20 Best Celebrity Audiobooks for Storytelling by the Stars

25 Best Celebrity Audiobooks for Storytelling by the Stars

It’s likely you have a favourite actor or actress — someone you can’t wait to see in a new movie or television series. But beyond the big screen, many of your favourite performers are also acclaimed audiobook narrators.

It’s always a pleasant surprise to pick up a familiar story and find an unexpected famous friend in the narrator’s booth, especially when that celebrity has a knack for narration. We’ve rounded up a selection of the best celebrity audiobooks to get you started with this star-studded category.
Product list
    • By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
    • Narrated by: Jake Gyllenhaal
    • Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
    • Release date: 09-04-2013
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,313 ratings
    • In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal steps into the shoes of narrator Nick Carraway, voicing the often too-dreamy-to-be-real world of the wealthy and well-connected in a lush 1920s landscape. Though the story is told from Carraway’s point of view, it centres on the enthralling life of Mr. Jay Gatsby, and Gyllenhaal’s subtle yet captivating performance highlights both the glimmering surface of Gatsby’s life and the heartache, despair, and eventual tragedy that lurks beneath. He illustrates the people, places, and parties of West Egg with a voice that oozes refinement and style - a perfect complement to the grandeur of Gatsby’s story - while never losing sight of the morals and critiques that Fitzgerald layered throughout.

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    • By: L. Frank Baum
    • Narrated by: Anne Hathaway
    • Series: Oz, Book 1
    • Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
    • Release date: 08-03-2012
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 165 ratings
    • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a universally treasured classic that follows Dorothy, a small-town girl from Kansas in the midwestern United States, who is swept up into a tornado that leaves her stranded in a new and strangely wonderful universe: Oz. Anne Hathaway’s audiobook performance puts the tale’s original beauty on display with her enchanting, dreamy retelling of Dorothy’s journey. Hathaway has captured the hearts of moviegoers in roles including Mia in The Princess Diaries, Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada, and Fantine in Les Miserables (a performance that won her an Academy Award). This listen shows her fans that she also has exceptional narrative chops; her performance earned her a nomination for an Audie Award for Best Female Solo Narration in 2013, and it’s easy to understand why.

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    • By: Harper Lee
    • Narrated by: Sissy Spacek
    • Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
    • Release date: 08-07-2014
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,918 ratings
    • Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold over 30 million copies globally, and been adapted into film. Now, for the first time, To Kill a Mockingbird makes its digital audiobook debut in this unabridged audiobook narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek. Set in America’s deep south, To Kill a Mockingbird is a gripping, heart-wrenching and remarkable coming-of-age tale told through the eyes of a young girl, Scout Finch, as her father Atticus — a crusading local lawyer — risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime. With her Southern timbre and ability to capture the subtleties in tone and voice between Jim and Scout, Spacek captures the innocence of youth and brings listeners into the mindset of the protagonist, delivering an outstanding performance that’s well worthy of its Audie Award.

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    • By: Ernest Cline
    • Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
    • Series: Ready Player One, Book 1
    • Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
    • Release date: 05-04-2012
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 7,644 ratings
    • In his 2011 best seller Ready Play One, Ernest Cline creates a futuristic dystopian paragon. In the year 2044, the universe is plagued by grim, lifeless existence. The only way to escape the over-encompassing tedium is by entering a virtual world that allows people to experience life on other planets and fictional realms, fall in love… and search for a life-changing puzzle hidden somewhere inside the virtual universe. But when young Wade Watts unlocks this mystery, his life - virtual and otherwise - becomes a nightmare. Wil Wheaton, perhaps best known for his turn as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, narrates this fun, fast-paced listen appropriately, with evident excitement and increasing anxiety.

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    • Narrated by Kate Winslet
    • By: Roald Dahl
    • Narrated by: Kate Winslet
    • Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
    • Release date: 11-09-2014
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 977 ratings
    • Academy Award winner Kate Winslet captivates kids and adults alike with her outstanding narration of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book, Matilda. Matilda Wormwood is an extraordinary genius with really stupid parents, and a terrifying headmistress who thinks all children are rotten little stinkers. But although Matilda is only small, she’s got some powerful tricks up her sleeve, which she uses to teach these horrible grown-ups a thing or two. Well-versed with narrating children’s books, Winslet has received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for Listen to the Storyteller and was the perfect choice to capture the magic and charm of this iconic story.

