Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that currently resides at The Artsy Reader Girl and features bloggers sharing lists on various book topics. For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, I’m veering away from the official topic (this week it was Top Ten Books I Enjoyed but Rarely Talked About), and instead choosing to revisit and update a fun post I did last year. I have always been a major fan of audiobooks, and in my mind it is often the best way to enjoy a good book. I have been lucky enough to listen to quite a substantial number of audiobooks over the years, and some of them have been quite long, often taking me weeks to get through. About a year ago, I started getting curious about all the audiobooks I had listened to, and I wanted to know which ones were the longest ones that I had every listened to. As a result, I sat down and worked out which ones had the longest run time. This turned into such an interesting endeavour; I ended up wanting to share it, and turned it into my first Top Ten Longest Audiobooks I Have Listened To list. I actually had an amazing time coming up with this list, and I ended up expanding it to cover 20 books, all of which were substantially long reads.
Now, I always intended to come back to this list and see how the new books I listened to recently stacked up against the books already on the list. In the year since I published that original list, I have managed to listen to quite a few new audiobooks, several of which had a pretty lengthy run time. As I just finished a rather substantial audiobook over the weekend, I thought that this would be a good time to update this list and see what differences have been made in the last year. The list below is going to be pretty similar to the list I posted up last year, just with a few new additions added in, and I’ll make sure to highlight them. This will no doubt change the order around a little, and I am interested in seeing how the new list turns out.
Top Twenty List:
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
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. The Ember Blade by Chris Wooding, narrated by Simon Bubb – 30 hours and 40 minutes
The first new entry on this list is the rather good fantasy novel by Chris Wooding, The Ember Blade. The Ember Blade was an interesting-sounding novel that I had included on my Top Ten Books I Wish I Read in 2018 list and which I managed to get around to listening to last year. It took me a while to get through, but it was really worth it, as this proved to be an excellent book that I really enjoyed. I ended up including this novel on a couple of my best-of lists of 2019, including my Top pre-2019 Books list, and I included Wooding on my Top New-To-Me Authors list. I am eagerly awaiting a sequel to this great book, although nothing has been announced so far.
9. Brisingr by Christopher Paolini, narrated by Gerrard Doyle – 29 hours and 34 minutes
10. Howling Dark by Christopher Ruocchio, narrated by Samuel Roukin – 28 hours and 3 minutes
This was another fantastic audiobook I checked out last year. Howling Dark was the incredible sequel to Empire of Silence, and I ended up having an amazing time listening to this second audiobook from Ruocchio. This book was one of my top books and audiobooks of 2019, and I strongly recommend checking out its audiobook format. I am looking forward to the third book in the series, Demon in White, which is set for release later this year, and I may end up listening to the audiobook version of that as well.
11. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, narrated by Nick Podehl – 27 hours and 55 minutes
12. House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas, narrated by Elizabeth Evans – 27 hours and 50 minutes
The latest addition to this list, I only finished House of Earth and Blood a couple of days ago. This was an incredible audiobook that took me a few weeks to get through, but it was really worth it. I ended up really enjoying this outstanding novel, and I’m hoping to get a review up of it in a few days, but it comes highly recommended from me.
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale – 27 hours and 2 minutes
14. Red Seas under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, narrated by Michael Page – 25 hours and 34 minutes
15. The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch, narrated by Michael Page – 23 hours and 43 minutes
16. Eldest by Christopher Paolini, narrated by Gerrard Doyle – 23 hours and 29 minutes
17. Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie, narrated by Steven Pacey – 22 hours and 38 minutes
18. The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, narrated by Steven Pacey – 22 hours and 15 minutes
19. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, narrated by Michael Page – 21 hours and 59 minutes
20. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale – 21 hours and 36 minutes
Hmm, well that turned out to be a rather interesting result. I was honestly expecting more than three new entries onto the list, but those were the only ones that made the cut. Ironically, three substantial books I had listened to throughout the year, Red Metal by Mark Greaney and Hunter Ripley Rawlings, A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie and Tiamat’s Wrath by James S. A. Corey would have made the old top twenty list, if they hadn’t been booted off by the new entries above. Still, the three new additions altered the list a bit, and it was interesting to see that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Cold Iron and Promise of Blood ended up getting knocked out of the top twenty.
Well, that’s it for this latest Top Ten Tuesday. I plan to revisit this list in another year or so and I will make an effort to listen to some additional audiobooks with a long run time in order to add them to the list. In the meantime, let me know what you think of the results above; I am curious to see what the longest audiobook you ever listened to was. Also, if you are stuck at home, you might want to check out some of the novels above. Each of them are really good and can help pass the time, especially in their audiobook formats, which are a lot of fun to listen to.
