I love audiobooks. I love print books as well, but I work on the computer all day, so I’m exclusively a book listener these days. That opens up hours in the day when I can enjoy a book: driving, walking, or lying on the sofa with my eyes closed. I listen to two or more books a month.
It’s fair to say I’m addicted to audiobooks. Listening can enhance your understanding of a book and help you catch its nuances. It really comes down to the narrator, and many are stunningly good. Of course, sometimes they aren’t, and the audiobook isn’t worth a listen. One problem with audiobooks is that sometimes I realize I haven’t heard anything for minutes, and then I have to go back and find the last place I remember.
Nonfiction is great on audio, and mysteries and even literary fiction are often just as compelling. No doubt some books, particularly fiction, are better on the page.
There are many literary books, such as Solaris, The Great Gatsby, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Mrs. Dalloway, that I first read in print and enjoyed as much or more on audio.
All of my best audiobook recommendations have narrators who enhance the listening experience, and in my opinion, that makes the literary experience superior to the written page—sometimes.
Here are a few of the best audiobooks I have listened to.
The Ripley Series by Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith is one of my favorite writers. She’s best known for her character Tom Ripley, a wildly sinister figure who, at heart, is a criminal without much of a conscience. On the surface, though, he’s polite, often likable, and a fixer, so to speak.
Ripley does have a difficult backstory that gives him some depth and explains his character deficiencies, but it’s Highsmith’s original plots and tone that make the Ripley books page-turners.
There are five Ripley books: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water. I’ve listened to each one multiple times. Tom Ripley is my favorite psychopath in literature.
The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as the introduction to Ripley’s original sin and his dark and addictive character. It seems to be reinvented on screen for every generation: the French film Purple Noon, starring Alain Delon, in 1960; the Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jude Law version in 1999; and the fine Netflix series Ripley in 2024.
There’s nothing like listening to the five Ripley books back to back if you’re into it. I’ve gone through them all three times so far.
Highsmith wrote many excellent books, and there is much more to her than Ripley.
The Audible versions are narrated by Kevin Kenerly. He doesn’t miss a beat.
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith originally had to publish The Price of Salt under a pseudonym. It would not have helped her career to write a book about a gay protagonist who has a love affair. It was also unheard of at the time to write a story in which a gay couple has a happy ending.
It’s a beautiful and heart-wrenching book about prejudice and attraction. It’s also a fine film, Carol, starring Cate Blanchett, which respects Highsmith’s story.
The Audible version is wonderfully narrated by Cassandra Campbell.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
I listened to The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 2024 after reading it in the late 1980s. Kundera’s Cold War tale has only gotten better with time.
Richmond Hoxie narrates this brilliant reflective story that is the crowning jewel of a major writer at a crucial time in history.
Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
Isherwood’s insightful and poignant stories give us a peek into German attitudes as Hitler and the Nazi Party rise to power. The Berlin Stories is one of the best audiobooks about the run-up to World War II.
Narrated by British film actor Michael York.
Click here to read “David Bowie’s Favorite Books about Berlin and the Cold War.”
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
I first experienced Everything Is Illuminated as a film, which does a fantastic job of capturing the characters and key portions of this wildly creative, funny, and profound book.
As great and underrated as the film is, the book is better and goes much deeper into the history of the characters.
I wish I had written this blurb about this tour-de-force novel: “Imagine a novel as verbally cunning as A Clockwork Orange, as harrowing as The Painted Bird, as exuberant and twee as Candide, and you have Everything Is Illuminated … Read it, and you’ll feel altered, chastened — seared in the fire of something new.” —The Washington Post
What makes the Audible version as compelling as the written one is narrator Robert Petkoff, an Audie Award and Earphones Award winner, who captures the different voices in this intelligent and inventive novel.
The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Hustler, The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
What a magnificent trio of books to come from the same writer. I can’t think of another writer who has written three books of this quality, with such different characters and plots, that have translated so well to audiobooks and film.
Each book has become a memorable film or TV series. The Audible versions are blessed with narrators who capture each book’s voice, color, and meaning.
