Celebrity audiobook narrators

The ones who play the part and read it

The overlap is more common than you would expect, and it is usually the recording to pick. David Suchet played Poirot for twenty-four years and reads him. Derek Jacobi played Brother Cadfael and reads him too — though his recordings run about three hours against seven or eight for the unabridged readings, so the famous name here is the shorter version. Rosamund Pike played Moiraine in The Wheel of Time and reads the newer recordings of its opening books. Martin Freeman was Arthur Dent in the film and reads Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's sequels. Titus Welliver played Harry Bosch on television and reads the Bosch novels from The Burning Room on. Emma Thompson adapted and starred in Sense and Sensibility and narrates the Austen collection.

Where two famous names read the same author, they are different recordings under near-identical listings — Branagh, Suchet and Hugh Fraser all read Christie. Check the narrator before you buy; that is what our recording comparisons are for.

A word on full-cast editions

Several of these names — Bill Nighy, Hugh Laurie — appear in the full-cast Harry Potter editions rather than reading a book solo. Those are a separate recording from the Stephen Fry originals, not a remaster of them. If you grew up with Fry in the UK, the full-cast edition is a different listening experience, so check which one you are buying. Same principle as the current Discworld re-recordings, where Nighy, Peter Serafinowicz and Richard Coyle replaced Nigel Planer.