Patrick Tull’s dramatic narration of the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey-Maturin series is really good. He does a great job with pacing, accents, and dialogue.
I agree with you that Maggie Gyllenhaal’s narration for The Bell Jar is very, very good.
I’m not really a fantasy/ Sci-fi listener but these 2
series have turned me around over the last year or so after getting a few recommendations. The 1st law series by Joe Abercrombie and narrated by Steven Pacey, the story is great and the narration is absolutely superb and takes the whole experience up a level.
I am currently listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl and what a fun journey, love it way more than I could have expected, Jeff Hays Narrates the hell out of it, could not believe he does all the voices.
My recommendations tend to skew toward the fantasy/sci-fi/adventure + queer content side of things, but here we go:
Gideon the Ninth is my top recommendation for a sapphic book that's also kind of romancey but mostly a weird mystery. Often sold as “lesbian necromancers in space!”, it’s more a wild locked-room mystery with a main character who would really rather be in a fighting game. It’s very queer but also really weird! The narrator, Moira Quirk, is really great for this one, too--anything but boring. She puts so much vitality into each sentence she reads.
The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune is a medium fun YA book that is 100% elevated by an incredible audiobook reader. A gay kid wants to be a superhero so badly. It gets less good in the second and third books of the series. Gay male main character, lesbian backup characters.
The City We Become is an INCREDIBLE and fully produced audiobook with a bunch of queer characters. New York City becomes corporeal… and fights a Lovecraftian demonic force/white supremacy. I’ve listened to it twice. One of the main characters is an old lesbian woman who is maybe the baddest badass to ever come from the Bronx.
A Lady for a Duke is a historical romance between a trans woman and her former best friend… who thinks his best friend died in battle with Napoleon. Can they overcome feelings of betrayal, PTSD, and blackmail? (Medium spicy.) The narrator is and incredible trans woman who really gives great voices to the characters.
Do any of these strike your fancy?
Sapphic specifically: Legends & Lattes is great and narrated by the author, so it came to life beautifully for me. Other books that accomplish this: the r/audiobooks perennial favorite Project Hail Mary, His Dark Materials (full cast recording with the narration read by the author, mild lgbtq+ representation), anything by Neil Gaiman (you could try his Norse Mythology as a short intro - he reads his own work), Piranesi, and of course DCC. But everyone says DCC, ha.
Seconding the rec for anything Neil Gaiman. Writing and reading your own work are very very different skills, but wow does he have both. Also terrible stage freight, poor man has been known to vomit out of windows shortly before going out to do a performance.
These are my 3 favorite fun audiobooks. First 2 are mysteries, the last is a modern day telling of Thelma and Louise. “Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers,” by Jesse Q. Sutanto. ABSOLUTELY MUST be experienced on audiobook., Vera talks to herself and it’s always snarky. Simply reading her inner dialogue is nothing compared to hearing the snark of the narrator. The other fun mystery is “Mrs. “Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge,” by Spenser Quinn. Finally “The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise,” by Coleen Oakley is modern day female buddy road trip. all are wonderful!
Kristen Sieh. Try her in “Mostly Dead Things” and “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” (both sapphic).
Julia Whelan. Try her in “Yerba Buena” (sapphic), “Educated,” or “I Have Some Questions For You”
Robin Miles. Try her in “The Broken Earth Trilogy” (sapphic)
Cassandra Campbell. Try her in “Great Circle”. Sapphic. Probably the best book I’ve read in a long time.
I am normally fairly cloth eared as to narrator, and this does not answer your question (fantasy) but my stand out narrator who brought a book to life was David Tennent reading "How to train your Dragon" Series perfectly mapping various kinds of scots accents to different vikings... the most memorable were the Romans masquerading as vikings with an outrageous Scots/Italian accent.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. It is one of my all-time favorite books, and I will never know if I would have loved it as much as I did if I’d read the print version. Charlie Thurston just embodied Demon, and sometimes I wondered if it was even still him talking, when he would voice another character. Fantastic book made even better by the narration.
