Hey! Squiggles took mine! Tim Curry can definitely do magic with his voice. When I first heard him do the voice of Count Olaf, I knew I was on to something good.

I guess I’ll cast a vote for George Guidall then.

Barbara, I hadn’t heard about Frank Muller either. :(

I'm listening to "The Twentieth Wife" and while the book is dreck the narrator, Senha Mathan, has a lilting, melliflous voice and inflects the dialect just perfectly to my ear.

I'm fairly new to audiobooks--I started listening to them probably about 6 months ago, but since then listen to at least one a week (I have a LOOONG commute).

So far, my hands-down favorite narrator is Scott Brick. I also really like Neil Gaiman reading his own works(Stardust, Coraline, The Graveyard Book), George Guidall (American Gods), Lenny Henry (Anansi Boys). I was also really impressed with Campbell Scott (Cell by Stephen King) and Mare Winningham (Lisey's Story by Stephen King).

I just finished Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I've decided a major reason I loved it so much was the reader, John Lee. He gave the characters something I don't think I would have gotten by just reading the book. My favorite was his rage voice. It gave me chills.

Oh! Cool! I'm now thrilled to find more of James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels, a few of the older ones unabridged. But the reader is Mark Hammer and not Will Patton. Anyone familiar with Mark Hammer?

Thank you!

Nora Roberts' Sign of 7 trilogy was recommended to me. Each book has a different reader. Is anyone familiar with these readers and are they worth listening to?

Blood Brothers: Sign of Seven, Book 1
reader: Phil Gigante

The Hollow: Sign of Seven, Book 2
Reader: Marie Caliendo

The Pagan Stone: Sign of Seven, Book 3
Reader: Dan John Miller

I'd also hate to start a series and end up with one of the narrators driving me nuts in one way or another! So all three...?

Thanks!

Chey

OF ALL TIME- Tim Curry. Hands down. Best narrator that was ever born. I love him! He is British, but he slips into American accents so easily- unlike most British narrators, who over pronounce their words and drawl. He also makes every voice distinct without it getting annoying and he does female voices extraordinarily well. He's a huge part of why I love Series of Unfortunate Events so much, I think.

Okay, gotcha--very good to know! You & Dacia have been such a great help! :o)

You go to MY LIBRARY and manually select each part of the book to download (click on green checkmark for that part, I believe); you can download more than one part at the same time, rather than waiting for each to download.

That is really good to know, John! One thing I'm a little confused about, though, is how do you download a whole book if you don't say yes to download now? Thanks!

I use a non-iPod brand mp3 player for my audible books, but your nano should work just fine. Audible books take up very little room, so you can store quite a few on a modest-sized player.
A tip: After purchase, the system will prompt "Download now?" - if you say yes, it will only download the first part of a multi-part book! Be sure the entire book has transferred before signing off of your audible session.

Thank you, Dacia!

I have an iPod Nano, so I imagine that would work. Although it might be nice to have a separate device to leave in my car and always have there since that's where I listen to all of my audiobooks. And the Shuffle is at a reasonable price. Each audiobook track is like a song track so I imagine it's possible to store a lot of books on your iPod.

I appreciate all of the help and advice!

Actually, I don't burn to CD because you have to have a specific CD burning program to use it with Audible (something they conveniently don't mention very many places). Instead, I invested in a $70 iPod shuffle and use that. It is really convenient! I didn't think I'd like it, but I do. Overall, it turned out to be much cheaper than trying to burn to CD.

Thanks John & Dacia!

At first I had a problem finding who the reader was for books 1 & 2, but then I did a search with both of their names and all of the books popped up with Barbara Rosenblat as reader. Kewl.

Okay, one more question. Really. ;-)

When you purchase from Audible, it shows the choices to download a book, including burning to CD. On average, how many CDs do you find you need to burn a whole book, say 500 pages. Numerous like when you purchase a set new, or does it take very few? I'll know to stock up on CDs if I need to!

Thanks!

Chey

I don't know about Susan O'Malley. I know, however, that several of the books were done by her in one place and by Barbara Rosenblatt either earlier or later. I buy mine from Audible, and I was sure to buy the Barbara edition.

Cheyenne wrote: "I love Amelia Peabody! I haven't read her for years, but I have her books all lined up on one shelf up until the the book where Ramses &-- okay, won't spoil it.

I just checked Amazon, and the unab..."

Recorded Books shows both of those titles as having been narrated by Barbara Rosenblat - you should be able to get your library to order the CD's for you. If not, you can rent the Rosenblat-narrated book for the same cost as buying the other.

