforces the
idea that just having the best idea doesn't always make you successful or rich
- it's the execution that counts.

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PI
Okay, if you enjoy history try The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
(Volume 1) - each volume is around 48hrs each, it might sound like a lot of
hours listening but it's a great book and taught me a lot about Roman history.

If you're into sci-fi try the old BBC radio series Journey into Space,
Operation Luna (the first in the series).

~~~
groovyone
Interesting. I was thinking more of 'business' stuff, but there's always a
correlation between business and topics such as rise and falls of empires.
Thanks for that!

~~~
PI
If you're talking business books try The Rebel Sell "How the counter culture
became the consumer culture". and I book I love for it's story telling is Boo
Hoo "$135 million. 18 months... a dot.com story from concept to catastrophe".

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coglethorpe
1\. "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki

2\. "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely

3\. "The Search" by John Battelle

4\. "Made to Stick" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

5\. "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

That should cover your trip. I've listened to all of them and really liked all
of them. "Blink" by Gladwell is also good, but not as business related.

I would love to hear any other suggestions people have in this category.

~~~
JayNeely
I found _The Wisdom of Crowds_ hard to get through. Interesting subject
matter, but the text just didn't flow for me.

"The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz was a great read.

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rudyfink
Fredric Bastiat - "The Law" - <http://www.freeaudio.org/fbastiat/thelaw.html>
(audio book) <http://www.amazon.com/Law-Frederick-Bastiat/dp/1933550147/> (5
stars with 83 reviews so it's not just me)

It'll only take about forty minutes to finish.

If you go with a Teaching Company course I highly recommend their "Great
Minds" series (though without a library it is a bit spendy):
[http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=470&](http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=470&);

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zach
Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast is a good one. Each is
about an hour long, so it helps that you have lots of time:

<http://edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html>

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ntoshev
Feynman: "Los Alamos from Bellow" speech, "You Must Be Joking Mr Feynman".

The Teaching Company has "The Great Ideas of Philosophy/Psychology" series and
courses in economics I'd recommend.

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asnyder
1."The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson 2."Super Crunchers" by Ian Ayres 3."Six
Great Scientists" by J.G Crowther 4."The Meaning of It All" by Richard Feynman
5."Dealers of Lightning"(The story of XEROX Parc) by Michael Hiltzik 6."What I
Believe" by Betrand Russell

The above titles can all be found at audible.com, and probably through itunes
too.

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nmeyer
Check out <http://www.librivox.org>. They have a HUGE catalogue of audio
recordings of public-domain works. Grab a list of the 100 classic books of all
time and download them. Don Quixote, The Prince, Picture of Dorian Grey, Pride
and Prejudice...

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yan
Check out courses from The Teaching Company. I find that to be more productive
to listen to while driving.

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asdf333
Most people have the basics covered. Here is one I haven't seen and is worth a
huge amount -- not business, but it will definitely help you in life.

Will and Ariel Durant: The Lessons of History A great synthesis by two
lifelong historians on what can be learned from a study of history. Covers
human nature, society, culture/morals and many other important topics and
takes as objective a view as possible.

You can listen to it over and over and get some great insights. Dense, but
easy to listen to. There is one small section that is slightly dated and shows
that they were writers in their own time but most of it is timeless.

I highly recommend this. It will really give you insight into our world.

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epi0Bauqu
1)
[http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=529&...](http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=529&pc=Business%20and%20Economics)

2) Close behind:
[http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=561&...](http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=561&pc=Business%20and%20Economics)
and
[http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=562&...](http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=562&pc=Business%20and%20Economics)

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wheels
I like to dig up classic speeches and listen to them in such situations. It's
pretty easy to dig them up from online archives, and they're more natural to
listen to for me than audio books. Given the top thread at the moment, I can
recommend Huxley's The Ultimate Revolution. :-)

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mattjung
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
[http://www.amazon.com/Made-Stick-Ideas-Survive-
Others/dp/073...](http://www.amazon.com/Made-Stick-Ideas-Survive-
Others/dp/0739341340/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210944933&sr=8-1)

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tylercarbone
I really enjoyed "The Goal" as an audiobook. It makes a good audiobook because
it's structured as a novel. Definitely one of my favorite business books.

(it's nominally about running a manufacturing plant, but I think a lot of the
takeaways apply just as well to startups)

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gunderson
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Much of what makes an audiobook great is the reader's grasp of the material.
Both of these books are great works of literature, but the skill of the reader
makes them even better as audiobooks.

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mattmaroon
I found a torrent with all of Steinbeck's audio books. There's a great Of Mice
and Men read by Gary Sinise. On the off chance you haven't read that yet or
are a Gary Sinise fan, it's pretty great.

I really liked Cannery Row too.

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Aeos
I recommend: Podiobooks.com <serialized free ebooks of many genres>,
escapepod.org <scifi short stories> and podcastle.org <fantasy short stories>

Look for Parsec award winners or Hugo award winners.

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DenisM
Amazon has a wide selection of books on CD. "Good To Great", "Getting Things
Done", etc.

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/69726/>

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chuchurocka
1\. People's History of the United States: Highlights from the 20th century -
Howard Zinn 2\. Snow Crash - Neil Stephenson 3\. jPod - Douglas Coupland 4\.
the world is flat 2.0

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prakash
I am listening to Alan Watts, Out of your Mind, thanks to the link I saw on
defmacro, not sure if it's the best thing for a road trip though?

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andr
I read an article a few days ago about how distracting listening to audiobooks
or talking is when driving.

~~~
PI
that's probably true, but heck you've got to do something to quench the
boredom.

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inovica
"The story of google". Quite entertaining and I have more respect for them
after listening to it

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wumi
Assault on Reason by Al Gore. Bourne Trilogy by Robert Ludlum (the movie
retains only the name and a basic profile of Jason Bourne, almost none of the
plot)

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pg
Jane Austen novels are pretty good.

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mhb
This American Life shows/podcasts.

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fresh
audio books on a road trip? how about greatest hits by queen.

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giles_bowkett
I would get a Pimsleur CD course on a language you've always wanted to learn.
The complete box set, 14 CDs or whatever, $250. You'll be conversational a few
days later, and it requires you to listen actively rather than passively, so
you're more likely to stay awake while you drive.

~~~
olifante
I have to second that recommendation. I've been studying Pimsleur's excellent
Mandarin Chinese I, II and III in my daily commute and road trips for some
time, and I highly recommend it. It requires reasonably active listening and
sentence production, so it helps you avoid drowsiness on long trips.

Coincidentally, I'm leaving soon on a car trip to Morocco and was just
preparing to sync the free Michigan Modern Standard Arabic and the Pimsleur
Egyptian Arabic audio courses to my iPod.

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weegee
Dreams of my father by Barack Obama

