“When you’re listening to something words go into your head in a very unique way” —Rosamund Pike.
If you enjoy listening to books as audiobooks, it’s a great time to be alive. From Rosamund Pike narrating Pride and Prejudice to Jeremy Irons reading Lolita, many prominent actors have signed up for performing their favourite books in unabridged versions. Some, like the British actor Timothy West, have narrated the entire work of a single author.
Below, some of the books that have been recommended by experts on Five Books that have been performed as audiobooks by well known actors. Please message us if you come across any others that you enjoy and that we’ve failed to include: editor@fivebooks.com
The Odyssey
by Homer and translated by Emily Wilson
The audiobook of Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Odyssey is performed by the American actress Claire Danes (listening time: 13.5 hours).
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz
The audiobook version of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is narrated by the legendary Lin-Manuel Miranda and Karen Olivo, who also won a Tony for her role in West Side Story.
(In the US, the audiobook does not seem to be listed on Amazon, but can be found on Audible.com)
The Remains of The Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro
If you’ve never read The Remains of the Day, the audiobook version is highly recommended. British actor and director Dominic West gives a pitch-perfect performance as the narrator of Ishiguro’s hauntingly beautiful, Booker Prize-winning novel; his Mr Stevens, an ageing butler looking back upon his life in service with mounting regret, a carefully-constructed shell of English restraint, within which tempests rage.
The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
We highly recommend listening to The Bell Jar as an audiobook. Performed by American actress and producer Maggie Gyllenhaal, she captures Esther Greenwood’s intense struggle with mental illness in Sylvia Plath’s devastating semibiographical novel.
Heartburn
by Nora Ephron
The audiobook of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn is narrated by the American actress Meryl Streep. (Listening time: less than 6 hours)
A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
by James Joyce
If you’re new to James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man might be the best place to start.
We highly recommend the audiobook. What better way to experience James Joyce’s first novel than hearing Colin Farrell, of In Bruges, dive into Joyce’s streams of consciousness with all the natural musicality of his Irish accent?
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse is widely regarded as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the twentieth century.
(The audiobook of To the Lighthouse has been performed separately by two great actors: Australian actress Nicole Kidman and British actress Juliet Stevenson. Listening time: 7-8 hours).
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein is fabulous to listen to as an audiobook, performed by the British actor Dan Stevens. Listening time: 8.5 hours.
Mary Shelley started writing the Frankenstein story when she was 18, and it was published in London two years later. Her chilling tale of how Victor Frankenstein put together a creature by sewing together human parts is said to be the first true science fiction story. If you’ve never read it, or read it a long time ago, it’s definitely worth picking up again, as the subtleties of the original book, entitled Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus, may have been displaced in your mind by the various cartoons and monster-movies connected to the original only by the name ‘Frankenstein’ (and some people, who haven’t read the book, think Frankenstein is the name of the monster, rather than the name of the scientist who put the creature together).
Read below why it’s one of the books most frequently recommended by the experts we’ve interviewed—on subjects as diverse as fear of death, women and society, and transhumanism. Note: make sure to read the 1818 uncensored edition.
Collected Ghost Stories
by MR James
MR James’s Ghost Stories are also available as an audiobook, read by the legendary British actor Sir Derek Jacobi.
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
To Kill an Mockingbird was Harper Lee’s only published novel and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. This celebrated novel depicts the issues of racism that she observed as a child in her hometown in Alabama. To Kill an Mockingbird was first published in November 1960. Subsequently an early 1957 version was published in 2015 under the title Go Set A Watchman.
We also highly recommend the audiobook of To Kill a Mockingbird, read by Academy Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek. Performed in her southern accent (Spacek is from Texas), she gives a warm and emotionally nuanced reading of this poignant American classic.
Lolita
by Vladimir Nabokov
We highly recommend the audiobook of Lolita. Jeremy Irons gave a brilliant performance as Humbert Humbert in the 1997 film of Nabokov’s most controversial work. Here, he reprises the role by narrating the whole novel. Irons’ mellifluous voice amplifies the beauty of Nabokov’s writing, while his reading renders the all-at-once sinister, deluded, and preposterous qualities of the character. A must.
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë was published in 1847 and achieved immediate success. This essential classic book is still relevant in today’s world. It is a successful mixture of romantic novel and gothic fiction.
The audiobook of Jane Eyre is narrated by the British actress Thandie Newton. Listening time: 19 hours 10 minutes.
