It has been three years now since I discovered the amazing world of audio books. How I ever lived without it I do not know. Now I listen to at least some audio every day:
- I have my IPOD speakers set up in the bathroom off our bedroom. I listen to audio when I get up and while I get ready for the day.
- A second audio is in my CD player in my kitchen. I listen to this one while I make coffee, cook, and clean.
- A third audio is my jeep’s CD player. I listen to that one as I drive to and from work or wherever I am going.
I love to also listen to audio while I am mowing the lawn.
Audio has doubled the books I am able to get through in a year. When I don’t have time to sit and physically read a book, I can always listen to one.
I LOVE great audio… and those of you who listen to audio know that not all audio books are treated alike.
What I want to create here is a list of your FAVORITES as well as mine. I am going to compile the responses into a sidebar page so people can click and see a list of really great audio to choose from. If you have a blog, I will link your recommendations back to your blog (and if I can find your review of that audio, I will link it to the review.)
Please feel free to list as many as you would recommend.
To start things off, here are a few of my favs:
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Night by Eli Wiesel
Medium Raw by Anthony Boudain
Bossypants by Tina Fey
One Good Dog by Susan Wilson
Rococo by Adriana Trigiani
Any Harry Potter book read by Stephen Fry or Jim Dale
Worst Case by James Patterson (and this entire series)
Now, I would love to hear what your favorites are!
Book Journey 
My favourite audio books are the Harry Potter-books, read by the amazing Stephen Fry 🙂
I do love them Elida and have recommended them! I love both narrators!
I fell in love with audio books through the Bloody Jack series – such fantastic audios – they’re like movies without pictures!
I listened to the first two Lydia – I still need to finish those! 😀
Try Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. The reader is fantastic and has a huge repertoire of Asian, English, American and other accents. The stories are also very good as well as the historical setting.
OOH that one is totally new to me Harvee!
Harry Potter series narrated by Jim Dale, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, Soulless by Gail Carriger, The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
Thanks Christina!
My favorites: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, read by Jeremy Irons; Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, read by Alan Rickman; The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, read by Scott Brick; Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, read by Jenny Sterlin; Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, read by Martin Jarvis; The Host by Stephenie Meyer, read by Kate Reading. 🙂
OOH Thanks Amanda! I think it was you who originally told me I had to listen to Kate Reading!
Oh, I’m loving this list!! Jeremy Irons reading Lolita?? Scandalous!!
LOL Alison 😀
This is link that goes to my blog’s page, Pantheon of All-Time Great Audiobooks:
http://dogearedcopy.blogspot.com/p/pantheon-of-all-time-great-audiobooks.html
Where I have a review on my blog for the title, you can clock on the title. I’ve also linked to the publishers’ web-sites where possible.
Thanks you Tanya! 😀 I will be nosing around there!
My favorites are The Help, The Gurnsey Liteary and Potato Peel Society, and Valentine series by Adriana Trigiani. I am always looking for suggestions too. I only listen to them in the car. Right now I am listening to Eat Pray Love and its okay. 🙂
Oh thanks Brittanie! I have read the Valentine books – but audio would be good I bet too! I am currently re-reading the first one on my Nook for book club.
Oh, my – where do I start? Let’s see….
Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani
Alice I Have Been and The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilynn Jackson
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (read by Jeremy Irons)
Lucy by Laurence Gonzales
Slam by Nick Hornby
Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Hmmm, I’ll come back if I think of more!
Fabulous Carrie! You are now the third person to mention Adriana Trigiani! 😀 That is AWESOME!
You have greatly added to my wish list!
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Downside series by Stacia Kane
The Truth in Our Stars by John Green
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Those are some of absolute favorite audios other than Harry Potter which was what began my audio book obsession. I can’t wait to see the finished list! Great idea!!
Thanks Donna…. I have listened to The Graveyard Book and read The Book Thief.. but the rest are ones to check out! 😀
Ha! You sound like me with the audiobook addiction. They even got me using earbuds, something that I thought I’d never do!
All-time favorite audiobooks is a toughie! I’ll have to go with recent favorites. I think the Three Pines series by Louise Penny, narrated by Ralph Cosham, is definitely a standout (starting with Still Life) and a good bet for the general reader, even if not a real mystery fan. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson were both outstanding and both narrated by Jonathan Davis. Faith by Jennifer Haigh was narrated by Therese Plummer, and was great. In the memoir category, I thought Diane Ackerman’s One Hundred Names for Love was read really well by Barbara McCullogh, and it was a tricky one to do because it was about the author’s husband who suffered aphasia after a stroke. I also agree with other commenters about The Help being very well done on audio!
