Rec me audiobooks and/or geeky stuff!

[oyceter]

I have pretty bad insomnia at times, often because I feel like my brain wants to keep going. I used to try listening to music, especially musicals or ballads, as the narrative thread keeps my brain occupied, but lately I have discovered the joy of audiobooks.

So... rec me stuff!

I am looking for things that are appropriate to fall asleep to. In other words, the audiobook equivalent of a nice, fluffy blanket. Nothing too violent or too depressing, and for this at least, nothing too political. I mean, I am totally up for things that are critiquing the patriarchy or whatnot, but if it makes me want to sit up in bed and pump my fist going, "Yeah!" it will not be helpful for the insomnia! Ditto things with too much fail. I can deal with a little, especially if warned, but again, if I am getting up and trying to strangle my iPod, it is not helpful for the insomnia.

In this case, audiobooks of things I have actually read and enjoyed is a bonus, since I (hopefully) fall asleep in the middle of chapters. I tried listening to Emma, but I kept losing track of the narrative even though I know generally what happens thanks to Clueless.

Apparently the quality of the reading also matters, since I didn't like the narrator of Daughters of Darkness or Mr. Cavendish, I Presume to finish.

So far, I have been greatly enjoying Good Omens.

Also, now that I am most of the way through Mythbusters Collection 3, rec me random geeky stuff! I feel like I have exhausted all of the geeks-in-(awkward-and-adorkable)-love stories on bb_shousetsu, but am kind of up for anything that scratches the adorkable, cute excited geeks, science geekiness, kludging geekiness, or whatnot itch. (I already read Lifehacker and There, I Fixed It.) I think mostly I am looking for stuff with geek personalities being adorkable, as opposed to just plain funny or educational, ergo the question re: fic.

Comments

[vass]

My favourite comfort reread is Kerry Greenwood, who writes detective novels set in Melbourne, Australia. She has two main series: Phryne Fisher, set in the 1920s, and Corinna Chapman, set in the present day.

Phryne is a private detective who has adventures and drove ambulances in the war and a refreshing lack of sexual shame.

Corinna is a baker, and mysteries just happen around her, and she ends up solving them. She is also fat, and has a refreshing lack of shame about that.

I feel the need to warn you that Phryne has a new beautiful boyfriend most books, and in a book about halfway through the series so far, the new boyfriend is Chinese Australian, and he's painted a bit thick. He sticks around and gets less pointedly Exotic Oriental and develops a lot more personality, but yeah, it's something to be aware of. (She gets more serious about the utter shittiness of white Australian treatment of Chinese Australians in The Castlemaine Murders, though.)

[oyceter]

Oh awesome! Is this an audiobook? I know obviously mysteries rely on that whole plot thing (ahaha, or: why I could not read mysteries the entire time I was in grad school), but do you think this one has enough atmosphere and character to make up for me falling asleep every chapter or so?

[vass]

They're available as audiobooks.

The first Phryne Fisher book is Cocaine Blues.
The first Corinna Chapman book is Earthly Delights.

By the way, you might already know this, but I didn't until yesterday: some community libraries let their members download audiobooks from their websites.

Edited to answer your question: they're very character driven. And the atmosphere's great - it's all about the city of Melbourne.

[oyceter]

I actually found out about most of the audiobooks via my library! I would get annoyed by trying to check out an ebook to discover that the newest books there were usually only audiobooks.

Also, awesome. Character driven and atmosphere and general good-naturedness sounds perfect.