All my favorite audiobooks have been narrated by an old English guy. They’ve been great and are extremely talented, but it’s getting a little “one note” and I need something different.
It doesn’t need to be a person with a strong accent or even an accent at all. Could just be an American English accent. Just something different lol.
My favorite audiobooks so far: Shogun, anything by Joe Abercrombie in the First Law Series, The Night Circus, Hyperion, and The Terror.
Happy to give examples of regular books I like too if needed.
I love scifi and fantast mostly, but in open to other genres. Non fictions not really my thing. No young adult or horror please.
by SeekersWorkAccount
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Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, narrated by Jeff Hayes. Fun story, surprising amount of heart & one of the gold standards for narration.
I know exactly what you mean. Looking back, the last few I read without that type of narrator:
Vita Nostra, by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko
The Last House on Needless Street, by Catriona Ward
Sourdough, by Robin Sloan
Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey
I recently finished the Murderbot Diaries series. The first couple of novellas are available with an Audible sub without spending coins. It’s scifi and narrated by someone with an American accent 🙂 And it’s really good too, my only wish is that the books were longer, you can listen through like 2 of them in one day.
Edit: the narrator is Kevin R. Free, his work on this series is excellent, probably a huge part why I liked it so much.
*Remote Control* by Nnedi Okorafor
* read by Adjoa Andoh (female, British and West African accent)
* weird mythical sci-fi
*The Bruising of Qilwa* by Naseem Jamnia
* read by Fajer Al-Kaisi (male, Canadian with occasional Arabic accent)
* fantasy medical mystery
*Parable of the Sower* by Octavia Butler
* read by Lynne Thigpen (female, African American)
* dystopian
*A Psalm for the Wild-Built* by Becky Chambers
* read by Em Grosland (American, non-binary main character read by a trans/non-binary narrator)
* cozy sci-fi (you’ll need it after Octavia Butler)
Anything narrated by Bahni Turpin is great, I always get happy when I hear her voice on a book. She just has a really endearing, expressive manner about her that makes me love the characters she reads. If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin is probably my favorite of hers.
Was also going to suggest Xe Sands reading Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey as someone else did here – I’m midway through and really loving it.
I’m listening to The Hunger Games books at the moment and they’re narrated by Tatiana Maslany.
Lorelei King narrates the Mercy Thompson series brilliantly. The books are a fun urban fantasy series about a Were-coyote who knows but is not part of the three main supernatural factions. Her biggest superpower is common sense, followed by the ability to get the three factions, werewolves, vampires, and fae, to sit down and talk instead of flying off the handle. Book one is *Moon Called*
Maggie Gyllenhaal narrating The Bell Jar
Andrew McCarthy narrating Imperial Bedrooms
Pablo Schreiber narrating American Psycho
I usually read fantasy and scifi as well. I was loaned The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, narrated by Lisette Lecat. I’m about halfway through and it’s been really good. It’s about a fictional female detective in Botswana.
I have been enjoying Scott Brick as a narrator. They’re literary popcorn, but The Oregon Files by (mostly) Clive Cussler, action adventures, are a good ride. Bad Guy Does End Of World Bad Stuff, Guys Find Out, Hijinx Ensue, Bad Guys Are Challengingly Clever But! GOOD ALWAYS TRIUMPS sort of stuff. I like them when I really want something satisfying and reliable. Also there are *a lot* of them so I don’t have to think about what to read next for a while. Plus, I could probably listen to Scott Brick read grocery lists and be content and engaged.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Garaham Jones! The audiobook is read by Sean Taylor-Corbett, and it looks like he’s narrated a bunch of other books by indigenous authors too, including Rebecca Roanhorse and Tommy Orange.
Literally anything by Seanan McGuire. My personal favorite is the Ghost Roads series (about the ghosts and magic users that travel America’s roads and highways), which is a tie-in to the InCryptid series (my second fave, follows the exploits of a family of rogue cryptozoologists), but you don’t need to have read InCryptid to follow them. If the Fae Courts in the modern day are more your thing, October Daye is where it’s at. Ever wondered what happens to those children that go on magical adventures in fantastical worlds when they get back ‘home’? Her Wayward Children series is wonderful and dark.
If you’re looking for some horror, she also writes under the name Mira Grant. The Newsflesh series is her take on a zombie outbreak, and the 2 book series Rolling in the Deep and Into the Drowning Deep will make sure you never look at mermaids the same way again.
Jurassic Park, narrated by Scott Brick
The Old Man and the Sea, narrated by Donald Sutherland
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, narrated by Lisette Lecat
The Second Stranger, narrated by Tamsin Kennard
The Return, narrated by Sarah Scott
Rebecca, narrated by Anna Massey
Fledgling, narrated by Adenrele Ojo
The Dead Zone, narrated by James Franco
The Martian, narrated by RC Bray
Michael Kramer does a good job.
Any book read by Richard Poe is a treat. That guy does an absolutely incredible job… if you’ve never listened to him… I suggest East of Eden. Phenomenal.