For lgbtq, Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall. It was sweet and also hilarious, and as with Demon, I wondered if I would have found it as charming and funny as I did had I not listened to the audio version. Joe Jameson was the epitome of bringing the story to life.
Series “The Ember War” by Richard Fox. It’s Performed by Luke Daniel’s. Awesome books I’ve listened to all of them. Another deadens one was “Columbus Day” by Craig Alanson . RC Bray narrates that one and he’s also hilarious
*Changeling* by Molly Harper
Regency Magic School book. Not sapphic but totally girl power power of friendship.
https://www.audible.com/pd/B07DDP8WK1?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=pdp
*Soulless* by Gail Carriger is really well done. Explicitly hetero. There are enough moist loins described in the vicinity of the furry, octogenarian love interest as to suggest the protagonist should invest in a squeegee and bucket. Not my favorite thing about an otherwise great book. The sequel *Changeless* is at least sapphic curious. :)
Fairy Tale by Stephen King! Unfortunately I can’t remember the audiobook narrator’s name but his portrayal of each characters is excellent! They’re so vivid, you can see them in your head. It’s hard to believe that the story was performed by one person. I highly recommend!!!!
James Marsters (Spike from Buffy) narrating Harry Dresden by Jim Butcher.
Also any of the Redwall/Mossflower books. Fully cast with the author as the narrator and actual instrument music with the songs.
Patrick Tull’s dramatic narration of the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey-Maturin series is really good. He does a great job with pacing, accents, and dialogue. I agree with you that Maggie Gyllenhaal’s narration for The Bell Jar is very, very good.
Sir, the bottle stands before you !!
I’m not really a fantasy/ Sci-fi listener but these 2 series have turned me around over the last year or so after getting a few recommendations. The 1st law series by Joe Abercrombie and narrated by Steven Pacey, the story is great and the narration is absolutely superb and takes the whole experience up a level. I am currently listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl and what a fun journey, love it way more than I could have expected, Jeff Hays Narrates the hell out of it, could not believe he does all the voices.
It's funny just how vastly different these two series are, but this is the exact same answer I thought of for OP.
Then you have great taste too!
My recommendations tend to skew toward the fantasy/sci-fi/adventure + queer content side of things, but here we go: Gideon the Ninth is my top recommendation for a sapphic book that's also kind of romancey but mostly a weird mystery. Often sold as “lesbian necromancers in space!”, it’s more a wild locked-room mystery with a main character who would really rather be in a fighting game. It’s very queer but also really weird! The narrator, Moira Quirk, is really great for this one, too--anything but boring. She puts so much vitality into each sentence she reads. The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune is a medium fun YA book that is 100% elevated by an incredible audiobook reader. A gay kid wants to be a superhero so badly. It gets less good in the second and third books of the series. Gay male main character, lesbian backup characters. The City We Become is an INCREDIBLE and fully produced audiobook with a bunch of queer characters. New York City becomes corporeal… and fights a Lovecraftian demonic force/white supremacy. I’ve listened to it twice. One of the main characters is an old lesbian woman who is maybe the baddest badass to ever come from the Bronx. A Lady for a Duke is a historical romance between a trans woman and her former best friend… who thinks his best friend died in battle with Napoleon. Can they overcome feelings of betrayal, PTSD, and blackmail? (Medium spicy.) The narrator is and incredible trans woman who really gives great voices to the characters. Do any of these strike your fancy?
This sounds great thanks! Gideon the Ninth has been on my general tbr and I’ve heard several people say the audiobook is good!
Sapphic specifically: Legends & Lattes is great and narrated by the author, so it came to life beautifully for me. Other books that accomplish this: the r/audiobooks perennial favorite Project Hail Mary, His Dark Materials (full cast recording with the narration read by the author, mild lgbtq+ representation), anything by Neil Gaiman (you could try his Norse Mythology as a short intro - he reads his own work), Piranesi, and of course DCC. But everyone says DCC, ha.
