Audible.com has hired major actors to produce “tour de force performances” of new audiobooks. The stars helped choose the books, and the lineup includes Samuel L. Jackson reading A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes and Kim Basinger reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
What celebrity would you choose to read your favorite book? The program will add more celebrities in the future. We’ve included the current list below…
Kate Winslet explained why she read Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola: “You use a different part of your brain and it keeps your creative juices flowing … It is challenging, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun as well. As a listener, being able to tune out and be taken into another world, an atmosphere, an environment that is being created entirely for you by somebody else’s voice is really a wonderful, magical thing.”
Kim Basinger (The Awakening by Kate Chopin)
Annette Bening (Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf)
Jennifer Connelly (The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles)
Colin Firth (The End of the Affair by Graham Greene)
Anne Hathaway (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum)
Dustin Hoffman (Being There by Jerzy Kosinski)
Samuel L. Jackson (A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes)
Nicole Kidman (To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf)
Meg Ryan (The Human Comedy by William Saroyan)
Susan Sarandon (The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers)
Naomi Watts (Summer by Edith Wharton)
Kate Winslet (Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola)
Editor’s Note: The original version of this post miscounted the list.