The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis, narrated by George Guidall
I’ve listened to The Man Who Fell to Earth narrated by George Guidall multiple times. Guidall, a prolific audiobook narrator, captures the tragedy of the extraterrestrial Thomas Jerome Newton in an absorbing and original science fiction novel that says a lot about planet Earth.
I agree with this quote: “Those who know The Man Who Fell to Earth only from the film version are missing something special. This is one of the finest science fiction novels of its period.” —J.R. Dunn, author of Full Tide of Night
The Hustler by Walter Tevis
Joe Barrett captures the voices of Fast Eddie and Minnesota Fats just as well as Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason did in the film, which the Library of Congress selected for preservation in the National Film Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
Narrated by Joe Barrett
The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
Narrated by Amy Landon
Another fine narration of an original Walter Tevis novel, now a remarkable Netflix series.
Click here to read “The Men Who Fell to Earth: Walter Tevis and David Bowie.”
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Solaris by Stanisław Lem is my favorite science fiction book of all time. It’s also a classic science fiction film directed by the Russian auteur Andrei Tarkovsky, and one of the best audiobooks ever. That’s the triple crown for books.
What makes it one of the best audiobooks ever is the intricacy of Lem’s sophisticated language, thought, and imagination. I’ve listened to Solaris three or four times, and each time I’m pulled deeper into a mysterious world.
Alessandro Juliani was the right choice for narrator and does a stellar job of telling a story filled with philosophy, creativity, and the mystery of life and being human.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes is arguably the most famous fictional detective ever created and one of the best-known and most recognizable literary and film characters in any genre. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring Holmes. All but four of the stories are narrated by Holmes’s friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson.
I profess to be a bit of a Holmesophile and have watched most of the films and TV series based on Conan Doyle’s stories. They never get old.
Simon Vance is a prolific narrator of audiobooks for good reason: he makes every book he narrates better. He’s one of my favorite narrators. Search for him on Audible.com and take a look at the many books he’s narrated.
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
I can’t say it better than Ta-Nehisi Coates: James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time is a “book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movement in the 1960s—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today.”
The Fire Next Time is narrated by Jesse L. Martin.
On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
On the Nature of Things by Lucretius is a fascinating and important work of classical Epicureanism by a brilliant and erudite observer.
Much of the science is poetically and hilariously wrong, but how on earth did Lucretius, a Roman poet writing in the 50s BC, understand that the world is made of atoms?
I thoroughly enjoyed this listen and Charlton Griffin’s fine narration.
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann shows white people at their worst, and the Osage pay the price in this twentieth-century tragedy.
Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, and Danny Campbell make a talented ensemble of narrators.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is a favorite of Gabriel García Márquez, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Vendela Vida. It’s also one of my favorite listens.
Juliet Stevenson turns any book she reads into poetry.
Virginia Woolf’s books make some of the best audiobooks, perhaps because of her flowing, intelligent, and experimental style.
The Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries by Henning Mankell
The stories in Henning Mankell’s The Pyramid are smart thrillers that will pull you in and never let go. The collection delves into Wallander’s early years as a police officer.
Dick Hill is a prolific audiobook narrator and a favorite among mystery and thriller listeners.
The Last Innocents by Michael Leahy
I’m a Dodgers fan, but you don’t have to be one to enjoy The Last Innocents.
“Legendary Dodgers Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski, Tommy Davis, and Lou Johnson encapsulated 1960s America: white and black, Jewish and Christian, wealthy and working class, pro-Vietnam and anti-war, golden boy and seasoned veteran. The Last Innocents is a thoughtful, technicolor portrait of these seven players—friends, mentors, confidants, rivals, and allies—and their storied team that offers an intriguing look at a sport and a nation in transition.” —Goodreads
I was a huge fan of sports biographies as a kid. I love the insights and glimpses into these ballplayers as human beings with pasts and challenges they had to overcome.
Narrated by Joe Barrett.
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the tale of a fifteenth-century humanist who rediscovered a lost classic.
