Audiobook from iTunes.

If you find you really get into audio books, I'd suggest a subscription to audible.com, you get 1 free book a month (I often buy the most expensive book I can with 1 credit thus really getting something like %30 - %50 percent off) plus you get a decent discount being a club member, PLUS it's a format that works on iPods and OTHER MP3 players that are also audible devices. *G*

p.s. you do sort of have to look into who is reading them, the Princess Diaries (which I use as 'light reading' and are pretty good) are all read by Anne Hathaway, the woman who played the main cahracter in the movies. Helps muchly.

BTW audible can be setup to automatically import into itunes so you don't have to worry it being hard to deal with or something.

The only thing to be careful of with audible.com is that if you're outside the US a fairly large proportion of their catalogue is not available to you. Found that out the hard way - bastards!

I listened to Mitch Pileggi read an X Files audio book and it was so excrutiatingly boring it nearly put me off audio books for life. He was worse than a robot!

I listen to the Jim Dale Harry Potter audio books. They are excellent. Jim does different voices for each character but they work. He also does the voice over for "Pushing Daisies". I also listen to Bruce Campbell read his own novels.

This first thing I look for in an audio book is whether it is unabridged and then who is doing the reading.

The first audio book I listened to was Harry Dresden #1 read by James Marsters, then Stephen Fry's Harry Potter. They've been the yard stick by which I've measured all audio books since. Voice to me is of primary importance. I have a couple of my favourite books and if the reader's monotone or goes too far into the unnatural (often squeaky) voices, I can't listen. Although when I heard Jonathon Frakes pretending to be Deanna Troi I almost herniated myself laughing.

The reader is the crucial thing with any audio book; it can really make or break it. I've listened to quite a few. There are degrees of "dramatic" reading. I wouldn't call Stephen Fry's performance of the HP books undramatic, in the sense that he does make a distinction in how he delivers dialogue from different characters, though something like Nigel Planer's readings of Pratchett's Discworld novels, which I've been listening to lately, tend to be a lot more of a dramatic performance. Then again, the material lends itself to that sort of thing and he's the right sort of reader for it.

Among my favourite audio books are Roy Dotrice's readings of several of George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books. They're fabulous.