The Rosie Project
Don Tillman • Book 1
by Graeme Simsion
Narrated by Dan O'Grady
Why Listen to This Audiobook?
A man who built a spreadsheet to find his perfect wife never suspects the answer is already standing in front of him — O'Grady plays that obliviousness to perfection.
- Great if you want: a charming, neurodivergent-coded narrator you root for instantly
- Listening experience: light and breezy — 7.5 hours that feel like a good sitcom binge
- Narration: O'Grady's deadpan delivery makes Don's literal thinking genuinely funny
- Skip if: rom-com predictability breaks the spell for you
About This Audiobook
Don Tillman is a professor of genetics who approaches the problem of finding a wife with the same systematic rigor he applies to everything else. His Wife Project involves a twenty-page questionnaire designed to filter out unsuitable candidates. Rosie Jarman, who arrives looking for help with an entirely different DNA project, meets none of his criteria and yet persistently refuses to behave according to the system. Graeme Simsion's novel is a comedy of logical intelligence colliding with emotional life, narrated from inside a mind that notices everything except what matters most.
Dan O'Grady's performance captures Don's flat, precise delivery without making him seem cold, threading warmth into a character who experiences warmth indirectly. The comedy depends on O'Grady committing fully to Don's unironic literalism, and he does so with timing that makes the funniest passages land hard. At just over seven hours, The Rosie Project is a brisk and genuinely funny audiobook that works as well on relisten as on first encounter.