The section on Renaissance book hunters searching for ancient texts is gripping. It’s a fascinating read, though I don’t agree with Greenblatt’s premise that Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things caused a “swerve” that moved the world into the modern era.
Click here to read Noovella’s full review of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt.
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini.
Quicksand: What It Means to Be a Human Being by Henning Mankell
Henning Mankell is one of my favorite mystery writers. The Wallander series has been one of the most popular detective series on TV in recent years.
I listened to Mankell’s Quicksand, and it’s sublime! It has little relation to the Wallander detective stories. “Quicksand is an extraordinary book, mixing the intimate detail of memoir with the moral beliefs of a man whose concern with social justice has dictated the pattern of his mature years.”
Mankell wrote this knowing he would die soon, which adds to an already powerful narrative.
Narrated by Sean Barrett.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
“Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos.” —Goodreads
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in print and on audio, is so much more interesting than any of the film adaptations.
Narrated by Dan Stevens.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The first half of Dracula is one of the most terrifying things I have ever read.
“Listening to this full-cast performance turns out to be remarkably suspenseful and chilling.”
Narrated by Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, Katherine Kellgren, Susan Duerden, John Lee, Graeme Malcolm, and Steven Crossley.
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
I think we’ve all seen the kind of damage an uninformed and naive leader with set views can do to the world. Alden Pyle in The Quiet American is the perfect example of that unfortunate, age-old archetype.
I should mention that I’m a huge fan of Graham Greene’s The Third Man (a first-class thriller) and Our Man in Havana(it’s hilarious) on Audible.
“The Quiet American by Graham Greene remains a terrifying and prescient portrait of innocence at large.”
Narrated by Joseph Porter.
Interior Circuit by Francisco Goldman
Francisco Goldman’s insight into Mexico’s politics in [book title] is riveting. I now understand how difficult it is for the country to get its act together when one of its major parties is so corrupt.
Narrated by Thom Rivera.
Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World by Paul Bowles
“These essays provide us with Paul Bowles’s characteristic insightfulness and bring us closer to a world we frequently hear about but often find difficult to understand.”
An excellent representation of Bowles’s finest essays.
Narrated by Raphael Corkhill, Mike Ortego, and Tom Zahner.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
I was a little late jumping on the Haruki Murakami bandwagon, but he’s an original writer with a wild imagination.
What I find most appealing are his humor, his offbeat storylines, and his voices, which are as surprising as they are entertaining.
Narrated by Rupert Degas.
Poetics by Aristotle
It’s one of the finest books on writing I have read. “The plot is the source and the soul of tragedy.”
Narrated by Nicholas Khan and Roy McMillan.
The Plague by Albert Camus
“The Plague is a haunting rendering of human perseverance and futility in the face of a relentless terror born of nature.”
It’s my favorite novel by Camus. It’s remarkable how much he anticipated about our recent pandemic, writing in 1947.
Narrated by James Jenner.
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
“Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.”
This book is so good that I couldn’t put it down until I had finished reading it. Then I listened to it.
Narrated by Susan Orlean.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Sylvia Spark
Miss Jean Brodie is unmistakably, and outspokenly, in her prime for most of the book.
Narrated by Wanda McCaddon.
Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit
Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit is a refreshing addition to the many books about George Orwell that keep him alive for every generation.
All of Solnit’s books translate well to audio. “In The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit explores the ways we make our lives out of stories, and how we are connected by empathy, by narrative, by imagination.”
Solnit is also the perfect narrator for her own audiobooks.
Click here to read “The Best Recent Books about George Orwell.”
George Orwell books: Homage to Catalonia, 1984, Down and Out in Paris and London, Burmese Days
Homage to Catalonia is a gripping first-person account of the Spanish Civil War. It’s Orwell at his best and one of the best books about war ever written.
We know George Orwell through Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, but you’ll be missing out if you don’t read or listen to his essays, nonfiction, and diaries. What you’ll find is an extraordinary person and writer who blends an engaging prose style with firsthand reporting.
I recommend listening to all of Orwell’s nonfiction and fiction on Audible. Opening the door to Orwell opens the door to the truth, and to how the world we live in now was fought for and won.