Thanks Laurie – great suggestions!
I have so many favorites!
The Outlander series read by Davina Porter
The Bloody Jack series read by Katherine Kellgren
Fever Series read by Joyce Bean and then Phil Gigante and Natalie Ross
Iron House by John Hart read by Scott Sowers
These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf (Ali Ahn, Angela Lin, Angela Goethals)
You’re Next by Gregg Hurwitz read by Scott Brick
Thanks Nise – I really want to try the Outlander series but the audios seem SO LONG! One of these days I will cave 😀
I’m almost halfway through 11/22./63 on audio and, so far, I’m loving it!
That one is definitely on my list Kathy! Glad to hear it is audio worthy! 😀
Ooh I’m looking forward to your review, Jathy! I think I might get that one with my “free” credit next month on audible.
Hmm iPhone.. That should say Kathy!
Jenny that is exactly what I am thinking of doing – my next audible credit goes to this one 😀
My all-time favourite for audiobooks is the BBC radio play version of the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s full-cast, including such notables as Michael Hordern, who voices Gandalf and Ian Holm who did the voice of Frodo Baggins.
It really is an experience to hear – they don’t stint on Tolkien’s poetry, setting most of it to music – my favourite is the last one, Bilbo’s Last Song. Always brings me to tears.
Elena that is really interesting! I did listen to Lord Of The Rings this past summer and thought it ok… but not great…. I am pretty sure it was not the BBC radio version.
My favorites are already on this list, but you can be sure I’m going to keep coming back to this post for more recommendations!!
– Ready Player One
– 13 Reasons Why
– Bossypants by Tina Fey
– Rococo (Mario!!!!)
– The Help
I want to listen to the audio of The Night Circus, I hear it’s fantastic!
I can’t believe I left it off – 11/22/63 by Stephen King. AMAZING audio!
Oh and I want to listen to 11/22/63 too! Maybe I will do that one next on mi IPOD….. Milton Podricker….
Mario so cracked me up Alison! I read Thirteen Reasons Why but I do want to go back and listen to it on audio too!
The Outlander Series is really good on audio. Now that I have kids I can’t listen to them in the car anymore since they are not kid appropriate in the least!
For children the Magic Tree House series is really good, Mary Pope Osborne is both the author and the narrator and she does different voices for each of the kids and puts her own feeling into them.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.
The Maze Runner books by James Dashner
I haven’t gotten very far into it but so far The Night Circus with Jime Dale reading is making me recall Harry Potter but in a good way of course!
The Swan Thief by Elizabeth Kostova was neat because a different actor did each of the voices, so whoevers voice was narrating the chapter had a diferent actor like Anne Heche doing the voice so it was easy to picture each character differently.
Harry Potter of course!
I’m sure I have more but that is probably overdoing it already!
Really – Outlander series is not kid friendly? I did not know that….I do want to listen to The Maze Runner too! Thank you Jill!
I’d second the Harry Potter series. I almost think of Jim Dale’s voices as much as the movie actors.
The Chronicles of Narnia series- each is read by different British actors
I just finished Alan Cummings reading Leviathan, and that was very good.
OOH thanks Sarah – all good suggestions for me to add to the list!
I love all of the Alexander McCall Smith No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books read by Lissette Lecat.
Maybe that would be the way to go for me on these…. I tried reading one of the books and just could not get into it… that was quite a while ago too…
This is a great idea! I’ve tried to get into audio a couple times unsuccessfully but this time I think it’ll stick. I’ll be checking back for your list! I don’t think I really have enough to make a recommendation.
Thanks Jenny, I did a similar post last year and it gave me enough great audio references to live off of for quite a while 🙂
I have had the same experience with audiobooks – I love, love, love them, and they have easily doubled my annual reading. Although a few of these are mentioned above, here is my list of all time fave audiobooks:
Queen of the South – Arturo Perez-Reverte
Anything by James Lee Burke – narrated by Will Patton
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Hemingway (narrated by Campbell Scott)
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peal Pie Society – Mary Anne Shaffer
Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby (narrated by Jennifer Wiltsie, Ben Miles, Bill Irwin)
The Water is Wide – Pat Conroy (narrated by Dan John Miller)
Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston (narrated by Ruby Dee)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson (narrated by Simon Vance)
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote (narrated by Scott Brick)
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier (narrated by Anna Massey)
Anything by Nevada Barr – narrated by Barbara Rosenblat
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini (read by author)
My Grandfather’s Son – Clarence Thomas (read by the author)
Shanghai Girls – Lisa See (narrated by Janet Song)
Candles Burning – Tabitha King & Michael McDowell (narrated by Carrington McDuffie)
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell (narrator?)
