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Originally Posted by issybird
Off hand, I can think of three books narrated by famous actors that I've listened to and they were all quite good: Thérèse Raquin by Kate Winslet, Heart of Darkness by Kenneth Branagh and Our Man in Havana by Jeremy Northam. The last two were book club selections, now that I think of it.
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Thanks, good to know! In fact, I think I even listened to the Northam too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CRussel
Other examples -- the Robert B. Parker "Spenser" books, narrated by Joe Montegna, and the last few Harry Bosch books from Michael Connelly, narrated by Titus Welliver. Interestingly, in both cases, the narrators were also the actors who played the roles in the dramatizations of the series.
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I would think actors who've already made a character theirs onscreen would do well, and neutrally, with a story. I think, with Thompson anyway, the feeling I got was that she wanted to 'do something different' than other narrators had with the story and 'make it her own'. This resulted in a histrionic mess. Narrators have to put some of themselves in a reading as they're forced to interpret character's voices and such, but still the best ones let the story speak for itself rather than purposely trying to 'put a new spin' on things. I think famous actors narrating would be in more danger of doing this, but to be fair I disliked Thompson's reading so much that that may just be confirmation bias!
ETA- I just realised another caveat is needed- it's famous actors narrating
classic (probably public domain) books that already have many audiobook versions that I think may be most at risk of this.