Best Various Audiobooks
Some audiobooks are better served by many voices than one — and this collection leans hard into that truth. The standout here is World War Z: The Complete Edition, which deploys a full cast including Alan Alda, John Turturro, and Rob Reiner to bring Max Brooks's mock-oral-history format to life with documentary authenticity. Each narrator brings their own texture — world-weary, clipped, desperate — making the zombie apocalypse feel genuinely reported rather than performed. The Letters of Note series takes a different approach, using rotating readers to give each historical letter its own personality and weight, which is exactly right for material that spans grief, humor, and obsession. This is a collection for listeners who find a single voice limiting — who want narration that shapeshifts to match the material. The average ratings are solid, and the range across horror, fantasy, and epistolary nonfiction is genuinely surprising.
Where to Start with Various
- New to Various? Start here → A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
- What fans keep coming back to → World War Z
- Short listen, big payoff → The Correspondent
- Highest rated by listeners → Predator: If It Bleeds
Best Various Audiobooks
- 1
The Correspondent
by Virginia Evans
Narrated by Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, Various
★ 4.81 ABR Score (383.3K ratings)★ 4.53 Goodreads (364.9K) ★ 4.8 Audible (18.3K)8h 36m listening time • Released 2025A sprawling ensemble cast brings luminous depth to this meditation on lifelong correspondence—each narrator inhabits their character so fully you'll forget you're listening to a performance, not overhearing actual lives unfolding.
- 2
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder • Book 1
by Holly Jackson
Narrated by Bailey Carr, Marisa Calin, Michael Crouch, Gopal Divan, Robert Fass, Kevin R. Free, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Carol Monda, Patricia Santomasso, Shezi Sardar, Amanda Thickpenny, Various
★ 4.60 ABR Score (1.8M ratings)★ 4.28 Goodreads (1.8M) ★ 4.57 Audible (10.2K)10h 53m listening time • Released 2020 - 3
World War Z
World War Z
by Max Brooks, Alan Alda, John Turturro, Rob Reiner
Narrated by Various
★ 4.43 ABR Score (596.4K ratings)★ 4.02 Goodreads (570.4K) ★ 4.65 Audible (26.0K)12h 9m listening time • Released 2013The all-star cast transforms each survivor's testimony into its own haunting performance, making this less audiobook and more immersive oral history that justifies every minute of its 12-hour runtime.
- 4
Predator: If It Bleeds
Aliens / Predator / Prometheus Universe
by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Holly Roberds, Steve Perry, John Shirley, Jeremy Robinson, Jonathan Maberry, Kevin J. Anderson, Weston Ochse, Mira Grant, Tim Lebbon, Larry Correia, Dayton Ward, Peter J. Wacks
Narrated by full cast, Tom Taylorson, Nicol Zanzarella, Traber Burns, Bradford Hastings, Bahni Turpin, Emily Sutton-Smith, Ulf Bjorklund, James Patrick Cronin, Andrew Eiden, Scott Brick, Feodor Chin, John Pruden, Mark Bramhall, various
★ 4.07 ABR Score (2.2K ratings)★ 4.01 Goodreads (917) ★ 4.62 Audible (1.3K)12h 34m listening time • Released 2018A full-cast ensemble brings teeth to seventeen Predator stories spanning centuries and continents, with A-list sci-fi narrators elevating what could've been fan service into genuinely immersive hunts.
- 5
Letters of Note: Art
by Shaun Usher
Narrated by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Crystal Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jude Law, Helen McCrory, Stephen Mangan, Clarke Peters, Various
★ 3.93 ABR Score (6.3K ratings)★ 4.31 Goodreads (6.2K) ★ 4.4 Audible (5)2h 43m listening time • Released 2021A star-studded ensemble cast brings intimacy to letters from history's greatest artists—each narrator perfectly matched to their subject's voice, making this feel less like a collection and more like eavesdropping on genius.
