We all know that truly great audiobooks are made by the quality of the narration. Thankfully, there is a wealth of great narrators working in the medium, and countless hours of expert storytelling are available for your perusal right here on Audible. While every listen and narrator are different, the very best performers take the words from the page or script and bring them to life with unique character voices and nuanced inflections, bringing both energy and depth to descriptive passages. Here are just a few of the best audiobook narrators working today, whose extraordinary talents offer exceptional listening experiences.
Stephen King's tense psychological thriller is brought to life by Santino Fontana's smooth, concerted narration. From the suspenseful passages of action and description to the variant drawls of King's characters, Fontana brings a palpable level of expertise to this chilling story. Also the narrator for the Hunger Games prequel and the voice of the villain we most love to hate, 's Joe Goldberg, Fontana’s career has been on an upward trajectory. The same talents that make him such a force in The Institute will surely thrill listeners of whatever he tackles next.
Jim Dale surely had no small task ahead of him when he was asked to narrate the beloved Harry Potter series. How does one faithfully and compellingly capture the hundreds of characters and the beloved settings, and impart the well-known story beats with the gravitas they deserve? Thankfully, his proper British narration succeeds brilliantly, fully capturing the drama, intrigue, and humor of this beloved series. From the opening description of Privet Drive, all the way to the final strains of the epilogue, you will be gripped by Dale's vocal portrait of the Wizarding World.
Dion Graham is a narrator of the highest esteem, bringing life and pathos to every character he portrays. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a brutal, violent book, the first in a new trilogy of African fantasy novels. True to form, Graham brings in a performance worthy of every syllable of Marlon James's writing, delivering the inner thoughts of the character known only as Tracker, as he and a band of unlikely allies navigate a world of mystic and mortal dangers.
Richard Armitage's voice is deep, soothing at times and commanding at others. In , Armitage elevates Heather Morris's novel into an intricate, human portrait of the atrocities of the infamous Nazi concentration camp. There is one specific line that sticks with me, in large part thanks to Armitage’s narration, when Lale says to a young man: "We have fists. They have rifles. Who do you think is going to win that fight?" In this moment, the horror of this time in history is depicted in the power imbalance between prisoners and soldiers, and Armitage's portrayal of the subdued emotion behind the words is enough to give you chills.