I loved Kite Runner on audio! Thank you for these other titles! 😀
I listened to almost every audiobook in my small town public library back when I was commuting 30 minutes each way to work. I then moved onto podcasts but still enjoy a great listen! Some of my favorites are:
The alphabet mysteries, Kinsey Milhone… Fun to listen to
Patricia Cornwell books would never been read by me if not for audio – Kay Scarpetta
Diane Mott Davidson books are very fun to listen to. Just don’t forget to check out the recipes!
Brad Pitt narrates “A River Runs Through It” and that was a nice listen.
I loved Ann Patchett’s “Bel Canto” on audio
I listened to The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry. I liked Symmetry better as a listen.
I loved The Life of Pi as a listen, as well as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Wow. Just felt like you were in his head. Also listened to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Such a memorable experience. I read it after. Love love love.
I don’t really have reviews on my blog but have written about a few of them, as they are favorites!!!
I have Life f Pi but have not started it yet… I bet Bel Canto would be good!
Kinsey Milhone is fun to listen to from the Sue Grafton series. I also tried The Green Mile years ago and that was a good listen too. I second The Chronicles of Narnia and The Spiderwich Chronicles was good too.
OOH – loved the Green Mile (Movie) I bet audio would be fantastic – thanks Jill!
I left you some direct links to reviews of my favorites yesterday. It’s probably stuck in your spam filter as wordpress hates links. They were:
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Doc by Mary Doria Russell
To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal
Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman
Thanks Leslie – I will check the filter 😀 Oh – and I LOVED The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
I love the Chet and Bernie mysteries by Spencer Quinn. The stories are narrated by Chet the dog, and I think any dog lover would love them. Chet reminds me of one of my dogs, so I suppose that helps. 🙂
I also loved The Hunger Games on audio, and I have Bossypants waiting to be listened to.
LOL Dixie – narrated by the dog? I may need to check that out.
My two favorite audios I’ve ever listened to were Skippy Dies (which features a brilliant cast of Irish actors and actresses) and Watership Down (the narrator was Ralph Cosham and he was just brillant — of course the book is brilliant to start with).
OOH thanks Jenners! I have heard such good things about Skipp Dies too!
I just started to listen to audio this past year. I had no idea they could be so fun and bump up the amount of books I could get in!
I will be looking for some of these great suggestions.
Thanks Shelia!
I absolutely loved “Between Shades of Gray”!
Ooh, just what I needed–a list of audio recommendations! I just discovered audio last year and that was what put me over the top on my reading goal for the year. My one problem is that it is very easy for me to avoid reviewing these. I download them from my library’s digital site so I listen to them and then forget to review them because I don’t have physical copies staring me in the face! Thanks for master-minding this list!
My favorites (that I’ve reviewed)
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson, read by Peter Altschuler
M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman, read by the author (probably anything read by Gaiman. I could listen to him all day.)
Favorites that I have not reviewed yet
The Sweet Potato Queens’ First Big-Ass Novel by Jill Conner Browne, read by the author
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris, read by the author
Bloody Jack books by L. A. Meyer, read by Katherine Kellgren (which I discovered thanks to you!)
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, read by Jayne Entwistle
Thanks for adding to the list! Gad to see you too enjoy audio 😀
Some of my favorites audiobook series are the Serge A. Storms series by Tim Dorsey, particularly those read by Oliver Wyman, the Mickey Haller books by Michael Connolly, starting with The Lincoln Lawyer, The Hap & Leonard series by Joe Lansdale, read by Phil Gigante and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels read by Dick Hill.
I do have my favorite lists from 2010 http://wp.me/pKOrz-q , and 2011 http://wp.me/pKOrz-7z that you can check out for more suggestions.
Wow – those are a bunch of new titles to me 🙂 Thanks!
You know I haven’t gotten into the audo books as much yet. But I’ve found a few podcasts that I really enjoy. They are short stories that are anywhere from 30 minutes to just short of an hour long. I love the vocals and sound effects they have.
The one set is Tales from the Archives, set in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrances world by Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine.
Great picks here. Thank you!
Thanks Melissa 🙂