Recommendations for book + audiobook

[simc]

I've recently been reading and listening to Yu Hua's To Live. I've bought a copy of the paper book and downloaded a audiobook version from yousheng8. The audiobook seemed to match up fairly well with the text, so I was able to "read along" with the audiobook.

However I've noticed that audiobook adaptions of books often are different from the text, so you are unable to read along or use the text to understand what you are hearing. Can anyone recomend some audiobooks which:

•  a good read
• relatively easy to read
• has a good quality audiobook which matches up 95% or more with the text

 

Thanks in advance

[huyilin]

Hi, I'm new on the site and happy to reply to you. Last year I read and listened to quite a few work of literature. If you have access to the Apple appstore you can find a lot of great 有声书 apps. You'll find claasic works of literature under 经典文学。One vey accessible novel is 家 by 巴金, the recording has 55 parts and is very close to the original. I also enjoyed 山楂树之恋，the recording only left out minor passages. 围城 by 钱钟书 is also available though unfortunately the recorded version I was working with was corrupted in some areas. Many short stories by Lu Xun have also been recorded.

Good luck!

Huyilin from Canada

[roddy]

There's a 圈子圈套 audiobook, I believe. 

[imron]

One vey accessible novel is 家 by 巴金

I don't think this is very accessible for non-native speakers who don't already have several books under their belt.  Think of it like Dickens.  Good literature, interesting story, great insight in to the culture of the time, but ultimately not something you'd recommend to a learner of English as one of their first few novels, or as something easy to read.

[simc]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've found all of the 圈子圈套 audiobooks in the local library so I might make that my next read.

 

Answering my own question here ... there is also a audiobook for 许三观卖血记 by Yu Hua by the same voice actor who did the one for 活着. But I didn't feel in the mood to read two Yu Hua novels back to back.

[imron]

If you haven't seen it already, 《许三观卖血记》was discussed here.

[roddy]

Simc - welcome to the site, and if you hit any problems with your listening / reading, do ask on here. That's what we're here for. 

[simc]

Just to give a quick update ... the book I eventually settled on was 蜗居, which was adapted into the TV series that has already been discussed on this site. I got the audiobook from amazon.cn (17 CD set).

[JustinJJ]

Quote

One vey accessible novel is 家 by 巴金

I don't think this is very accessible for non-native speakers who don't already have several books under their belt.  Think of it like Dickens.  Good literature, interesting story, great insight in to the culture of the time, but ultimately not something you'd recommend to a learner of English as one of their first few novels, or as something easy to read.

 

 

I just finished 家 tonight and thought it was a great read, a felt frustrated on behalf of the characters, particularly mingfeng. I haven't read too many Chinese novels yet (half a dozen or so) but I felt my comprehension was higher than the other Chinese novels I've read. The difficulty for someone dipping their toes into Chinese novels is that it is a long book, but maybe a good one to look at after reading 活着，许三观卖血记 and then 3 or 4 others.

[imron]

Poor Ming Feng...

 

I remember not long after reading the part where she committed suicide, I was skimming through later parts of the book and stumbled across a section where Ming Feng was alive again and saying how it was all a hoax to avoid having to marry the older guy.  Then I go back to reading the rest of the novel expecting Ming Feng to reappear at some point only to get to that point and realise that in skimming I'd missed the part where that was just a dream.

[imron]

but I felt my comprehension was higher than the other Chinese novels I've read

The great thing is, the more novels you read, the more your comprehension of new novels will increase. As I mentioned earlier, 《家》will definitely be easier to read with several other novels under your belt.

Also, if you're thinking of reading the others in the series, 《春》 is a lot slower going - lots of wistful staring and longing and was quite an effort for me to maintain interest for the whole thing. 《秋》 was my favourite of the three.

[JustinJJ]

I agree. I found the first novel I read （活着） quite tough, at least in the beginning, so I would only look up just the words that I kept seeing and my reading speed was slow. However when I read 家 it seemed like a much easier read, so I could look up almost every word I didn't know (at the end of my reading session) without interferring with the reading experience. 

 

I'll probably read the others at some point but there are some other (shorter) books I'll be looking to read first. My girlfried has recommended 尘埃落定 so I might read that one next.

[耳耳语语]

On Librivox I just found 3 free books by Lu Xun :

https://librivox.org/author/2654?primary_key=2654&search_category=author&search_page=1&search_form=get_results

I think the reader (a female chinese reader named Jing Li) has a clear voice and did a really good job.