I love Amelia Peabody! I haven't read her for years, but I have her books all lined up on one shelf up until the the book where Ramses &-- okay, won't spoil it.

I just checked Amazon, and the unabridged version of book 1, Crocodile on the Sandbank, is read by Susan O'Malley. Book 2, The Curse of the Pharaohs, is also read by her, unabridged. (I will only listen to unabridged)

Is Susan O'Malley a good reader? I just listened to an audiobook where the female narrator totally ruined it for me. I couldn't finish the book. What bothered me the most was that reader's attempt at male voices. There's nothing like trying to listen to a woman trying to sound like a man but sounding like a woman trying to sound like a man, especially when it's the hero.

Anyway, anyone familiar with Susan O'Malley?

Thanks!

Chey

Barbara Rosenblatt also does the Amelia Peabody Egyptian Mysteries by Elizabeth Peters. They are TERRIFIC! She makes such a believable Amelia, that even when I'm reading the books to myself, she's the voice I hear. I think she's half the reason the series entertains me so much.

Barbara Rosenblatt reads Bridget Jones' Diary (and its less-interesting sequel) on audio. She does a terrific job of going over-the-top with inflections to emphasize the parody of it all!

I liked Humphrey Bower's narration of The Power of One so much that I purchased Shantaram because he also narrated that. It was also excellent.

Cheyenne, I really like Will Patton as a narrator as well. Occasionally, he overacts a bit, but, on the whole, he's very good. And, J, thank you for the heads up on David Hyde Pierce. I'm a huge fan of his.

I need to find the names of narrators -- I can't remember her name, but the reader on the Bridget Jones books was spot on -- I nearly drove into oncoming traffic because she made me laugh so hard.

I also love the woman who reads most of Elizabeth George's stuff.

But the best matching of reader and book in my opinion? David Hyde Pierce reading "Foudini: Autobiography of a House Cat."

I am thrilled to have stumbled across this group. All my reading seems to be from audiobooks these days. I always have one in my car and make sure I have another ready before I finish the one I'm currently listening to.

The thing I'm most excited about is hearing about good narrators. I hate buying a book and the narrator drives me out of my mind with a male reader's monotone voice, or a female reader's attempt at male voices and sounding like a woman trying to sound like a man, or a male reader's inability to make a decent attempt at a female voice...

And when you spend $30-$50 for an unabridged audiobook, you really want to get a darned good reader.

My favorite readers that I can think of are Will Patton who narrates James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels; Jim Dale of all of the Harry Potter books; and I liked John Slattery and Reg Rogers on James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge's first Detective Michael Bennett novel, Step on a Crack.

I'm going to read through all the comments and start making my list of who to look out for!

I've been absolutely shocked by the quality of a relatively new narrator. Emily Card (or Emily Janice Card) is reading "Podkayne of Mars" in an audible version. It is absolutely TERRIFIC. The quality of it, the believability of her as Podkayne just blows me away.

My favorite narrator is Carole Boyd.

What I love about her narration is that she interacts with the characters and changes her voice in an amazing way, and let me tell you that she does that perfectly! also her British accent is one of the reasons why I love her narration. :)

The first time I was introduced to Fisher Stevens was his role in the movie Short Circuit. He plays one of the funniest characters I have seen in any movei and it happens to be on right now as I am posting it.
I agree, Lamb was one of the funniest and most entertaining Audio Books I have listened too. I enjoyed A Dirty Job too.

I love the reading of the Redwall series by the author Brian Jacques(who is a professional storyteller) and a cast of people.
I second the Sissy Spacek reading of To Kill A Mockingbird zas wonderful.
I am going to get the Peter Pan series on audio and i am glad to know who narrates them.

I've commented on Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff previously but I'll do it again here. This was one of the most entertaining books ever! 85% give it either 4 or 5 stars here on Goodreads. That's among the highest I've ever noted. Fisher Stevens does an excellent job on the narration. What a great read (listen)!

Narrator: Fisher Stevens

He read A Dirty Job: A Novel by Christopher Moore and I am currently listening to to Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal also narrated by him

I like the way he reads.

I've been an audible.com member for quite a few years and am delighted to find this group!

Narrators I've really enjoyed are:
Barbara Kingsolver - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Elizabeth Gilbert - Eat, Pray, Love
Barbara Rosenblat - the Amelia Peabody series (by Elizabeth Peters). She *is* Amelia for me; no one else quite measures up.
Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
Lori Petty doing Stephanie Plum (series by Janet Evanovich). I was disappointed when the series switched to Lorelei King, who isn't nearly as much fun to listen to.

