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Audible is doing a store-wide sale through the end of the month. If you have a Premium Plus membership (I do), every single title is deeply discounted, many to $2 or $3. If you don't, there are still a whole lot of good discounts. If you often listen to audiobooks, it's worth signing up for Premium Plus just to access the full sale.
If you listen to audiobooks at all, check it out. I've already bought enough to last me for the next year, and I'm still browsing.
Here's a few audiobooks I highly recommend for the synergy of book and performance. Every one of them is a delight in itself, even if you've read the book before. I have reviews of most of them if you'd like to know more about the books themselves.
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie, read by Hugh Fraser. Hilarious.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, read by Chiwetel Ejiofor. If I could recommend just one audiobook, this would be it. A great book with an absolutely perfect performance. $6.99 without membership.
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand. Multiple narrators.
The Cass Neary series by Elizabeth Hand, narrated by Carol Monda. Absolutely perfect match of book to narrator.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman, read by the author. This is my favorite of his audiobooks but I love him narrating his own books. I'll listen to him reading anything but my second favorite is his reading of Neverwhere.
Revelator by Daryl Gregory, read by Reagan Boggs.
We Sold Our Souls! by Grady Hendrix, narrated by Carol Monda. No one does tough, world-weary , middle-aged women like Carol Monda.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, read by Shaun Taylor Corbett.
The first four Dark Tower books by Stephen King, read by Frank Muller. (The narrators switch at book five as Muller was in a motorcycle crash that he never recovered from.)
Pet Sematary by Stephen King, read by Michael C. Hall. Brilliant performance.
Stephen King books in general are excellent read aloud - his storyteller voice translates beautifully to audio. I also love Duma Key read by John Slattery, Lisey's Story read by Mare Winningham, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon read by Anne Heche, Salem's Lot read by Rod McLarty, Holly read by Justine Lupe, anything read by Frank Muller, King's own reading of Bag of Bones, and many more.
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon, read by George Newbern. Beautifully captures the book's sunlit nostalgia, beauty, and terror.
Hell House by Robert Matheson, read by Roy Porter. Porter's thunderous narration goes marvelously with the book's melodrama.
True Grit by Charles Portis, read by Donna Tartt. If you've only seen the movies, you have GOT to listen to the book. It's brilliant and Tartt reads it brilliantly.
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, read by Andy Serkis. The whole thing is great fun but "Riddles in the Dark" is an absolute masterpiece.
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, read by Rob Inglis. A traditional reading rather than a performance, completely immersive.
Memoirs are generally best read by their authors; in this vein, I especially enjoyed Midnight Son by James Dommek Jr., Sarah Polley reading Run Toward the Danger, Jenette McCurdy reading I'm Glad My Mom Died, and Notes From a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi.
And a bonus, not exactly an audiobook but it's in the audio catalogue: Speaking Truth to Power Through Stories and Song: Words + Music, by Tom Morello. You don't need to be a fan or even familiar with his work to love this.
What are some of your favorite audiobooks? And if you too are browsing the catalogue, please comment with any good finds you spot!
If you listen to audiobooks at all, check it out. I've already bought enough to last me for the next year, and I'm still browsing.
Here's a few audiobooks I highly recommend for the synergy of book and performance. Every one of them is a delight in itself, even if you've read the book before. I have reviews of most of them if you'd like to know more about the books themselves.
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie, read by Hugh Fraser. Hilarious.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, read by Chiwetel Ejiofor. If I could recommend just one audiobook, this would be it. A great book with an absolutely perfect performance. $6.99 without membership.
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand. Multiple narrators.
The Cass Neary series by Elizabeth Hand, narrated by Carol Monda. Absolutely perfect match of book to narrator.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman, read by the author. This is my favorite of his audiobooks but I love him narrating his own books. I'll listen to him reading anything but my second favorite is his reading of Neverwhere.
Revelator by Daryl Gregory, read by Reagan Boggs.
We Sold Our Souls! by Grady Hendrix, narrated by Carol Monda. No one does tough, world-weary , middle-aged women like Carol Monda.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, read by Shaun Taylor Corbett.
The first four Dark Tower books by Stephen King, read by Frank Muller. (The narrators switch at book five as Muller was in a motorcycle crash that he never recovered from.)
Pet Sematary by Stephen King, read by Michael C. Hall. Brilliant performance.
Stephen King books in general are excellent read aloud - his storyteller voice translates beautifully to audio. I also love Duma Key read by John Slattery, Lisey's Story read by Mare Winningham, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon read by Anne Heche, Salem's Lot read by Rod McLarty, Holly read by Justine Lupe, anything read by Frank Muller, King's own reading of Bag of Bones, and many more.
Boy's Life by Robert McCammon, read by George Newbern. Beautifully captures the book's sunlit nostalgia, beauty, and terror.