Click here to read Noovella’s full review of Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
Just Kids by Patti Smith
One of the many treasures of Just Kids by Patti Smith is its intimacy. This is the tale of two special people, Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, in the iconic Manhattan of the ’60s and ’70s.
It was one of the top 10 books of 2010. Smith, of course, narrates Just Kids perfectly.
Click here to read Noovella’s full review of Just Kids by Patti Smith.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Blade Runner is actually Philip K. Dick’s classic science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I’m sure the publisher just changed the cover because of the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford.
As magnificent as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is, I’m not sure it’s even Dick’s best book. He was one of the most creative writers of the twentieth century.
Narrated by Scott Brick.
The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness by Epictetus
“The result is the West’s first and best primer for living the best possible life—as helpful in the twenty-first century as it was in the first.”
It’s the best self-help audiobook ever.
Narrated by Richard Bolles.
Farewell, My Lovely / The Big Sleep By Raymond Chandler
I love that Chandler and I are often on the same page about writing and writers, particularly his respect for Orwell, Somerset Maugham, Fitzgerald, and Dashiell Hammett.
No one does detective fiction better. Philip Marlowe is the epitome of literature’s hard-boiled detective, with enough wit and character that you’re always on his side.
Narrated by Scott Brick.
The Trial / The Castle by Franz Kafka
“The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information.” —Goodreads
The Castle by Franz Kafka is a favorite of Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Roberto Bolaño, and Samuel Beckett.
Kafka is one of my favorite writers, and he’s as good a listen as he is a read. Narrated by George Guidall.
Fun fact: I share a birthday with Franz Kafka, July 3.
Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King
I learned a great deal about the Renaissance in this detailed biography that displays Leonardo in all his glory, eccentricities, and troubling behavior.
Click here to read Noovella’s full review of Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King.
Narrated by Mark Meadows.
Distant Star by Roberto Bolano
“A story that could only be told in the aftermath of Pinochet’s Chile,” Richard Eder wrote in The New York Times. “None has done it in so dark and glittering a fashion as Roberto Bolaño.”
If you’re a Bolaño fan, you’ll love all of his audiobooks.
Narrated by Walter Krochmal.
Click here to read the full review of Distant Star.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré
“In this classic, John le Carré created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction.” —Goodreads
As I mentioned earlier, Simon Vance is a brilliant narrator. He also narrates le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Hiroshima by John Hersey
“On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. Hiroshima, John Hersey’s journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day.”
Narrated by George Guidall.
Different Seasons by Stephen King
Different Seasons is so different from what many people think of as a Stephen King book. Its stories are more literary: “four gripping novellas tied together by the changing of seasons.” —Goodreads
Several of the stories were made into films, a bit of a theme on this list. Great audiobooks seem to translate well to film.
Narrated by Frank Muller.
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
Along with Albert Camus’s The Plague, Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year is one of the two best plague books I have read.
“The shocking immediacy of Defoe’s description of plague-racked London makes this one of the most convincing accounts of the Great Plague ever written.” —Goodreads
Narrated by Nelson Runger.
Venice: A New History by Thomas F. Madden
I found the history of Venice to be incredibly helpful to my understanding of the western world.
“Filled with compelling insights and famous figures, Venice A New History is a monumental work of popular history that’s as opulent and entertaining as the great city itself.” – Goodreads
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini.
Click here to see the best books about Venice, Italy.
De Profundis and Other Prison Writings by Oscar Wilde
It’s a remarkably spiritual narrative from someone with the imagination and poetry to convey the darkness, pain, and passion he went through on his way to Christ.
“De Profundis is one of the greatest love letters ever written. However, it is far more than a passionate entreaty: it charts Wilde’s humiliating downfall, the rejection of his indulgent lifestyle and a new religious awareness.” —The Folio Society
Narrated by David McCallion.
So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why it Endures – Maureen Corrigan
I’ve researched and written two historical fiction novellas about Scott and Zelda. That research included reading almost every book by and about Fitzgerald. The bottom line is that this is the best “Fitzgerald” book published in the last 20 years. It’s one to savor. I plan to read it again.
