The ReadDown

Best Audiobooks Narrated by a Full Cast

There’s something particularly engrossing about a well-narrated audiobook. When you get that perfect combination of narrator and story, it can be magical. The only thing that’s arguably better is when a novel gets the full-cast treatment. It doesn’t happen that often, but when you listen to your first audiobook with a full cast, it feels like a genuine game changer. The interplay of the different voices and the rhythm of the dialogue can put a whole new spin on even the most well-loved novel. Here are a few of the best audiobooks with a full cast.

1

Oak Flat

by Lauren Redniss

Read by: Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, Kyla Garcia, Kimberly Guerrero, Hillary Huber, Ann Marie Lee, Elizabeth Liang, Crystle Lightning, Jon Lindstrom, A. Martinez, John H. Mayer, Arthur Morey, Tanis Parenteau & Various A powerful work of visual nonfiction about three generations of an Apache family struggling to protect sacred land from a multinational mining corporation, by MacArthur “Genius” and National Book Award finalist Lauren Redniss, the acclaimed author of Thunder & Lightning.

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2

Lincoln in the Bardo

by George Saunders

Read by Cassandra Campbell, Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, Adenrele Ojo, Lorna Raver, and many more George Saunder’s long-awaited first novel certainly didn’t disappoint. Thankfully neither does the audiobook – which w’re quickly counting as one of the best audiobooks with a full cast of all time. Voiced by an absurdly expansive cast that includes the likes of Nick Offerman, Julianne Moore, and Don Cheadle, this recording, much like the novel, is a surreal examination of grief and loss that just needs to be experienced.

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3

A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

Read by: Vikas Adam, Priya Ayyar, Deepti Gupta, Ulka Mohanty, Soneela Nankani & Neil Shah For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi, and Jhumpa Lahiri, an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.

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4

Sleeping Giants

by Sylvain Neuvel

Read by Andy Secombe, Eric Meyers, Laurel Lefkow, Charlie Anson, Liza Ross, William Hope, Christoper Ragland, Katharine Mangold, and Adna Sablyich Given the narrative structure of Sleeping Giants, it’s a perfect candidate for the full-cast audiobook. Told through a series of interviews, journal entries, newspaper articles, etc., the use of multiple readers truly brings the story to life. Sleeping Giants is a beguiling piece of speculative fiction centering around the push to understand the discovery of a giant metal hand beneath the earth. Hearing multiple narrators give a voice to the deepening mystery lifts the story in some fascinating ways.

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5

Angels in America

by Tony Kushner

Read by Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane, Denise Gough, Beth Malone, James McArdle, Lee Pace, Edie Falco and Susan Brown In this production, adapted especially for the listening experience, Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane, and the entire cast recreate their acclaimed performances from the 2018 Tony Award-winning National Theatre revival of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. With narration by Bobby Cannavale and Edie Falco, and a musical score by Adrian Sutton, this audiobook is a compelling and immersive theatrical listening experience.

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6

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

by Hank Green

Read by: Kristen Sieh, Joe Hempel, Jesse Vilinsky, Nicole Lewis, Kevin R. Free, Hank Green, Robert Petkoff, Angelo Di Loreto, Oliver Wyman, Hillary Huber, P.J. Ochlan & Gabra Zackman A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is the bold and brilliant follow-up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It is a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions about the way we live, our freedoms, our future, and how we handle the unknown.

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7

World War Z

by Max Brooks

Read by Max Brooks, Steve Park, Frank Kamai, Nathan Fillion, Paul Sorvino, Ade ‘Cormack, Carl Reiner, and Waleed Zuaiter Given that World War Z is a sort of modern epistolary novel describing a zombie pandemic through a series of interviews with an agent of the United Nations, it just makes sense as a fully-cast audiobook. The inclusion of multiple narrators makes the interviews crackle and adds to the already breathless pace of the narrative.

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8

Inheritors

by Asako Serizawa

Read by Feodor Chin, Greta Jung, Nancy Wu, Catherine Ho, Akie Kotabe and Ren Hanami Spanning more than 150 years, and set in multiple locations in colonial and postcolonial Asia and the United States, Inheritors paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of its characters as they grapple with the legacies of loss, imperialism, and war. Written from myriad perspectives and in a wide range of styles, each of these interconnected stories is designed to speak to the others, contesting assumptions and illuminating the complicated ways we experience, interpret, and pass on our personal and shared histories.

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9

There There

by Tommy Orange

Read by Alma Cuervo, Kyla Garcia, Darrell Dennis and Shaun Taylor-Corbett There There is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. It’s “masterful . . . white-hot . . . devastating” (The Washington Post) at the same time as it is fierce, funny, suspenseful, thoroughly modern, and impossible to put down. Here is a voice we have never heard—a voice full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with urgency and force. Tommy Orange has written a stunning novel that grapples with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and profound spirituality, and with a plague of addiction, abuse, and suicide.

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10

The Regional Office Is Under Attack!

by Manuel Gonzales

Read by Sarah Scott, Natasha Soudek, Susan Hanfield, Mike Chamberlain, and more This novel is bizarre, hilarious, and thrilling. Thankfully, the audiobook is as well, due in large part to the full-cast recording. It’s the story of an organization of super-powered female assassins under attack by a group of defectors. Hearing the razor-sharp interplay of the characters really just makes the whole thing sing.

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11

Daisy Jones & The Six

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Read by Judy Greer, Pablo Schreiber, Jennifer Beals and Benjamin Bratt Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now. The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

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12

Into the Water

by Paula Hawkins

Read by Laura Aikman, Imogen Church, Daniel Weyman, Rachel Bavidge, Sophie Aldred, amd more Into the Water is as addictive and twist-laden as you’d expect from the author of The Girl of the Train. Giving a great thriller the full-cast treatment carries the chilling suspense and secrets to a different level. The interplay of characters and the rhythm of dialogue is pitch perfect for this page-turning tale about the fallout that occurs when a single mother is found dead at the bottom of a river where a teenage girl drowned earlier in the summer. Be prepared for a marathon listening session.

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13

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

by Hank Green

Read by Oliver Wyman, Robert Petkoff, Hillary Huber, Kristen Sieh, P.J. Ochlan, Hank Green, and more A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is the bold and brilliant follow-up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It is a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions about the way we live, our freedoms, our future, and how we handle the unknown.

Available from:
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