Few and far between are the authors that can give a nice narrative as well, here is one I liked.
Paul Auster and his book The Book of Illusions. I hope others find it as compelling as I did.

Several of you seem to have a love/hate feelings about Scott Brick, hate here, Narrators you don’t like? love here, Who are your favorite narrators? in the end each to his/her own.

I used to get Simon Brett's books on tape from the Dayton, Ohio Library and even bought an ex-library copy of one I especially liked. I haven't found any free downloads of his books from the public library I now use, but found them at the Simply Audiobooks web site for rental or download:

http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/

Haven't listened to Brett's stuff, but always looking for new authors.

jenny - YAR:> - much as i love donada peters, listening to her do scots is kinda goofy, whereas with Malcom it's like breathing - there is no one in between me and the characters.

haven't tried the hack ( love that designation!) reading what sounds like a theatrical series of untimely deaths. thanks for the lead!

Stephen Briggs, who reads Terry Pratchett, does wonderful accents too. I just finished listening to Monstrous Regiment recently and it was a pleasure.

Jude & John - I've listened to several of the Hamish MacBeth's - some were read by Peters and some by Malcom. I enjoyed both, but they were better read by a man. And Malcom has such a wonderful accent. I've read a few of the Agatha Raisen's, but prefer the MacBeths.

Have any of you listened to the comic mystery series featuring hack actor Charles Paris by British author Simon Brett? (Not Dead Only Resting, Corporate Bodies, An Amateur Corpse, Cast in Order of Disappearance...). Some are read by Brett himself, some by Simon Prebble - all are great fun. If you like M.C. Beaton, you'll like these.

I've heard Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter, I was visiting relatives in England and they have kids so the tapes were in the car. He's terrific but it took some getting used to just because I was so used to the Jim Dale version. For one; the centaurs didn't have Welsh accents and it took half the fun out of "Mars is bright tonight."

Speaking of Beaton, I've read the entire Agatha Raisin series, but in print - I love Donada Peters, but just not as Agatha.

Haven't tried Hamish, but if Malcolm reads them, I'd consider it.

john - yes! Graeme Malcom is a wonderful reader. He does a lot of the profoundly silly Hamish MacBeth mysteries and i gobbled everything the liberry had one year like chocolates.

since then, i will try just about any book he works with.

Graeme Malcom does a great job with The Lost Ark of the Covenant by Tudor Parfitt -- this was a case where I'm fairly certain the audio experience was better than reading the print book for that reason.

I like a number of narrators. My top two are Jim Dale with the Harry Potter series, and Rob Inglis who read The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I've heard a lot about the narrator, Stephen Fry, who read the British version of the Harry Potter series. I'd love to hear him read the series, but I haven't found an economical way to achieve that goal.

Richard Poe did a great job on T.C Boyle "Drop City" and the different characters there.
In this sample there is not much of a character change but what a joke if you listen to the end...

Nadia/Donada / Wanda McFaddon - is one of my all time favorites. check her out for 19th century female novelists and some of the Lynley series from Elizabeth George.

wow - thanks for the Cherry Jones lead! love this book - sounds like an inspired pairing.

I have heard Simon read; he's good!

Simon Vance is a wonderful narrator who is receiving a new award for narrators given by Booklist Magazine and the American Library Association. The message below was posted by Simon earlier today on the Audio Publishers Association list:

Now, forgive me, but I'm going to blow my own trumpet here because I think some of the people I should thank subscribe to this list:
Booklist Magazine and the American Librarians Association have just announced that their 2008 'Voice of Choice' (catchy little title for a brand new award) is... yours truly!

To all the librarians who may have had a hand in it - I thank you. I have been asked to speak at the Odyssey awards thingy tomorrow night in Anaheim (the ALA are having their annual wing-ding there right now) and perhaps I may get to see a few of you.
- Simon

Adding on my 5 star list of narrators, Cherry Jones I just loved how she gave voice to the mutes, in her book The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

Thanks for posting this Barbara. I know Frank Muller is one of the favored readers in this group and he will be missed. I wonder how many books he narrated? I enjoyed his renderings of several Elmore Leonard novels.

During a trip to my library this afternoon, I saw a display commemorating Frank Muller and saying that he died on June 4th! I knew that he had a very serious motorcycle accident in 2001, but hadn't heard that he died. I've had such wonderful experiences with him and audiobooks that it feels like a friend died. The first audiobook that addicted me was Their Eyes Were Watching God, read by Ruby Dee. But, right on the heels of that I listened to Prince of Tides, read by Muller. What doors those two audiobooks opened for me!

The following is a link to the family's website and announcement:
http://www.frankmullerhome.com/