Barchester Towers
by Anthony Trollope
The audiobook of Barchester Towers is performed by the British actor, Timothy West. Listening time: 19 hours.
Dracula
by Bram Stoker
The audiobook of Dracula by Bram Stoker is brilliantly narrated by British actors Greg Wise and Saskia Reeves (listening time: 18 hours)
Dracula by Bram Stoker is the classic 1897 Gothic horror story. The most famous vampire story, Dracula has underlying themes of race, religion, superstition, science, and sexuality. Find out why Dracula is one of Five Books’ most recommended books. Also worth looking at are Bram Stokers Notes for Dracula which contains Stoker’s research notes.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It turns out that the brilliant British actor, Stephen Fry, is a Sherlock Holmes books fan, which means that The Complete Sherlock Holmes is also available as an audiobook. Listening to Fry’s introduction and then Conan Doyle’s stories is a wonderful experience. Our favourite story remains the incredibly scary and mysterious The Hound of the Baskervilles but apparently, according to Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda, it’s important to start with The Study in Scarlet.
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby is F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, set during a hedonistic zenith before the Great Depression.
“Gatsby is a book that is, in some ways, ambivalent about glamour and wealth. It entices us with the glamour of the parties and the wonderful material aspects of Gatsby’s life – but it shows that his falling for the false promises of materialism destroys him”—from out interview with Sarah Churchwell on the best books on The Great Gatsby
We also highly recommend the audiobook, in which BAFTA-winning actor Jake Gyllenhaal becomes Nick Carraway, our guide through the glittering yet destructive pull of materialism in pre-Depression New York. He portrays all the ambivalences of Fitzgerald’s narrator, thrown into this world of decadence and obsession, while breathing new life into this endlessly re-readable novel.
Persuasion
by Jane Austen
The audiobook of Persuasion by Jane Austen is narrated by actress Greta Scacchi.
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
Published in 1986, The Handmaid’s Tale is a haunting epistolary novel narrated by Offred, a woman living in a future America where environmental and societal breakdown have led to the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. In Gilead, women have been stripped of their fundamental rights and reduced to their reproductive potential. Lesbians and other ‘gender outlaws’ are executed, as are doctors who conduct abortions.
The Handmaid’s Tale was recognised as a modern classic and first adapted into a film in 1990. It reappeared in the headlines (and the bestseller lists) in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s US electoral victory, after which time the handmaid’s bonnet became an icon of the feminist protest movement. More recently it was adapted as a multi-Emmy Award-winning television series starring Elisabeth Moss, who also narrates the audiobook of The Handmaid’s Tale.
The long awaited sequel The Testaments is set 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale.
Trainspotting
by Irvine Welsh
The Trainspotting audiobook is narrated by the Scottish actor Tam Dean Burn (listening time: 12 hours)
Casino Royale
by Ian Fleming
Casino Royale was Ian Fleming’s first James Bond book. The audiobook is narrated by the British actor Dan Stevens.
Pride and Prejudice (Book)
by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice was published more than 200 years ago, in 1813, but the book still speaks to us across the centuries. Written by Jane Austen when she was only 20, its original title was First Impressions. Like many great books, it was initially rejected by publishers and did not appear till years later, now under the title we know it by, Pride and Prejudice. By then, Austen had already had commercial success with Sense and Sensibility, a novel that also compares and contrasts two characters with the qualities (flaws) signalled in the title of the book.
Pride and Prejudice was a trailblazing book, not least because it has served as the template for every romance novel and Mills & Boon written since. The countless book and screen adaptations of Pride and Prejudice speak to a story that has universal appeal, its characters and plotline appearing in everything from Bridget Jones’s Diary to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
But Pride and Prejudice is more than just a happily-ever-after story. Philosophers and literary scholars are just some of the experts we’ve interviewed who have chosen Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as essential reading on their topic. Along with many other people, it is Austen scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks’s favourite Austen book. As she explains below, it’s also a serious work. Exploring that theme, she produced Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition, published by Harvard University Press, which includes over 2,000 annotations to the text.
You can read all our interviews featuring Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice—and browse some of the original reviews and 19th century commentary on the book—below.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is also available as an audiobook, performed by the English actress Rosamund Pike. Listening time: 11 hours and 35 minutes.
The Thirty-Nine Steps
by John Buchan
Award-winning actor Robert Powell, who also played Richard Hannay in the brilliant 1978 movie adaptation of The 39 Steps, is the narrator of the audiobook of John Buchan’s 1915 adventure novel (listening time: just under 4 hours).