Narrated by Maureen Corrigan.
Click here to read a full review of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures by Maureen Corrigan.
Suspended Sentences by Patrick Modiano
Patrick Modiano delves into each narrator’s confusion, solitude, and memory in three subtle mysteries. Although little actually happens in each novella, I found myself drawn so close to these characters that their strange power haunted my own sense of being. I can see why he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Narrated by Bronson Pinchot, Sean Runnette, Arthur Morey.
Fascism A Warning by Madeleine Albright
“A Fascist, observes Madeleine Albright, ‘is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.’”
Narrated by Madeleine Albright.
The Odyssey by Homer
It’s classic literature that’s a real page-turner. The Odyssey was meant to be spoken, and it works on every level.
“The Odyssey is literature’s grandest evocation of every man’s journey through life.” —Goodreads
Narrated by Ian McKellen.
The Fun Stuff: and Other Essays by James Wood
Wood is, to say the least, passionate about books and writers. His dazzling critiques are here for you to examine, discover, and disagree with, but ultimately he opens countless doors to the wonderful and bottomless worlds of fiction and nonfiction.
Great literature is never dated.
Simon Vance proves once again that he’s one of the great narrators.
Click here to read a full review of The Fun Stuff: And Other Essays by James Wood.
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Tender Is the Night often gets overlooked in favor of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous The Great Gatsby.
However, it’s the more devastating of the two novels, as it mirrors Fitzgerald’s own life and travels through Europe, along with his alcoholism and his wife Zelda’s mental illness.
Tender Is the Night is set against the backdrop of the French Riviera in the 1920s and follows the glamorous but troubled lives of psychiatrist Dick Diver and his wife, Nicole. It’s a story of brilliance and love slowly unraveling under the weight of excess and time. As you would expect from Fitzgerald, the prose glistens, and it’s worth hearing aloud for that reason alone. The depth of this novel also merits multiple listens and rewinds. The Audible version, narrated by Therese Plummer (or Trevor White in other editions), beautifully brings out both the emotional undercurrents and Fitzgerald’s prose.
Narrated by Therese Plummer
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Meditations remains one of the most powerful works of Stoic philosophy ever composed. It was the personal journal of Marcus Aurelius (yes, that Marcus, the Roman emperor), and much of it was written on the front lines of war. Its reflections on duty, resilience, mortality, and inner peace feel startlingly modern and deeply comforting. It’s not the kind of book you read once (or even read straight through); it’s one you return to for guidance. The Audible versions narrated by Richard Armitage or Roger Davis (using Gregory Hays’s translation) turn Marcus Aurelius’s thoughts into an intimate, almost meditative listening experience that actually hits harder than reading the text alone. Try it—you won’t be disappointed.
You might enjoy the “Best Books About Stoicism.”
Narrated by Duncan Steen
Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren
Leonard Koren’s Wabi-Sabi is a short but profound meditation on the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. It’s a literary antidote to perfectionism, celebrating beauty in the humble, the weathered, the asymmetrical, and the unfinished. If you have a creative person in your life—or you’re a creative yourself—consider this a sign to pick it up. You’ll find that Wabi-Sabi offers a unique perspective. The audiobook, narrated by Brian Richy, is an easy, contemplative listen that feels like a quiet conversation with a wise friend.
Narrated by Brian Richy
Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
As the title suggests, Collected Fictions is the definitive compilation of Jorge Luis Borges’s mind-bending short stories: labyrinths, infinite libraries, mirrors, dreams, and philosophical puzzles that question reality itself. From “The Library of Babel” to “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” Borges’s stories are intellectually playful, mysterious, and endlessly rereadable. On Audible, the narration by Cástulo Guerra (or George Guidall in abridged editions) captures the elegant, slightly detached wonder that makes Borges’s stories so addictive.
Narrated by Castulo Guerra
Find the best audible books ever on Audiobooks, Amazon/Audible, and Bookstores who are not Amazon.
You might also enjoy The Best Audible Book Narrators.
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