- 6
Letters of Note: Love
by Shaun Usher
Narrated by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Crystal Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Edmondson, Danny Huston, Toby Jones, Jude Law, Natascha McElhone, Stephen Mangan, Miriam Margolyes, Clarke Peters, Various
★ 3.91 ABR Score (6.2K ratings)★ 4.31 Goodreads (6.2K) ★ 5 Audible (2)2h 56m listening time • Released 2020A all-star cast of actors—Cumberbatch, Jude Law, Miriam Margolyes, and more—each voicing a different love letter transforms these 30 intimate missives into something closer to theater than audiobook. The performances elevate already-moving words into genuinely affecting moments.
- 7
From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi (Star Wars)
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View • Book 3
by Olivie Blake, Elizabeth Schaefer, Saladin Ahmed, Charlie Jane Anders, Fran Wilde, Mary Kenney, Mike Chen
Narrated by Jonathan Davis, Sean Kenin Elias-Reyes, Jon Hamm, January LaVoy, Saskia Maarleveld, Adam Scott, Marc Thompson, Sam Witwer, Various
★ 3.88 ABR Score (3.2K ratings)★ 3.9 Goodreads (2.8K) ★ 4.42 Audible (381)19h 36m listening time • Released 2023 - 8
Powers of Darkness: The Lost Version of Dracula
by Valdimar Ásmundsson, Bram Stoker, Hans Corneel De Roos, Dacre Stoker, John Edgar Browning
Narrated by Adam Verner, Robertson Dean, Ralph Lister, Derek Perkins, R.C. Bray, various
★ 3.80 ABR Score (2.0K ratings)★ 3.63 Goodreads (1.6K) ★ 4.27 Audible (392)7h 27m listening time • Released 2018Multiple narrators elevate this rediscovered Icelandic reimagining of Dracula into something richer than the original, each voice deepening the atmosphere and psychological tension that Stoker's 1901 translator added to the story.
- 9
Fresh Ink
by Lamar Giles, Nicola Yoon, Malinda Lo, Melissa de la Cruz, Sara Farizan, Eric Gansworth, Walter Dean Myers, Daniel José Older, Thien Pham, Jason Reynolds, Gene Luen Yang, Sharon G. Flake, Schuyler Bailar, Aminah Mae Safi
Narrated by Guy Lockard, Kim Mai Guest, Bahni Turpin, Aminah Mae Safi, Dominic Hoffman, Dion Graham, Ron Butler, J. B. Adkins, Sara Farizan, Henry Levya, Donnabella Mortel, Schuyler Bailar, Various
★ 3.72 ABR Score (3.5K ratings)★ 3.78 Goodreads (3.4K) ★ 4.44 Audible (16)5h 4m listening time • Released 2018Multiple award-winning YA voices tackle identity, belonging, and resistance across formats—short stories, graphic work, and a never-before-printed Walter Dean Myers play—each narrator perfectly matched to their piece.
- 10
Letters of Note: Music
by Shaun Usher
Narrated by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Nick Cave, Crystal Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Fry, Danny Huston, Toby Jones, Jude Law, Stephen Mangan, Miriam Margolyes, Various
★ 3.69 ABR Score (234 ratings)★ 3.9 Goodreads (230) ★ 5 Audible (4)2h 29m listening time • Released 2020A stellar ensemble cast reads intimate letters from music's greatest minds, turning private confessions into something almost like eavesdropping on genius at their most candid and human.
