Favorite Audiobooks

By door_rusty92

I started messing around with audiobooks a couple years ago, but I kept putting it off. Back when I was a kid, I’d listen to stuff on tape on long trips/commutes, and the narrators always sounded like they were reading instructions for a dishwasher or something. Like, super flat and mechanical. But honestly, I’m really glad I finally tried them—otherwise I never would’ve stumbled on some great books and authors, and I wouldn’t have made much progress on my “to be read” pile. Anyway, I’m wondering what people’s favorites are. Like, do you love a specific audiobook more because of the story, the narrator, or just the whole vibe? These are a few that really stuck with me: **I’m Glad My Mom Died** by Jennette McCurdy, read by Jennette McCurdy Hearing Jennette tell it herself made it hit way harder. It was both devastating and kind of uplifting at the same time? There were definitely parts where you could tell it was hard for her, and it showed in her voice. I also didn’t realize I was dealing with OCD until I got diagnosed this year, so the way she talks about compulsions and that “magical thinking” stuff felt super familiar. **NOS4A2** by Joe Hill, read by Kate Mulgrew This one was so good. Even though there’s just one reader, each character felt like its own person—Charlie Manx, Victoria, Lou, Wayne, etc. Kate’s Bing Partridge especially stood out. She made him feel genuinely creepy and unsettling, like she was going for “something’s off” the whole time. **Paradise Sky** by Joe R. Lansdale, read by Brad Sanders I swear sometimes the narrator and the book are just a perfect match. Brad Sanders has this deep, gravelly voice that fits Lansdale’s writing really well. His delivery made a lot of the weird metaphors and the totally unexpected stuff feel even bigger and better. **The Life and Death of Zebulon Finch** by Daniel Kraus, read by Kirby Heyborne This one is a beast—about 24 hours long—so it took me forever to finish. But Kirby Heyborne absolutely nailed it. He sounded like Zebulon Finch, like it actually lived inside his voice. The prose was pretty gorgeous and serious, and it reminded me of that old-school, solemn feeling you get from writers like Oscar Wilde or Mary Shelley (though I get that Wilde/Shelley isn’t a totally fair comparison). One quote ended up being my favorite though: “*What you do with your time alive defines you, Reader, but hear me, I beg you, when I say that you are not done being defined. Go out; break things. Go further; repair them. Break hundreds of hearts. Have thousands of children. Discover awe in a tangle of weeds; find delight in the pattern of a roll of mass-produced paper towels; live, Reader, live; live as hard as I died, and only then I will be happy.*”