I’ve recently started a job driving a shuttle van across the city for the general public. I’ve got a wide amount of leeway, but the audiobooks I’ve been listening to have been… not hitting right. I started with “The Name of the Wind” which was extremely well reviewed. I liked it a lot for the most part, and for the most part so did my passengers, but at one point it started talking about how much the main character would like to see one of the young woman characters naked and would pay for that privilege. In the context of the story it sort-of made sense, but out of context it was completely gross and I was beyond embarrassed. The next day I tried “Consider Phlebas” (again well reviewed) which was a completely different thing, but almost immediately it started in with a vivid description the mc being drowned in sewage- It did not hit right, despite the interesting developments that I would ordinarily probably enjoy for just myself.

I’m looking for suggestions of completely SFW audiobooks I could listen to (through audible, alas) with random passengers of all walks of life coming and going without context. I cannot stress strongly enough that they should be quite literally safe for work. I don’t mind skirting a bit of controversy or challenging preconceptions or introducing new or unusual perspectives (In fact I kind of relish the idea of being somewhat progressive and/or boundary-pushing, though I’d like to start small after these initial embarrassments), but it cant be crude, or sexual, or violent.

Thanks for your attention, please chime in with your suggestions.

Edit: Oh jeez wow this got more traction than I expected. I appreciate everyone’s suggestions! I’ll be trawling through them in the coming weeks and maybe even post my experience with some of them, “shuttle van reviews” or some such. Thanks!

  • dandelion
    2·
    1 month ago

    James Herriot’s books are pretty clean and SFW (like All Creatures Great and Small), but they are also wholesome. They are auto-biographical stories about being a vet in a rural part of north England. He stretches the truth to make a good story, so I would consider them mostly fictional.

    Each chapter is relatively stand-alone, which would work with the context of people coming and going - they might get a little slice of the book, but it won’t matter that they weren’t there for the rest of the plot.

    It just seems like a good author for the general public.

    You could also play popular science books, like those by Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything, At Home, and A Walk in the Woods are all great).

    Something educational, uplifting, and/or wholesome seems like a good context for the general public, especially public transportation.