[JohnDotAwesome]

I listened to Bill Bryson's self-narrated (and truncated) version of A Short History of Nearly Everything. It was my first time listening to an author self-narrating their book. It's probably one of my favorite narrations (I've got over 120 audiobooks under my belt now). Bryson set the bar pretty high.

Then I listened to Leonard Mlodinow's "The Upright Thinkers"; Oh god. Euclid's Window by Mlodinow was absolutely fantastic, and it was narrated by the slightly pompous-sounding -- but fitting -- Robert Blumenfield. Leonard had a somewhat slow, drawling voice, and he often stumbled over words. This was pretty disappointing because he seems like such a smart dude. He just shouldn't narrate his own books :)

[TylerE]

The gold standard for this is Douglas Adams' readings of the HHGTG books. He was actually a really good narrator. I suppose his BBC Radio experience helped.