#TopTenTuesday Favourite Audiobook Narrators

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Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s topic is Favorite Audiobook Narrators. Although I know many people find audiobooks a great way to consume books, I don’t listen to that many myself. Possibly it’s because I don’t drive or make many long journeys, or that I’ve never mastered the art of listening to a book while doing household tasks. It might be more accurate to say I’ve never mastered the art of doing household tasks! So my list contains pretty much all the audiobooks I’ve listened to in the past few years, with a couple that are old enough to have been originally issued on DVD or – remember this? – audio cassette.  Some may no longer be available with the original narrators.   

Anton Lesser – Paradise Lost by John Milton (Anton was responsible for getting me through this set text for my OU degree)
Sir Michael Hordern – The M. R. James Collection: No. 13 and Other Ghost Stories (Sir Michael starred in ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come To You’, part of the BBC’s annual A Ghost Story for Christmas series)
Martin Jarvis – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Others, I know, will shout for Tom Baker)
Theo Solomon & Karise Yansen – This Lovely City by Louise Hare (Ideal narrators for the Jamaican patois… oh, and the audiobook has a bonus final chapter that will get you tapping your feet)
Anna Bentinck – The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Simon Mawer (I’m no expert but Anna’s French accent sounded impeccable to me)
Robert Powell – The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Robert Powell starred in the third film adaptation of Buchan’s novel – not quite as good as the first starring Robert Donat but way better than the second starring Kenneth More)
Jessie Buckley – The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Jessie’s was a much better attempt at pronuncing the Norwegian names than mine)
Sir Derek Jacobi – The Cadfael Chronicles by Ellis Peters (Personally, I could listen to Sir Derek reading a telephone directory. For those old enough to remember, he also starred in the ITV series, Cadfael)
Mark Meadows – The Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan (My current listen and Mark’s doing a splendid job with both male and female characters)
Ben Miles – The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel (My next audiobook will be the final book in the trilogy, The Mirror & the Light. It’s 36 hours long)

 

My Week in Books – 23rd April 2023

whatcathyreadnext

MyWeekinBooksOn What Cathy Read Next last week

Tuesday – I shared my review of historical mystery, Rivers of Treason by K. J. Maitland.

Wednesday – I published my review of thriller, No Place To Hide by JS Monroe as part of the blog tour. And as always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. 

Saturday – I shared my review of Bone China by Laura Purcell.

New arrivals

The Voluble TopsyThe Voluble Topsy by A. P. Herbert (ARC, Handheld Press)

The Voluble Topsy collects A P Herbert’s The Trials of Topsy (1928), Topsy MP (1929) and Topsy Turvy (1947) in one volume for the pleasure and admiration of a new generation. For lovers of Nancy Mitford and the Provincial Lady Topsy will be a fresh delight.

It is the late 1920s. Topsy is a girl about town, a society deb, a dashing flapper. She writes breathless, exuberant letters to her best friend Trix about her life, her parties, her intrigues, and the men in her life. She deploys her native acumen and remarkable talent for kindness as well as being a doughty fighter for what she thinks is right (she hides a fox from the Hunt in her car). Then Topsy is unexpectedly drawn into politics, and to her amazement, she is elected as a member of Parliament.

Topsy’s extensive social life, her adventures in and out of the House of Commons (and her audacious attempts to legislate for the Enjoyment of the People), and her wartime activity as the mother of twins were recorded faithfully by the great comic writer A P Herbert as a series of satires in Punch.

Wild with All RegretsWild with All Regrets by E. L. Deards (eARC, She Writes Press via NetGalley)

A decade has passed since Lucas Connolly lost his best friend—and the only man he’s ever loved—in World War I, but he still can’t shake his guilt over Jamie’s death. In fact, ever since losing Jamie, Lucas has heard his friend’s voice inside his head—confused about what happened to him, begging him for help. And now, suddenly, it’s not just Jamie’s voice anymore; now, a specter who looks and acts exactly like Jamie did before his death, and who is demanding answers from Lucas about what happened to him, has begun to haunt him.

Concerned about Lucas’s deteriorating mental state, his friend Angela encourages him to move on with his life, and even sets him up with a coworker whom she suspects is also gay. But Lucas is too consumed with the secret he still keeps about the part he played in Jamie’s death to even begin to form a healthy connection with someone new—and as Jamie’s ghost begins to recover his memories and get closer to the truth, Lucas’s obsession only deepens.

Ultimately, Lucas realizes that his only path forward is to first go backward—that only in examining his troubled youth, facing his deepest self, and shining a light on the shadowed parts of his past will he finally be able to set his old friend, and himself, free.

Unnatural EndsUnnatural Ends by Christopher Huang (eARC, Inkshares)

Sir Lawrence Linwood is dead. More accurately, he was murdered — savagely beaten to death in his own study with a mediaeval mace. The murder calls home his three adopted children: Alan, an archeologist; Roger, an engineer; and Caroline, a journalist. But his heirs soon find that his last testament contains a strange proviso — that his estate shall go to the heir who solves his murder.

To secure their future, each Linwood heir must now dig into the past. As their suspicion mounts — of each other and of peculiar strangers in the churchless town of Linwood Hollow — they come to suspect that the perpetrator lurks in the mysterious origins of their own birth.

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry 
  • #TopTenTuesday – Favourite Audiobook Narrators
  • Book Review: The Letter Reader by Jan Casey
  • Audiobook Review: The Warlow Experiment by Alix Nathan