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    • By: Margaret Atwood
    • Narrated by: Amy Landecker, Ann Dowd, Bradley Whitford, Elisabeth Moss
    • Series: The Handmaid's Tale, Book 1
    • Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
    • Release date: 30-04-2019
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,540 ratings
    • The Handmaid’s Tale is the chilling tale of Offred, a woman who is stripped of her personal identity and forced to work as a surrogate for wealthy and powerful couples in a near-future dystopia, the Republic of Gilead. The book explores themes of misogyny, totalitarianism, and morality, but Margaret Atwood’s master storytelling ability also elevates this story to a thriller. Emmy Award winner Claire Danes brings this unforgettable modern classic to vivid, eerie reality with her exquisite performance—but that’s not the only reason this audiobook is special. This listen also features exclusive extended material narrated by Atwood herself. Famously, the original novel ends with a question: Are there any questions? This exclusive edition might just offer some answers.

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    • By: Joseph Conrad
    • Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh
    • Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
    • Release date: 23-11-2010
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 631 ratings
    • Highly-acclaimed actor and dramatist Sir Kenneth Branagh has teamed up with Audible to narrate Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's electrifying and polarising classic portrait of colonisation. The tale follows the journey of Charles Marlow, a trenchant observer who sails down the Congo toward the end of the 19th-century. His search for a mysterious ivory trader, Kurtz, leads him to discover an evil that will haunt him forever. No stranger to narration, Branagh has previously given his charming brand of gravitas audiobook versions of beloved works from the likes of Shakespeare, Chekhov and C.S. Lewis. Reading as though he’s telling a ghost story by a campfire, Branagh’s riveting, atmospheric performance captures the story’s sense of claustrophobia, while hinting at the storyteller Marlow’s own creeping madness.

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    • By: Harper Lee
    • Narrated by: Reese Witherspoon
    • Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
    • Release date: 14-07-2015
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 301 ratings
    • The natural southern accent of Louisiana-born superstar Reese Witherspoon is the heart behind this audio adaptation of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman. Drafted three years before it was set aside for Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, this listen features characters and storylines that many listeners will be quite familiar with. The story is again told by Jean Louise Scout Finch, now a 26-year-old living in New York, who is jolted when she returns to her hometown of Maycomb, Alabama, USA. Like Mockingbird, the story is driven by a judicial case and Scout’s lawyer father’s handling of that case. But don’t expect to hear the message of inclusivity and equality Atticus Finch espouses in the famed novel. In Watchman, it seems he might have regressed in his thoughts about justice and racism since the trial that first made him a household name in Maycomb.

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    • By: Sylvia Plath
    • Narrated by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
    • Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
    • Release date: 16-07-2015
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 464 ratings
    • Poet and literary icon Sylvia Plath, who was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982, is well-known for her confessional poetry. But The Bell Jar, her only full-length novel, is often considered her masterwork. Inspired in part by Plath’s lifelong struggle with both mental illness and the limitations of womanhood in mid-century America, this listen is a raw and painful look at the inner workings of a mind affected with major depression. Maggie Gyllenhaal is brilliant as the narrator; her performance is at turns lively, dull, and anguished as she mimics the ebb-and-flow of troubled protagonist Esther Greenwood as she navigates the world around her.

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    • By: Lucy Maud Montgomery
    • Narrated by: Rachel McAdams
    • Series: Anne of Green Gables, Book 1
    • Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
    • Release date: 22-11-2016
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 1,028 ratings
    • Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a coming-of-age classic that shows how a rebellious outsider can bring a stagnant community together. Anne, a free-spirited orphan, is sent off to beautiful Green Gables when she is adopted by brother and sister duo Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. The story follows her path towards accepting the idiosyncrasies that make her special and the town’s acceptance of the important life lessons she has to offer. Rachel McAdams, a native Canadian like Montgomery and the book’s title character, narrates Anne with a youthful and fast-paced, yet eloquent voice. She is the perfect performer for bringing to life a fresh, energetic young woman with the drive to be taken seriously.

