Annoying Audiobook Narrators

[IHateScottBrick]

I recently stumbled upon My Brilliant Friend on TV and loved it. I wanted to get the audiobook but the American narrator has such an annoying voice. I wish there was a version with a British narrator.

No offence to my American friends but I can’t stand most American audiobook narrators as their voices are just so loud and overly expressive, and they often pronounce words strangely or sometimes just plain wrong! (There are several notable exceptions of course. Donna Tartt reading True Grit remains a favourite). The absolute worst is Scott Brick.

Can anybody recommend any good ones?

Maggie Gyllenhaal is brilliant reading The Bell Jar

Jeremy Irons - Lolita

They are both first person narrations, and particularly in the case of Humbert Humbert, awful characters. I wonder if that’s why they’ve both stuck in my mind so much.

Jeanette winterson reads Oranges are not the only fruit and annoys me that she puts emphasis on the “wrong” words, which are presumably the right words as she wrote it.

I love Terry Pratchett but I hate all the audio book narrators they’ve used for them. Particularly Stephen Briggs who is absolutely terrible and he’s done loads.
Sometimes the narrator can bring a book to life though. Everyone was raving about the Rivers of London books but I wasn’t finding they grabbed me and would have given up but was given the first audio book read by Kobna Holdbrook- Smith and it was a revelation. I’ve now raced through the whole series.

@CoachBeard

I love Terry Pratchett but I hate all the audio book narrators they’ve used for them. Particularly Stephen Briggs who is absolutely terrible and he’s done loads. Sometimes the narrator can bring a book to life though. Everyone was raving about the Rivers of London books but I wasn’t finding they grabbed me and would have given up but was given the first audio book read by Kobna Holdbrook- Smith and it was a revelation. I’ve now raced through the whole series.

It all goes to show how much of this is personal taste; I love listening to Stephen Briggs reading the Discworld books.