A couple years ago while prepping for a roadtrip to Chicago, my travelling companion and I thought that getting an audiobook would be a nice way to pass the time. On the way out of town, we stopped at a Half Price Books and picked up a no-name murder mystery. It was read by one person and was borderline dreadful. The reason was, the guy reading it did the voices for all of the characters, females included. At first we couldn’t tell what was going on. If it was supposed to sound like a guy as a gal or what (especially since that actually was part of what was contingent in the mystery).
Fast forward a couple years to this past weekend. I loaded up Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States CD : Highlights from the 20th Century to the iPod and listened to that up to the cabin. This one was read by Matt Damon (with an intro by the siblant “s” of Howard Zinn). Matt Damon must have been chosen for his stature and not speaking voice as his fricatives were pretty harsh and overly breathy. (His emphasis coulda used some work too). The book itself, like the mystery above, was good, but the reader’s abilities were a bit too distracting.
I’d like to try more but I’m not sure what would be good out there. (Am I being too picky to ask for content and presentation?) Any recommendations?
Jim Dale’s readings of the Harry Potter series is outstanding, especially because of his voice characterizations. You can recognize who is speaking at almost every turn.
Regards,
Shodan
I recommend Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much Is True. It really held my interest and had the advantage of being long.
I also get a lot of books for the kids. It keeps them from fighting in the back seat and I can subject their pliable little minds to all kinds of good stuff. All of us have loved the Lemony Snicket books, especially those read by the incredible Tim Curry.
Johnny Heller is another audiobook reader whose voice I enjoy.
Thanks for the thread! I’m always in the market for recommendations. I find that I’ll listen to stuff that I wouldn’t actually read…odd.
Look for George Guidell and Frank Muller. They are both amazing audioreaders. Guidell does a lot of classics, so you can get content and presentation. I have Frankenstein read by him, as well as Dune. Frank Muller was in a near fatal motorcycle accident two years ago and has lost pretty much all of his ability to speak, much less read audio books. Read about him and his recovery here
Avoid things read by the author, for the most part.
I listened to The Da Vinci Code as an audio book, narrated by Paul Michael, and it was horrific. Terrible. I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed reading it anyway (Dan Brown is maddening) but the voice characterizations were comically bad.
For Sofie Noveau he raised his voice and added a psuedo-French accent. “Zees is Sophie Novooo! You are in greeeeeat daingair!” For Cyrus he lowered his voice and made it gravelly, like he was doing a bad imitation of Sling Blade. Completely ruined it.
I’ve only listened to a few audio books, but by far the best narrator was Victor Garber. He does most of the James Howe books.
Except The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the rest of the books in that series. Douglas Adams’ recordings of those books are excellent.
Try one of David Sedaris’ books.
I’ve liked most of the Terry Pratchett books put out by Isis. I’m afraid I don’t know who read which books. But I liked listening to Guards!Guards! as much as I liked reading it, and that’s saying something.
Jenny Stirlin does a great job reading the Mary Russell mysteries by Laurie R. King. Barbara Rosenblatt is fabulous narrating the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. I can’t remember the narrator offhand, but the Recorded Books version of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series is just phenomenal. I haven’t liked the other readers in that series. Rob Inglis’ narration of * The Lord of the Rings * is also terrific. Overall, Recorded books has outstanding readers, which may explain why they are so much more expensive.
If you prefer ensemble readings, The Readers’ Chair has some excellent editions of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series.
Lies and the Lying Liars read by the author, Al Franken, was very good. And I second the David Sedaris idea!
Patrick Tull reading Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey & Maturin books is simply amazing. I’ve listened to three in a row and I’m looking for the next one.
I’ll second the recommendation of George Guidall. I’ve heard him read several books, but the most memorable was Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Excellent book, excellent reading.
Tim Curry did an outstanding job with the Lemony Snicket books. Hilariously morbid – worth listening to even if it is kid lit.
Another one that’s sticking out in my mind is Tom Robbins’ Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates read by Keith Szarabajka.
You really should check out your local library. They generally have a wide selection of audiobooks, so you can listen without taking much of a financial risk.
I think all (or at least most) of Pratchett’s books put out by Isis are read by Nigel Planer. He really adds a lot to the stories with his voices.
I am an audiobook freak. I get them from the library, from amazon.com, from ebay and from video stores. I have about 50 on my shelf right now, getting ready for this upcoming semester’s commute. I am on the road about 10-12 hours per week.