- 11
The Book of Magic
Spiritwalker #Bloom
by Gardner Dozois, K.J. Parker, Megan Lindholm, John Crowley, Matthew Hughes, Ysabeau S. Wilce, Rachel Pollack, Eleanor Arnason, Tim Powers, Liz Williams, Garth Nix, Elizabeth Bear, Lavie Tidhar, Greg Van Eekhout, George R.R. Martin, Andy Duncan, Kate Elliott, Scott Lynch
Narrated by Elliot Hill, Karissa Vacker, Sile Bermingham, Maxwell Caulfield, Susan Denaker, Scott Brick, Bruce Mann, Holly Palance, Nicholas Guy Smith, Steve West, Various
★ 3.66 ABR Score (1.0K ratings)★ 3.7 Goodreads (839) ★ 4.07 Audible (191)24h 38m listening time • Released 2018 - 12
Letters of Note: Mothers
by Shaun Usher
Narrated by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Edmondson, Neil Gaiman, Danny Huston, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jude Law, Helen McCrory, Natascha McElhone, Miriam Margolyes, Various
★ 3.64 ABR Score (279 ratings)★ 3.87 Goodreads (278) ★ 5 Audible (1)3h 41m listening time • Released 2021A stellar ensemble cast—Cumberbatch, Gaiman, Jude Law, Miriam Margolyes—transforms intimate letters about motherhood into a moving audiobook that feels like overhearing conversations you needed to hear.
- 13
Letters of Note: War
by Shaun Usher
Narrated by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Danny Huston, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jude Law, Natascha McElhone, Miriam Margolyes, Various
★ 3.63 ABR Score (178 ratings)★ 4.01 Goodreads (175) ★ 5 Audible (3)2h 49m listening time • Released 2020An all-star cast of British actors breathing life into thirty devastating wartime letters, each one a raw firsthand account that hits harder read aloud than on the page.
- 14
Old Venus
by George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Ian McDonald, Garth Nix, Joe Haldeman, Gwyneth Jones, Matthew Hughes, Paul McAuley, Lavie Tidhar, Allen M. Steele, Stephen Leigh, Eleanor Arnason, David Brin, Michael Cassutt, Tobias S. Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, Joe R. Lansdale, Mike Resnick
Narrated by Diana Rigg, Full Cast, Michael Dorn, Stephen Fry, Jake Stormoen, W. Morgan Sheppard, Gethin Anthony, Wil Wheaton, Janis Ian, Ron Donachie, Various
★ 3.61 ABR Score (821 ratings)★ 3.57 Goodreads (734) ★ 3.99 Audible (87)22h 17m listening time • Released 2015 - 15
Dangerous Women
The Dresden Files #13.1 - Bombshells
by George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Carrie Vaughn, Lev Gossman, Joe R. Lansdale, Megan Lindholm, Lawrence Block, Brandon Sanderson, Sharon Kay Penman, Lev Grossman, Nancy Kress, Diana Rowland, Diana Gabaldon, S.M. Stirling, Sam Sykes, Pat Cadigan, Caroline Spector, Joe Abercrombie, Megan Abbott, Cecelia Holland, Jim Butcher, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Melinda M. Snodgrass
Narrated by Scott Brick, Jonathan Frakes, Stana Katic, Inna Korobkina, Lee Meriwether, Claudia Black, Sophie Turner, Janis Ian, Iain Glen, Karen Dotrice, Various
★ 3.56 ABR Score (14.9K ratings)★ 3.67 Goodreads (13.2K) ★ 4.02 Audible (1.7K)32h 47m listening time • Released 2013A stacked anthology where Abercrombie, Sanderson, Butcher, and Gabaldon deliver knockout stories, anchored by an all-star narrator cast that elevates every twist—32 hours that justify the hype.
- 16
Letters of Note: Cats
by Shaun Usher
Narrated by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Danny Huston, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Helen McCrory, Natascha McElhone, Stephen Mangan, Various
★ 3.56 ABR Score (397 ratings)★ 3.55 Goodreads (392) ★ 3.6 Audible (5)2h 56m listening time • Released 2020A stellar ensemble cast—Cumberbatch, Fry, Gaiman, and more—elevates these delightful letters about cats into pure theatrical joy. Each narrator brings their own wit to correspondence from Dickens, Eliot, and Kerouac's mother.