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    • By: Jane Austen
    • Narrated by: Rosamund Pike
    • Series: Jane Austen's Novels
    • Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
    • Release date: 14-08-2018
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 585 ratings
    • Sense and Sensibility is Jane Austen’s first published novel, a gem that set the stage for the rest of the author’s successful career. It is the story of two sisters as they navigate the difficulties of womanhood in Georgian England. They hope to fall in love and find marriages worthy of society’s expectations, but, as one of the sisters says (and many listeners may agree!): The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. The narrator, Rosamund Pike, is a British actress perhaps best known for her leading role in David Fincher’s Gone Girl. She also played Jane Bennett in the 2005 film adaptation of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and is the narrator of that audiobook as well. A bonafide Austen aficionado, Pike delivers the author’s words in a thoughtful, understanding tone, crafting a heartful and wholly believable performance.

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    • By: Douglas Adams
    • Narrated by: Stephen Fry
    • Series: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 1
    • Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
    • Release date: 01-01-2012
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,555 ratings
    • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by British author Douglas Adams became an instant comedic sensation when it was first broadcast as a radio comedy on BBC 4 in 1978. The story’s protagonist, Arthur Dent, is taken by surprise when his friend Ford Prefect tells him that the world is about to end and that the two of them must leave the planet immediately and enter into an intergalactic search for the answers to life’s most enigmatic questions, such as ‘What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?’ and ‘Where have all the ball-point pens gone?’ Stephen Fry, who is one of the world’s most well-known voice actors and audio performers, narrates with the perfect dry, droll English humour that listeners have come to expect from him.

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    • By: Mark Twain
    • Narrated by: Elijah Wood
    • Series: Twain's Tom and Huck, Book 2
    • Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
    • Release date: 09-11-2010
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 286 ratings
    • Picking up where The Adventures of Tom Sawyer left off, this tale follows Huck and his neighbour’s slave, Jim, as they flee down the Mississippi River. Filled to the brim with the excitement and confusion of adolescence and adventure, Mark Twain’s literary classic is a look at Middle America in the post-Civil War and reconstruction era. It has captivated generations of readers with its sharp historical and literary commentary. Huck and Jim come to life in this audiobook with a spirited performance by Elijah Wood. The actor starred in the 1993 film adaptation before becoming a household name with his portrayal of Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Wood tackles the unique language and dialect with energy and enthusiasm, sweeping listeners up and taking them along for the ride, as Huck and Jim push their raft towards freedom.

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    • By: Anh Do
    • Narrated by: Anh Do
    • Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
    • Release date: 24-05-2017
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 2,523 ratings
    • The Happiest Refugee tells the incredible, uplifting life story of one of Australia’s best-loved comedians, Anh Do. After escaping war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat, Anh and his family came close to losing their lives on the sea as they battled with hunger, disease and dehydration while chasing freedom and a better life. The struggle continued on land with an endless succession of backbreaking work, crowded rooms and ruthless landlords. But the inspiration, sacrifice and love of Anh’s mother and sister led him to graduate high school, university, and eventually go on to become one of the nation’s favourite personalities. Narrated by the author himself, Anh relives the emotion and his signature positivity in a laugh-out-loud, story of tragedy, humour, heartache and unswerving determination — a memoir of big life with big dreams.

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    • By: Leo Tolstoy
    • Narrated by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
    • Length: 35 hrs and 35 mins
    • Release date: 12-07-2016
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 814 ratings
    • One of the most admired novels in literature, Leo Tolstoy’s classic story of doomed love finds new life in yet another utterly captivating performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal. A stark drama that explores and illuminates the deepest questions about how to live a fulfilled life, Anna Karenina follows the tale of its unhappily married heroine and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky. Citing the novel as one of her all-time favourites, Gyllenhaal brings her admiration for Tolstoy’s classic story to her narration, conveying the pulse-racing breathlessness of consuming love and the sighing breathiness of a bored aristocracy with equal precision. The result is a truly unforgettable performance that’s equal part enthralling, illuminating, insightful and heart-wrenching.