My very favorite audiobook is A Venetian Affair by Andra di Robilant. I also loved the way Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel was read. It was beautiful and both stories were so moving that I cried. Those two are the ones that strike me right now, but I might think of more later to post.
I used to work for an audiobook company, producing and editing the books.
We exclusively used celebrities or authors for the reading.
At the end of each cassette side, the talent would pause for three seconds, and then say, “End of Side One” (or two or three, etc.)
Except…
Robert James Waller read his book Bridges of Madison County for us. It was done at a studio in New York, and when the tapes were sent to us, there were no “side end marks” as we called them.
So the owner called me into the studio and had ME read the side marks!
But I digress…
The favorite book I ever recorded/edited was Carl Reiner reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. Oh, the characterizations that Mr. Reiner could put into his reading!
It was an incredible audiobook.
Another fun one was Russell Johnson, the “Professor” from Gilligan’s Island, reading his book about the TV series. For the life of me I can’t remember the title of it.
Anything that Jonathon Winters has read is incredible. We had over 15 reels of outtakes from Winters - he would go off into voices and characters totally unrelated to the book.
And my final recommendation is “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues,” read by actor Michael Nouri. I edited the book - it is available abridged or unabridged.
Harlan Ellison reading Ursula Le Guin’s *A Wizard of Earthsea * is good. And I’ll second the Jim Dale HPs, though I know a lot of people like Fry’s reading better.
If voice characterizations bug you, try non-fiction. We listened to an abridged Molecules of Emotion that was good, and are gearing up for some Stephen Hawking (read by the author, I believe).
If you like to back up in a book and re-read that clue, or if you’re distractable, get tapes, not CDs. The CDs have to be backed up to a section break, which gets tedious if you’re wanting to stop the narrative from time to time.
Backing up pokey, here. I just finished “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” (Sedaris) and was laughing so hard in the car that I didn’t care that someone had just cut me off/was going 20 mph in a 50 mph zone, etc. I had also listened to Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot on tape (Franken) and wish I had done the same with Lying Liars. It was a good book, but it would have been much better on tape. You definitely want to hear comedians read their own stuff!
Thanks for the Lemony Snickett recommendation - I bet I’ll like that!
I dunno… I’ve listened to the entire earthsea cycle on audio, and I think Harlan is probably the weakest reader in it. He gets overexcited and it’s a little hard to follow what’s going on, and his voice is just a little peculiar sometimes. 
Still an enjoyable listen though.
Have to throw in a little plug for audible.com here… there are definitely advantages to downloading your audio books instead of getting physical delivery of them. (Though their selection isn’t as good as amazon’s… no harry potter or piers anthony, for instance.)
By the way… this is something I’ve always wondered about audio books. Is it always just convention and budget to have only one reader for the book?? (Though, come to think of it, I’ve heard a reading of the novelization of star trek four that was mostly read by george takei with nimoy doing some inserts… can’t remember if he only did spock’s voiceover segments or dialog as well. Hmmm…)
I’ve always thought you could get some pretty kick-ass audiobooks with several different readers… almost turning them into miniature radio plays… one reader does the major narration and certain parts, other parts and special narration segments get assigned to the other readers. That way you can have women doing women’s dialog and men doing men’s dialog. 
Probably would cost a little more (depending on how famous the cast of readers was.)
Bruce Coville is part of a group that does audiobooks in that manner. My library website is down right now, and I don’t have time to search, or I’d give you the name.
Thanks beetle. I’d be interested in the info if you can get it… either in this thread, or by email, kelworth at chriskweb dot net Thanks!!
I second (or third?) the recommendations for Nigel Planer (Pratchett books) and Patrick Tull (O’Brian books). Both are excellent.
As a rule, I don’t like this much, but I recently listened to Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. The chapters alternated between a male and female viewpoint, and they used a male narrator and a female narrator for the appropriate sections. That was ok.
I like a book reading to be pretty straightforward. It does help if the narrator can indicate who’s speaking by changing his tone of voice. Pacing is important too. And tone. I just finished listening to The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I liked the book, but the narrator (Kimber Schraf) adopted a very arch, just-between-us-girls kind of tone that I guess she thought was appropriate to the content of the book. I found her tone VERY distracting, and it’s a tribute to the story itself that I kept listening. I may go back and actually read this one, just to get the narrator’s version out of my mind.