Audiobook narrators, your recommendations?

December 16, 2023 2:55 PM

Wanting to listen to some really attention grabbing fiction again on audible (or pre audible, i can rip cds etc no problem).. however my dilemma is I seem to be picky about who/what sorts of voices I can tolerate listening to when it comes to narrative..

Obviously something like jim dale's harry potter is ..amazing acting, but I don't require a masterfully masterfull performance.. I just need the narrator to NOT sound overly pedantic.. I dont quite know how to describe this, but maybe if you know what i mean you know what i mean .. I care less about the voice acting skills, but I just can't seem to focus when the recording sounds too "neat" or sterile or instructional .. I guess in practice the ones i find to be this way are young-sounding folks with American accents. I guess a other descriptor for what I don't like would be overly chipper, bushy tailed, or motivational sounding. Sigh, I hope this doesn't make me sound nuts .. its not that i cant be cool with this delivery for non fiction or, say, a ted talk .. in some contexts it matters less.. but for my concentration span to be equal to following fiction and not spacing out here or there (less important in non fiction because if you miss something its not quite as important!) I seem to require this level of picky ness

Anyone i haven't alienated with this odd ask .. I'd be so grateful for recommendations! Names of narrators and or some of their more gripping titles would be awesome.

Apologies for typos writing this on laggy device with small screen

posted by elgee to Media & Arts (30 answers total)

My favorite male narrator is Will Patton. His readings of Denis Johnson and James Lee Burke's work are wonderful.

For women, Rachel Bavidge and Xe Sands are great.
posted by dobbs at 3:17 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

all the expanse books are on audible and are narrated by jefferson mays, who is outstanding.
posted by j_curiouser at 3:25 PM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Seconding Will Patton and he also reads a lot of Stephen King stuff. Great voice and, this may be oddly specific but I like that he does female voices in dialog obviously but without doing a distracting falsetto.
posted by ftm at 4:07 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Julia Whelan is fantastic. I listened to her do her own book, Thank You For Listening, and Rachel Hawkins' The Villa. I've got her reading of My Oxford Year (which she wrote) on hold. Whelan used to be a child actress who now writes and does audiobooks instead. She's done a lot so she has a big back catalog.

I just finished Lisa Jewell's None of This is True read by Nicola Walker. I don't know if Nicola Walker has done other audiobooks but she was great.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 4:11 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't even especially like audiobooks and find the narrator of An Unkindness Of Ghosts truly excellent to listen to and her contributions an enhancement to the story.
posted by teremala at 4:16 PM on December 16, 2023

Jim Dale also narrated Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus and did an amazing job.

I thought Sutton Foster and Imani Jade Powers narration of Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women was excellent.

If you are interested in a bit of absurdist fund, Fisher Stevens has recorded several of Christopher’s Moore’s novels, including Lamb and A Dirty Job.

Apparently Kate Reading gets a lot of hate, but I enjoy her narrative style.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:27 PM on December 16, 2023

I know exactly what you mean. Gerard Doyle's reading of the Slough House series is excellent: he reads the words but doesn't tell you how you should hear them. He animates dialogue but not too much and the voices are consistent across books. Ruth Ozeki reads her own work beautifully; I especially liked 'A Tale for the Time Being.' Aidan Kelly makes Fintan O'Toole's excellent 'We Don't Know Ourselves' completely compelling.
posted by gerygone at 5:06 PM on December 16, 2023

I do not like the way Neil Gaiman reads his own works (sadly), but you might.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:34 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Barbara Rosenblatt is very versatile and expressive in a clear speaking way. Just right! Nicholas Boulton has a wonderful English accented voice.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 5:51 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I like Patrick Tull (although he is now deceased) but most of the books that he narrates are historical fiction and I do not know if they will be to your taste. His audible page is here and you can listen to short samples of his work. I particularly enjoy the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian and I think that Patrick Tull reads them superbly.
posted by statusquoante at 6:17 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Natalie Naudus is one of my favorite narrators, and I'll second Julia Whelan! I'm also a big fan of Bahni Turpin's work.
posted by lavenderhaze at 6:19 PM on December 16, 2023

Kobna Holdbrook Smith is my absolute favourite, he transmits his enjoyment of the story through his voice.

Another fabulous narrator is Juliet Stephenson. Listening to her read Jane Austen helped me to understand layers of the stories I never noticed before.
posted by Zumbador at 7:11 PM on December 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is outstanding.
posted by bq at 7:13 PM on December 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

I want Kobna Holdbrook-Smith to just sit and talk into a microphone for hours on end, so I can close my eyes and listen to it, like floating in a spa pool or sunbathing. LORD that man is good.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:21 PM on December 16, 2023 [6 favorites]

Seconding Juliet Stephenson. Her narration is just excellent. I also love Will Patton's narration.

