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Comment by LanguageGamer | Hacker News Reader

I believe reading a book out loud is as difficult of a performance as singing a song, and the talent of the readers on this site varies widely.

For me, the key to deriving value from this site is finding those performers whose work I enjoy.

Since it is volunteer based, would it be obnoxious to start using some sort of rating system for the readers?

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> Since it is volunteer based, would it be obnoxious to start using some sort of rating system for the readers?

If it was done in the spirit of future improvement, perhaps by ranking them in various dimensions or being prompted with questions such as "How could the narrator improve?" rather than just "Feedback."

I would love this. With no disrespect to people volunteering their efforts, I was underwhelmed by the Librivox books I sampled. I'm extremely glad the project exists, though.

He's not on librivox, but the best audiobook narrator I've ever listened to is Ray Porter, who does a lot of books on Audible. His 14 by Peter Clines and the Fold by Peter Clines were two of my all time favorite audiobooks. Also his The Cartel and the Power of the Dog by Don Winslow were both great.

If we're just going to recommend narrators: Simon Vance, who read all the Master and Commander books for Blackstone Audio is fantastic. Every character has their own voice and he can say mizzen-t'gallant-stunsl with out missing a beat

Ooh, thanks- just added this to my wish list.

He did The Millennium Series as well (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, etc.)

Another recommendation: Stephen Fry. He's also a famous British comedian. He has narrated all of the Harry Potter books and the first Hitch Hiker's Guide. Some of the best audiobook narration I've encountered.

(The second HHGTG is narrated by Martin Freeman, I think. It was part of the 2005 HHGTG movie release. )

Heads up: If you buy the US version you're getting Jim Dale. A totally different experience.

Stephen Fry's character voices are almost all better than the movie cast.

HHGTG by Stephen Fry... that sounds like a great combination, will have to check it out.

In terms of narration, my favorite audio book is The Odyssey, read by Ian McKellen.

Another narrator recommendation: Michael Page. He's a Brit, good with character voices, good enunciation. I'm listening to his narration of Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch and it's benefiting greatly from his narration.

Simon Prebble has narrated a lot of the books I have in my Audible library, notably The System of the World (all the Daniel Waterhouse bits) and Endurance.

I also liked William Dufris who narrated Cryptonomicon and parts of Anathem.

I find new narrators tend to be very grating the first time I start listening, then over time I get used to them.

On NPR, there was this Selected Shorts story read by William Hurt. I really liked it so I looked into the audiobook version. It was read by another actor and it was like night and day. I realized how good William Hurt was.

Mark Smith's reading of Great Expectations is great highly recommend.

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