O'Brian talking books

I was wondering how many people have also enjoyed listening to the O'Brian series on talking book and which of the narrators have they enjoyed the most?

I love the series and have found all of them as unabridged readings (which is not easy, finding different libraries, buying CDs in the USA, but well worth the effort!) - I think Patrick Tull, Stephen Thorne and Graham Roberts have been the stand out performers.

Although the Robert Hardy readings are excellent, the fact that they are abridged makes them far more difficult to enjoy fully.

Would love to hear others thoughts on this.
Very best
Matt

Patrick Tull is exemplary!

And welcome aboard, Matt!

Thank you.

Patrick Tull is indeed extraordinary, gives the characters real heart, I love his readings.

Hane you heard any of his other work?
He does an amazing Sherlock Holmes.

Take care
Matt

I was recently debating whether I wanted to try any of his Holmes readings. I did listen to the couple of Sharpe stories he read and I liked his take on the characters.

I thoroughly recommend it.
I didn't know that he did the Sharpe series as well, I will hunt these down without delay!

Thanks for the heads up.

I don't think he did very many books in the Sharpe series. The two I listened to were Sharpe's Trafalgar and Sharpe's Prey.

That will be an awesome start.

I love talking books, when travelling it is so nice to use time productively.

It would be great to get some lists put forward by Forum members of any productions they have listened to and enjoyed and where they found them.

Some other favourites of mine are Peter Wickham's readings of David Donachie's and James Nelson's books.

Enjoy!

By the way, do you ever listen to books before you read them? I did that with "Sharpe's Trafalgar" and I sometimes do that with a couple of other series I like. But I usually don't get an audiobook until I already know I like the books. I'm usually the same way with movies based on books.

I will happily listen to a book if I can find it first - on iTunes the price tends to be quite comparable and it saves so much time.

But if I LOVE a series I would much rather read it first, even now there is a joy when I re-read an O'Brian from the shelf, because you can savour the writing, there is your own impression of what the characters are like and how they should sound.

The couple of recent BBC Radio 4 adaptations of O'Brian I really enjoyed, and although you have to sacrifice a good deal of the plot to fit into the play. I thought the casting was great and the atmosphere compelling.

I agree wholeheartedly. I find that with reading O'Brian and listening to O'Brian I pick up different aspects of the work.

I liked the BBC adaptations too. They didn't have the same heart and intimacy I get from Tull's reading, but the performances were good and the script adaptations were suited to the purpose. It was also nice having a cast of multiple actors rather than just one man reading for everyone, as talented as Tull was.

I now have every HNF O'Brian audio book and am looking forward to listening to them. I haven't listened to any yet, but I've heard other stuff by Tull and he's a great interpreter of the written word. There's a Youtube clip of Tull reading from O'Brian here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFi6fhcMnYQ which is interesting.

I've listened to four of the Kydd audiobooks before reading the books themselves, both have their advantages and I think I get different interpretation from each medium.

You're in for a treat.

I hope so, indeed I'm sure you're right.

As one who began my immersion in HNF (as so many others have) with Patrick O'brian's Aubrey novels, I began before "21" was published. Then I re-read the entire series including "21". About12 months ago, the publisher was having a sale on the audiobook series and I purchased the set. This was my initiation into the world of audiobooks........and I'm hooked.

The reader is Simon Vance for the books 1-20 and Patrick Tull for "21". My choice of "favorite reader" is Simon Vance (to each his own).

I'm currently in the midst of re-reading the Patrick O'Brian series for the 5th time (hardback, paperback, kindle and audiobook). This is my 2nd time through on audiobook (the 1st time through being about 8 years ago). Age has it's own blessing and I'm finding much of the 'fabric' of these yarns 'seems' new to me.

So my advice is: If you really enjoy any book, don't discard it (or its title from your memory) as revisiting it in a few years can bring 'joy and satisfaction' again.

I finished the last of POB's series last evening with the abbreviated 21. I hadn't remembered the additional verbiage concerning POB's personal situation at the time he began this final work. Also, I didn't remember the history of this now famous series 'long about the midpoint' when it was popular in the UK, but not nearly as well received in the US market and was in some danger of not progressing further.

And finally, I remembered how much I missed the wonderful delivery of Simon Vance that so enriched my listening experience for the first 20 books of this series as he gave every character their own "voice".  Whereas, Patrick Tull seemed to me to 'just be reading a book out loud' with none of the characters having a distinctive voice of their own, but all sounding very much alike. My audio series came from Blackstone Audio and was produced in 2004. I note that the currently available series is being read by Patrick Tull and have not listened to no more than his original 'voicing' of 21.

I read it and I recommend you to read it, I bought it from reecoupons, by using discounted coupon codes, there audio is still available if you wanna buy once check there too. Infact I bought a standing desk from Standing desk coupon for reading this book