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    • Audible Iliad & Odyssey, Book 2
    • By: Homer, Emily Wilson - translator
    • Narrated by: Claire Danes
    • Series: Iliad & Odyssey, Book 2, Audible Iliad & Odyssey, Book 2
    • Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
    • Release date: 20-11-2018
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 121 ratings
    • The first woman to take on the daunting task of translating over 100,000 lines of a three-millennium-old poem from Ancient Greek to modern-day English, Emily Wilson’s groundbreaking version of The Odyssey brings this epic tale of heroes, gods and monsters to life like never before. Acclaimed actress Clare Danes’ steps into the role of narrator with a breathtaking rendition that portrays the drama elegantly and skillfully. The Odyssey follows wily warrior-king Odysseus, as he sets off for home after the Trojan War. This seemingly simple undertaking becomes a perilous journey spanning ten years, as Odysseus encounters obstacles, detours, and temptations at every turn, while his wife Penelope fends off would-be suitors desperate to take the throne. Danes captures the poetic immediacy of the text while bringing an honesty and directness few other versions have achieved.

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    • By: Kurt Vonnegut
    • Narrated by: James Franco
    • Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
    • Release date: 03-11-2015
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 769 ratings
    • Slaughterhouse-Five is one of celebrated American author Kurt Vonnegut’s many satiric masterpieces. It starts with the bombing of Dresden, Germany, but from there, all sense of realism and chronology disappears. The story’s main character, Billy Pilgrim, has the unfortunate fate of experiencing historical events in no particular order. Sometimes, he’s an actor in these events and other times, simply a witness - but they always seem to make his life a bit more chaotic. James Franco is an actor well-known for his ability to switch from comedy to drama, a valuable trait to wield while narrating a story like Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut is a master of burying deep psychological and sociological commentary into his literary comedies, and Franco does a superb job of showcasing this balance in his performance.

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    • By: Bram Stoker
    • Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, Katherine Kellgren, Susan Duerden, John Lee, Graeme Malcolm, Steven Crossley
    • Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
    • Release date: 20-02-2012
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 934 ratings
    • Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale, Dracula is riveting in its own right, but the audiobook brings together a cast of award-winning narrators to make the listening experience even more thrilling. Alan Cumming and Tim Curry, both Emmy Award-winning actors, voice Dr. Seward and Van Helsing, leading a full cast in a production that won the 2013 Audie Award for Multi-voiced Performance. Tim Curry’s chilling, ominous tone and eloquent delivery fit perfectly into a vampire story, while Alan Cumming voices Seward with a very fitting doctoral polished, slightly posh cadence. The contrast of these two performances underscores each actor’s embodiment of his character, highlighting their singular, masterful talents.

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    • The Book of Dust: Volume One
    • By: Philip Pullman
    • Narrated by: Michael Sheen
    • Series: His Dark Materials, Book 0, The Book of Dust, Book 1
    • Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
    • Release date: 19-10-2017
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 774 ratings
    • The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage is Philip Pullman’s first expansion on his beloved His Dark Material trilogy. It follows a young spy named Malcolm Polstead, whose family owns an inn on the banks of the River Thames in Oxford. When Polstead finds a secret message at the inn describing a dangerous substance called Dust, he decides to enter into the mystery. BAFTA-winning actor Michael Sheen is widely known for roles such as Tony Blair in The Queen, William Masters in The Masters of Sex, and Aziraphale in Good Omens, but his audiobook credits are also impressive. He has narrated almost 20 full-length novels and plays, ranging from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, and he is a winner of multiple Earphones Awards. He brings that expertise to Pullman’s vivid, vast world, filling each word with a sense of wonder and intrigue.

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    • By: Truman Capote
    • Narrated by: Michael C. Hall
    • Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
    • Release date: 11-02-2014
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 279 ratings
    • Though Breakfast at Tiffany’s may be more well-known for its much-adored film adaptation starring the iconic Audrey Hepburn, it was originally published as a novella by Truman Capote in 1958. It’s the account of an unnamed writer’s relationship with his downstairs neighbour, Holly Golightly. Holly, the archetype of the American beauty, struggles with internal strife as she balances upon the pedestal she’s been placed on. Michael C. Hall, an actor known for his titular role on Dexter, displays an impressive understanding of the story’s narrator and the woman Capote attempts to sketch. Hall’s nuanced performance offers listeners a far less idealised window into Holly’s character, instead highlighting a thoughtful and subtle appreciation of her true self.

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