As I keep working through my collection of audiobooks, I’ve come to identify a few criteria that make for an enjoyable audiobook:
The reader must have a strong voice. It needs to be clearly understood over any background noise and be loud enough that I don’t have to max out the volume and strain my ears.
It should be short, or its parts should be short. Once I start a file on my music player, I can’t switch away without losing my place.
It should be fairly light. Uncomplicated fiction works best, because it’s easier to recover from a moment’s inattention.
The reader shouldn’t have a thick accent. Sometimes it fits, but in general it increases the amount of mental effort required to follow the text, which makes outside distractions more likely to disrupt the story.
There must be a single reader. Swapping readers throughout a text makes for a jarring experience.
“Chip’s” reading of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow hits all these criteria. In parts, he sounds like a gentleman retelling a local myth rather than just a reader of a text. The reading runs just under 90 minutes, so it’s a decent starting audiobook.