Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that currently resides at The Artsy Reader Girl and features bloggers sharing lists on various book topics. This week participants get an Audio Freebie week, so I get to choose any audiobook topic that I want. Regular readers of my blog will know that I love audiobooks, so I was very keen to participate in this topic. Because of some recent long books that I have read and listened to, I have gotten very curious about the top ten longest audiobooks I have ever had the pleasure of listening to.
Therefore, I have decided to go back and list of all the audiobooks I have listened to and their run times to see which ones were the longest. For consistency’s sake, I will use the run times as stated on either Audible or Amazon, and I will only use the versions and narrators that I listened to. For example, I have only listened to the Harry Potter audiobooks narrated by Jim Dale and not the Stephen Fry versions, which are apparently longer, so I will therefore list the run times for the Jim Dale versions.
I am very curious to see what makes up my Top Ten List. I have an idea of what will be at the top, but I am expecting quite a few Harry Potter books in the top ten. Let us have a look:
2. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, narrated by Nick Podehl – 42 hours and 55 minutes
3. Magician by Raymond E. Feist, narrated by Peter Joyce – 36 hours and 14 minutes
Technically two books combined together (Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master), but as I will always listen to them together, I am counting it as one book.
4. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, narrated by Roy Dotrice – 33 hours and 45 minutes
6. Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, narrated by Gerrard Doyle – 31 hours and 29 minutes
8. Brisingr by Christopher Paolini, narrated by Gerrard Doyle – 29 hours and 34 minutes
9. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, narrated by Nick Podehl – 27 hours and 55 minutes
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale – 27 hours and 2 minutes
This was a very surprising result for me. While I was expecting books such as The Way of Kings and The Wise Man’s Fear to make the cut, I really did think that Order of the Phoenix would be higher up on the list. I was also very surprised that two books from Feist and Wurst’s The Empire Trilogy made the list, and I really did not think that Inheritance and Brisingr were that long. Still, it’s a good result, which I have no doubt will change in the future, especially as some of the books I am keen to listen to, such as The Ember Blade (30 hours and 40 minutes long) would make it onto this list, knocking Order of the Phoenix off. I am sure that with a different narrator or production company, some of these audiobooks would be longer or shorter; still, it was quite interesting to see.
As a bit of bonus material, and because I already had the run times listed, here are the next top ten books as an Honourable Mention.
Honourable Mentions:
11. Red Seas under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, narrated by Michael Page – 25 hours and 34 minutes
12. The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch, narrated by Michael Page – 23 hours and 43 minutes
13. Eldest by Christopher Paolini, narrated by Gerrard Doyle – 23 hours and 29 minutes
14. Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie, narrated by Steven Pacey – 22 hours and 38 minutes
15. The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, narrated by Steven Pacey – 22 hours and 15 minutes
16. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, narrated by Michael Page – 21 hours and 59 minutes
17. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale – 21 hours and 36 minutes
18. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale – 21 hours and 12 minutes
19. Cold Iron by Miles Cameron, narrated by Mark Meadows – 19 hours and 29 minutes
20. Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan, narrated by Christian Rodska – 19 hours
So that is where some of the other Harry Potters are. With all 20 books being fantasy, I think it is obvious that I need to branch out into some longer books from other genres in order to break up this fantasy monopoly. While I have reviewed some of the books on this list, I am planning to get to the rest at some point in the future. However, I think most of those require a re-listen before I am able to do proper review of them; now I just have to find the time to fit them into my reading schedule. I was quite happy with the interesting result of this Top Ten Tuesday, and I will have to revisit this list at some point in the future. Feel free to comment below about the longest audiobook you have ever listened to.
