Ask YC: Road trip. Which audio books would you recommend? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Road trip. Which audio books would you recommend?

16 pointsgroovyone43 comments

I've got to go on a road trip for a few days. Which are your favourite and most inspirational audio books?

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.

thanks for this one, have just started to download them all now.

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.

Radio Lab is absolutely, absolutely amazing. It's the best radio show I've ever heard, and I come from the land of BBC Radio 4..

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.

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

Wow, these are great!

"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.

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).

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!

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".

I've enjoyed biographies of Augustus and Hannibal on Audio CD. "Augustus" is by Anthony Everett, and sadly I can not find the Hannibal set at the moment. Both lived during at an incredible time of change in Roman history. The stories are interesting, each is better "written" than many a Hollywood drama.

Also, it is just fascinating to listen to accounts from pre-Christian times. The characters share many common human traits with us, but are also deeply different. It will make you question what it means to be human.

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.

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.

I thought "The Tipping Point" was a little bit fluffy.

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&;

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

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.

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.

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...

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

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.

1) http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=529&...

2) Close behind: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=561&... and http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=562&...

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. :-)

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die http://www.amazon.com/Made-Stick-Ideas-Survive-Others/dp/073...

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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)

Jane Austen novels are pretty good.

This American Life shows/podcasts.

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

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.

I would strongly recommend the "Behind the Wheel" series of foreign language courses. There were specifically designed for use while driving. Perfect. N'est pas?

http://www.amazon.com/Behind-French-Revised-Complete-Illustr...

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.

Dreams of my father by Barack Obama

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