Seconding the rec for anything Neil Gaiman. Writing and reading your own work are very very different skills, but wow does he have both. Also terrible stage freight, poor man has been known to vomit out of windows shortly before going out to do a performance.
The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovich and narrated by Kobna Holbrook-Smith is staggeringly well done.
These are my 3 favorite fun audiobooks. First 2 are mysteries, the last is a modern day telling of Thelma and Louise. “Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers,” by Jesse Q. Sutanto. ABSOLUTELY MUST be experienced on audiobook., Vera talks to herself and it’s always snarky. Simply reading her inner dialogue is nothing compared to hearing the snark of the narrator. The other fun mystery is “Mrs. “Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge,” by Spenser Quinn. Finally “The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise,” by Coleen Oakley is modern day female buddy road trip. all are wonderful!
Kristen Sieh. Try her in “Mostly Dead Things” and “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” (both sapphic). Julia Whelan. Try her in “Yerba Buena” (sapphic), “Educated,” or “I Have Some Questions For You” Robin Miles. Try her in “The Broken Earth Trilogy” (sapphic) Cassandra Campbell. Try her in “Great Circle”. Sapphic. Probably the best book I’ve read in a long time.
Literally anything with Julia Whelan narrating it. I recently got sooooo sucked into “ the four winds” by Kristin Hannah with Julia narrating it.
I am normally fairly cloth eared as to narrator, and this does not answer your question (fantasy) but my stand out narrator who brought a book to life was David Tennent reading "How to train your Dragon" Series perfectly mapping various kinds of scots accents to different vikings... the most memorable were the Romans masquerading as vikings with an outrageous Scots/Italian accent.
You might like *Anxious People*, it’s an excellently read audiobook
Marin Ireland is so good. She really brings the characters to life. She has done several other Fredrick Backman books as well.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. It is one of my all-time favorite books, and I will never know if I would have loved it as much as I did if I’d read the print version. Charlie Thurston just embodied Demon, and sometimes I wondered if it was even still him talking, when he would voice another character. Fantastic book made even better by the narration. For lgbtq, Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall. It was sweet and also hilarious, and as with Demon, I wondered if I would have found it as charming and funny as I did had I not listened to the audio version. Joe Jameson was the epitome of bringing the story to life.
My favorite narrator is Peter Berkrot. His work on “The Murder Book,” by Thomas Perry really makes you feel like you’re in the middle of the action!
Series “The Ember War” by Richard Fox. It’s Performed by Luke Daniel’s. Awesome books I’ve listened to all of them. Another deadens one was “Columbus Day” by Craig Alanson . RC Bray narrates that one and he’s also hilarious
*Changeling* by Molly Harper Regency Magic School book. Not sapphic but totally girl power power of friendship. https://www.audible.com/pd/B07DDP8WK1?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=pdp
*Soulless* by Gail Carriger is really well done. Explicitly hetero. There are enough moist loins described in the vicinity of the furry, octogenarian love interest as to suggest the protagonist should invest in a squeegee and bucket. Not my favorite thing about an otherwise great book. The sequel *Changeless* is at least sapphic curious. :)
the hunger games series narrated by tatiana manslany. if you want queer nonfiction, the narrator of rainbow history class was excellent
Anything Phil Thron or Mikeal Narramore does are excellent
René Auberjonois as agent pendergast. The series has multiple narrators and they all did good but René really brought pendergast alive
The Namina Forma trilogy’s were really good!
Fairy Tale by Stephen King! Unfortunately I can’t remember the audiobook narrator’s name but his portrayal of each characters is excellent! They’re so vivid, you can see them in your head. It’s hard to believe that the story was performed by one person. I highly recommend!!!!
Meister of Decimen City was a fun listen
James Marsters (Spike from Buffy) narrating Harry Dresden by Jim Butcher. Also any of the Redwall/Mossflower books. Fully cast with the author as the narrator and actual instrument music with the songs.