Hell House by Robert Matheson, read by Roy Porter. Porter's thunderous narration goes marvelously with the book's melodrama.
True Grit by Charles Portis, read by Donna Tartt. If you've only seen the movies, you have GOT to listen to the book. It's brilliant and Tartt reads it brilliantly.
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, read by Andy Serkis. The whole thing is great fun but "Riddles in the Dark" is an absolute masterpiece.
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, read by Rob Inglis. A traditional reading rather than a performance, completely immersive.
Memoirs are generally best read by their authors; in this vein, I especially enjoyed Midnight Son by James Dommek Jr., Sarah Polley reading Run Toward the Danger, Jenette McCurdy reading I'm Glad My Mom Died, and Notes From a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi.
And a bonus, not exactly an audiobook but it's in the audio catalogue: Speaking Truth to Power Through Stories and Song: Words + Music, by Tom Morello. You don't need to be a fan or even familiar with his work to love this.
What are some of your favorite audiobooks? And if you too are browsing the catalogue, please comment with any good finds you spot!
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I know you bounced off Gideon The Ninth, but I thought the audiobook, narrated by Moira Quirk, was brilliant. I 100% would not have finished the book if I'd read it, but Quirk makes it enjoyable. (She also did a good job with Harrow The Ninth, but not good enough to save the book for me.)
And I'm listening to Wolf Hall on and off, it's read by Dan Stevens who gives a brilliant performance.
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Often after long days drinking coffee and being very detail-oriented at work, I can't relax enough in the evening to read. Audiobooks to the rescue!
I've listened to all of Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings books read in German by Matthias Lühn. Sometimes while walking, sometimes while ironing, most recently just sitting in bed last thing at night doing cross-stitch. He's done the Expanse books as well, so I may go listen to them if I get voice actor withdrawal symptoms.
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I love audiobooks. A good book which is narrated well is such a pleasure. My favourite are The Rivers of London series read by Kobna Holbrook-Smith (urban fantasy), the Will Darling Adventures series by KJ Charles performed by Cornell Collins (historical queer romance), The Flat share by Beth O' Leary performed by Carrie Hope Fletcher and Kwaku Fortune ( m/f contemporary romance);Americanah by Chimamanda Negozi Adichie performed by Adiola Andoh (contemporary post-coloniale fiction).
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T Kingfisher got a great narrator for her Clockwork Boys duology. I’m very fond of Swordheart and her various Paladin audiobooks, too (warning - current last book in that series ends on a doozy of a cliffhanger, and it’s been a few years with no sign of a sequel yet, alas)
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Anything narrated by Katherine Kellgren, particularly the Bloody Jack series by L. A Meyer
The #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, narrated by Lisette Lecat
The Lord John Series (Outlander side-stories with a gay protagonist) by Diana Gabaldon, narrated by Jeff Woodman
The Dandelion Dynasty series by Ken Liu, narrated by Michael Kramer (who is incidentally the narrator for the Wheel of Time series that I'm listening to now, along with his wife who does the female POV characters). Note that the first book is infuriating in many ways, see my Goodreads review but it's almost not necessary to read it, as it's just backstory for books 2-4 which are about the next generation and in which the author has apparently taken these complaints to heart.
The Underwood & Flinch saga, narrated by the author Mike Bennett - this is a self-published vampire horror/adventure with a dollop of humor, and it's really good. During one of his Q&A sessions I called in to ask if he had theatre training and was surprised to learn that he doesn't, because his narration is excellent. I support the author on Patreon, where his current "season" is posting as a podcast, but his previous stories are available on Audible and I really recommend them, they're great.
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If you like grimdark, Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy is FABULOUSLY read by Steven Pacey. And if you ever had any desire whatsoever to read Warhammer 40K, the Ciaphas Cain novels are (a) inspired by the Flashman novels by George Macdonald and (b) read with that perfect British self-deprecating timbre by Stephen Perring.
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi read by Lameese Issaq is fab. (Middle-aged woman pirate! What’s not to love?)
Also, Brian Blessed reads his own memoir, though we hit distracted from listening to it when something else we were waiting for dropped and we keep forgetting to go back to it.
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Thanks for the recs!
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Darn, it is not on Audible. CD only.
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He's read a bunch of other books for Audible, though most of them don't immediately appeal. The only one that really calls out to me is City of Bones by Martha Wells.
Also, I second the recommendation for the audiobooks of the Rivers of London series.
(Also an antirecommendation: I'm currently listening to Permutation City by Greg Egan, read by Adam Epstein. I keep wanting to stop listening because the reader is so annoying. In the narration, the words feel like stones in the road that he's jumping from one to another. Dialogue is much better done, but there's not all that much of that so far (25%). I'm reading it for a book club or I'd probably bail.)
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