
Why George Guidall Is the Undisputed King of Audiobooks - artsandsci
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/books/george-guidall-audiobooks.html
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JohnGB
I'm sure multitudes of people like his style of reading, but I have found it
to be incredibly slow and frustrating to listen to. He reads.... with ......
far too many..... pointless..... pauses. One can have meter and flow without
the slow.

It's not exactly the same thing, but I much prefer the way that Dan Carlin
(Hardcore History podcast) uses his voice to create atmosphere and draw me
into the story.

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randycupertino
When I saw the title, I had similar thoughts. imo Ray Porter is the undisputed
king of audiobook narration- one needs only to listen to Ray Porter narrate
The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow of 14 by Peter Clines to know he is the
best! Best narrator of all time.

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fnordian_slip
"There’s a rhythm to speech in terms of what’s implied. If it’s raining in the
book, there’s got to be something about the voice that evokes the rain."

He really does provide great quality. I have listened to quite a few
audiobooks read by him and I often feel like I am not doing them justice when
I am doing something else besides listening. It has led me to realize that I
should listen to good audiobooks more consciously, and to instead rely on
podcasts or librivox* books for easy listening while cleaning or cooking.

* = Not to put down the efforts made by the hundreds of volunteers reading books for this great project, they have led to great audiobooks, but there are also quite a few that are not up to professional standards.

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icebraining
His voice reminds me of Geoffrey Palmer's, whose reading of _The Man Who Was
Thursday_ for the BBC is excellent.

My main problem with audiobooks are the narrators, especially in fiction; I
give up on about 2/3 of the books for that reason. I have a similar problem
with TV shows like The Walking Dead - the acting is just too mediocre. Maybe
I'm a snob, but it literally yanks my suspension of disbelief away.

I don't think I ever listened to one read by Guidall, though; does anyone have
a recommendation?

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cyxxon
I just finished listening to his narration of Stephen King's The Dark Tower on
Audible (the main books, 1-7), and was actually disappointed to find out that
King himself has read the (optional?) 8th/4.5th book.

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skj
He read the first one, but 2 and 3 are Frank Muller, at least the versions I
got from audible. Did you check?

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cwar
Muller was in a motorcycle accident and was unable to complete the Dark Tower
narration (he eventually passed away from the injuries I believe, tragic), so
Guidall finishes out the series.

They are both fantastic narrators, but I did slightly prefer Muller in this
series. His voice for Eddie is just perfect.

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Tomte
I loved how this wasn't a story about some twenty year old Hotshot CEO of some
fad company I had never heard of that has just brought out an iPhone app for
audio books, but about a real, old-school professional actor who is successful
in an honest profession.

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santoshalper
I also appreciated that he was not entirely humble about it, without being
overly arrogant. I was prepared for a lot of "aww shucks, I guess I've been
blessed" style of false modesty, but it was nice to see he is proud of the
work he has put in to master a skill.

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Moru
This is ofcourse just the journalists image conveyed in the text. But I too
love books read by him.

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kej
I've enjoyed two books read by Guidall, but I spent several years of my
commute listening to Patrick Tull read Patrick O'Brian's _Master & Commander_
series, and I'm not sure any other narrator will ever match that for me. It
feels like your British uncle is telling you stories about his time in the
Royal Navy.

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jdpedrie
I went to youtube and looked up a clip of him reading, and indeed it was who I
expected. My dad listened to a lot of books on tape when I was growing up, and
this guy's voice was ubiquitous. It provided a nice moment of nostalgia.

As an adult now though, I much prefer Rob Inglis, whose recording of The Lord
Of The Rings is more or less the authoritative way that work should sound, so
far as I'm concerned. His volume of work, though, doesn't compare to Guidall
so far as I can tell.

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jpm_sd
Rob Inglis is also the fabulous narrator of the Earthsea trilogy audio books.

Recently I've become a fan of Patrick Tull, who did the Aubrey/Maturin series
audiobooks extremely well.

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pmoriarty
One of my favorites is David Clarke, who did a superb reading of The Count of
Monte Cristo,[1] which is one of the most amazing books I've ever read.

[1] - [https://librivox.org/the-count-of-monte-cristo-
version-3-by-...](https://librivox.org/the-count-of-monte-cristo-version-3-by-
alexandre-dumas/)

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drakenot
I much prefer Tim Gerald Reynolds and Steven Pacey.

Listen to these previews for each of them respectively. They were able to
bring the characters to life in a way that Guidall was never able to for me.

Steven Pacey: [https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Blade-
Itself-A...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Blade-Itself-
Audiobook/B014LL6R5U/)

Tim Gerald Reynolds: [https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Age-of-Myth-
Audiob...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Age-of-Myth-
Audiobook/B0161R0XBQ)

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commieneko
About 20 years ago I had a twice a week commute of about 3 hours. I worked my
way through the bulk of Lillian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who ..." book as read by
Mr. Guidall. Even when I was reading from the dead tree version I'd still hear
it in his voice.

My favorite audio books, however, were of Roger Zelazny reading his own Amber
books. He obviously wasn't a professional voice artist, but he really brought
these non-standard fantasy novels to life with his, literally, authorial
voice.

I only have them on actual cassette tapes, I suppose I should look around and
see if they are available as digital files.

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AdmiralAsshat
I'm quite fond of John Rafter Lee, personally:

[http://www.audible.com/search?ref_=a_pd_Classi_c2_1_narr&sea...](http://www.audible.com/search?ref_=a_pd_Classi_c2_1_narr&searchNarrator=John+Lee)

I've been hooked on his voice ever since I heard him as Trevor Goodchild in
the 90's MTV Aeon Flux cartoon.

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gghh
Can anybody identify the PDF annotation app that G. Guidall is using in this
picture?

[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/08/15/arts/00AUDIOKING2...](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/08/15/arts/00AUDIOKING2alt/00AUDIOKING2alt-
superJumbo.jpg)

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icebraining
I don't have an iOS device to confirm, but seems to be the latest version of
iAnnotate.

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RandyRanderson
My vote would be for Richard Poe:

[http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_1_nsrch?searchNarrato...](http://www.audible.com/search/ref=sr_1_1_nsrch?searchNarrator=Richard+Poe)

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xparadigm
For me the best was Richard Matthews reading "A Short History Of Nearly
Everything"

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madshiva
I don't know George Guidall, what I don't know too is why there's so little
audiobooks in 2017, specially in French.