I'm fond of Simon Vance, but he may not fit your criteria. Likewise Simon Prebble.

Ray Porter has and energetic delivery that works really well with books like Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary.

Lenny Henry reading Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys is pretty great too.
posted by Archer25 at 7:45 PM on December 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

Adjoa Andoh read a few Ann Leckie books I listened to, and she was fantastic, characters were distinct without feeling like she was “doing voices.” She’s done a few other books including Matrix by Lauren Groff.
posted by momus_window at 8:27 PM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Donal Donnelly does exquisite readings of James Joyce. Dubliners is what I listened to most recently.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 9:33 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I enjoy Simon Vance, Adjoa Andoh, Moira Quirk, Khristine Hvam.
posted by verbminx at 10:31 PM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I just listened to Meryl Streep read "Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett. It's a terrific performance.

Also the audio book of "Daisy Jones and the Six" is amazing. The book is a faux oral history, and the audio book has several different high-end actors reading the various roles.
posted by Charity Garfein at 1:28 AM on December 17, 2023

gaiman came up - I like his narration. serendipitously, I'm listening to neverwhere now.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:33 AM on December 17, 2023

Gideon the Ninth's narration is excellent. Really engaging and immersice
posted by ellerhodes at 6:34 AM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’ve enjoyed quite a few audiobooks read by the Scottish voice actor Cathleen McCarron.

Also now enjoying one by Lesley Sharp (English accent).
posted by penguin pie at 9:05 AM on December 17, 2023

too "neat" or sterile or instructional ... overly chipper, bushy tailed, or motivational sounding

Just chiming in to say that I recently picked a narrator for my own book, and this was exactly the problem I had with 90% of the options my publisher sent me. They either sounded like AI voices, or like they were brightly selling laundry detergent, or both. (Luckily there was one exception and she was available!)
posted by Beardman at 11:38 AM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

In the tradition of AskMe I will dare to say that a narrator who initially struck me as insanely over the top ("The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: Churchill's Mavericks: Plotting Hitler's Defeat" by Giles Milton) turned out to be a really food fit for the author's style of writing.

And that was the author himself, taking enormous joy in getting genuinely excited by the story he was telling.

But mostly KBH is the best.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:31 PM on December 17, 2023

Some of my favorite narrators are famous actors, and I think what I like about them is that they don't over-act the reading. Campbell Scott is hands down my favorite and has a bunch of titles on Audible, but Jake Gyllenhaal narrating"The Great Gatsby," Kate Winslet narrating"Matilada," and Claire Danes narrating "The Handmaid's Tale" have all been so good.
posted by shornco at 8:31 AM on December 18, 2023

I'm not much for audiobooks, but one book/narrator combination I'm glad I didn't miss was Shelly Frasier's narration of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition is spot on -- a bit world-weary to match the protagonist. Gibson is best known as a science fiction writer, but the book is not science fiction.

Shelly has done a lot late 19th-/early 20th-century and classic lit such as E.R. Burroughs, H.G. Welles, Kenneth Graeme, Lucy Maude Montgomery, Lewis Carroll and Machiavelli among others, but I've not heard any of them. It looks like the largest gathering of her work is on Audible, but she's also listed on Audiobooks.com.
posted by lhauser at 7:50 PM on December 18, 2023

But mostly KBH is the best.

wenestvedt, who or what is KBH? Thanks.
posted by penguin pie at 2:37 PM on December 19, 2023

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

I started reading a series; after I listened to his reading of the fourth or fifth I went back and listened to all the books I’d read again because his performance was such an enhancement.
posted by bq at 9:37 PM on December 19, 2023

Audiobook readers I love include Dion Graham, Richard Armitage and Hugh Fraser. Fraser played Hastings to David Suchet's Poirot and has read many of Christie's Poirot novels. I think he does a better job than Suchet (who has also narrated some, but tends to be more histrionic than I prefer).

Richard Armitage is probably most recently/best known for playing Thorin in the Hobbit movies, but has one of those lovely dark brooding voices that is a pleasure to listen to. He reads a variety of titles and tends to do a good job with making voices sound distinct from each other without over-acting.

Dion Graham I first discovered narrating Cadwell Turnbull's No Gods, No Monsters and did such an amazing job that I have since been seeking out anything he reads and have listened to a variety of titles I probably wouldn't've otherwise.

Also just a plug for checking out your local public library, which probably has a wide variety of eaudio for you to borrow at no cost, which can make it easier to try something and then stop if you don't like it.
posted by Athanassiel at 6:34 PM on December 20, 2023

Thanks to this thread, I checked *Rivers of London* (a book I've been meaning to read anyway) out in audiobook form via Libby/Overdrive.

Kobna Holdbrook Smith is amazing. As good as anyone I listed in my earlier comment, and well deserving of the accolades he's already received here.
posted by verbminx at 12:31 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]