Audiobook recommendations- shall we share our highlights & duds??

I've just finished Half a Yellow Sun. It was excellent, actually gutted it finished.

Just downloaded A Brief History of Seven Killings. I've not got into Wolf Hall, had to pause it. I couldn't follow it on my commute. Also abandoned the Goldfinch. Couldn't stand the narrator and just didn't care about the character.

Does anyone have any recommendations for laugh out loud audiobooks?

I have really enjoyed :

The Girl On The Train
Sleep tight (not the greatest narration, but a good story)
Little Lies
Sex, lies and chocolate cake
I Partridge, we need to talk about Alan.

Currently listening to The Husbands Secret.

Do love a good humorous book, so am eagerly awaiting funny recommendations.

Great thread! I love audiobooks; it keeps me occupied on a very annoying car commute.

I also love Adjoa Andoh's narrating - so natural, great accents (mostly) and evocative. Both Americanah and Half a Yellow Sun are excellent. On audiobook I have thoroughly enjoyed:
Brave New World
The First Fifteen lives of Harry August
Life of Pi
The Book of Strange New Things
Grapes of Wrath
Wolf Hall

I agree with Quog, I have yet to listen to a good abridged version of a book.

Things I've really enjoyed (most are from Audible, but a few are from the library):

The Help - Kathryn Stockett, read by multiple narrators
All My Puny Sorrows - Miriam Toews
Unabridged Fry Chronicles - Stephen Fry
Dickens biography - Clare Tomalin
Ghost stories of MR James read by Derek Jacobi
Love, Nina - written and read by Nina Stibbe
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain
Night by Elie Wiesel - it also includes his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
The Silver Dark Sea by Susan Fletcher
Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? - written and read by Jeanette Winterson
The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd
Keep the Aspidistra Flying - Orwell, read by Richard E Grant
A dramatisation of South Riding by Winifred Holtby with Sarah Lancshire in the lead role.
H is for Hawk - Helen McDonald
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
Elizabeth is Missing - Emma Healey
Apple Tree Yard - Louise Doughty, read by Juliet Stephenson
Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris, read by Stephen Pacey
This is How, written and read by Augusten Burroughs
My Year of Reading Dangerously written and read by Andy Miller
Middlemarch read by Juliet Stephenson

Children/YA stuff (we often listen in the car on long journeys)

Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden
Alone on a Wide Wide Sea - Michael Morpurgo
Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver, read by Sir Ian McKellan
The Wombles by Elisabeth Beresford, read by Bernard Cribbins
How To Be a Pirate by Cressida Cowell, read by David Tennant
Five Children and It by E Nesbit, read by Lynda Bellingham
Matilda by Roald Dahl, read brilliantly by Kate Winslet
Awful Auntie - written and read by David Walliams
Cosmic - Frank Cottrell Boyce (brilliant!)
Millions - Frank Cottrell Boyce

A few recommendations from Neil Gaiman
www.harpercollins.com/thelist/neilgaiman

The best value for money is yearly subscription of 24 downloads for £109

Ok I've taken the plunge and subscribed to Audible as a result of this inspiring thread! Just about to browse for my first download.

I think Adjoa Andoh is a brilliant narrator of audio books. I've listened to others she's narrated and enjoyed them too. She has an amazing range of voices that makes a lot of other narrators seem flat in comparison. She's done a lot of radio plays on R4 in the past and I think her versatility really shines through.

YY to Americanah, Adjoa Andoh narration is excellent..really enjoyed the story being caught between two continents, first love, and racism in America

I can't get on with abridged stories and tend to avoid them because they miss out such huge chunks of the plot that it's not always easy to follow. I listened to the R4 adaptation of David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks and had to abandon because it was incomprehensible to me and yet when I read the novel later it turned out to be one of my favourite reads of 2015.

• other-worldly, clearly.

A question - to justify the double post. How does everyone feel about abridged versions? I saw the PP talking about The Beach (and YY that's a strangely compelling but ultimately shite book about awful people) but I'd have binned the freebie as soon as I saw it was abridged. I get flashbacks of Readers Digest collections and I Just Can't Do It.

The only reader I particularly look out for is Fenella Woolgar. I first heard her do "How to Be a Good Wife" by Emma Chapman, which was an unexpectedly great story. Then she narrated Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life", which is one of my favourites anyway.

Her voice is marvellous - very RP, but consistently downbeat. I'm quite sure her reading added a strangeness and iyher-worldly quality that suits both books. I wasn't sure I liked her at first, but now I positively look out for her.

I like Bill Bryson reading his own work. For an example of the bad - Jack Dee reading his memoir was awful - dull story, awkward narration. By contrast Alexei Sayle reading his own memoir was delightful.

Just added How to be Brave to my wish list, Museum -- thanks for that.

Another one that I meant to mention earlier was The Love Song of Queenie Hennessy. Again, it had an excellent narrator, who did great accents for the different characters.

I ended up downloading The Martian for my drive on Thursday. It's not my typical kind of book, but I have to say it is so far a 9/10 for a road trip audiobook! Engaging story, told in short bursts, neither too complex to keep up with while paying attention to the road nor too slow to maintain interest and stay awake! The narrator is also quite good (American, though he does passable Asian accents for a couple of characters). I gave it a 9 rather than a 10 because it's a bit heavy on chemistry and MacGyver-style concoctions, but that's a minor niggle.

I've been listening to The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer this week. Non-fiction but very good. Hoping to listen to some more today. It's fascinating stuff, debunking some of the myths we believe about how life was in medieval England. Their fashions were bonkers, especially the pointy shoes that made walking upstairs impossible, and cuffs on tunics so long you could trip over them.

For a fabulous and appropriate accent, try How to Be Brave by Louise Beech, narrator has a beautiful north of England accent. I just finished it today and was about to rave about it on the 50 books thread, but just popped into this thread while waiting for the new 50 books thread to get started. And what a great thread this is!

Whoever mentioned Wolf Hall - yes. If you are going to commit to 24+ hours of listening, you've got to like the narrator's voice. His was spot on. I was a little bit in love with Cromwell by the end.

I have just finished listening to "Something To Hide" by Deborah Moggach and I thought it was EXCELLENT!!
Really good story with lots of twists and turns so when you think you've worked it out you haven't, and the narrator, Josie Lawrence (I got given this because I'm a Josie Lawrence fan,) makes it sound almost as if there is a whole cast reading it as she uses different voices to great effect.

Also anothe vote for the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit radio dramatisations.

Understood, Quog! I should've been more clear myself. I tend to find them jarring when reading books that aren't set in the US or about Americans, much as I would have found it jarring for a British narrator to read To Kill a Mockingbird.

I finally gave up on listening to Cold Mountain and downloaded it to my Kindle to finish off. Now off to audible to look at the ones people have recommended up thread ...