The Reader's Shelf¦ Story Hour: Authors Read Their Own Works, September 1, 2011 

Audiobook narration, as the performances of such top readers as Simon Prebble and Katherine Kellgren attest, is difficult, creative, and specialized work. But then so is writing. Sometimes, with the right mix of book and author, writers can be the best readers of their own work. They know how they meant a passage to feel, how a sentence should be stressed, how a paragraph should be paced. Here are six who make pure audio magic.

Listening to David McCullough read 1776 (10 CDs. library ed. unabridged. 11¾ hrs. Recorded Bks. 2005. ISBN 9781419334139. $119.75; Playaway digital) is a stirring experience—akin to viewing fireworks on the Fourth of July. McCullough's exploration of the beginnings of the American Revolution is detailed and story-rich, the best kind of narrative nonfiction for fans who like their history personalized with anecdotes that bring dusty facts to life. McCullough's comforting and gravely voice infuses his narration with a palpable sense of his love of the historical characters and events of the past. The author is steady, engaged, enthusiastic, and intent, and his regular cadence and warm inflection quickly transport listeners back to that seminal year.

William Golding's deeply disturbing Lord of the Flies (CD. unabridged. Listening Library: Random House Audio. 2005. ISBN 9780307281708. $29.95; digital download) explores the devolution of a group of British schoolboys who have crashed on an uninhabited island during an unnamed war. No grown-ups, no rules, no structure. While some of the boys try to establish order and work toward rescue, others become increasingly primal, eventually turning on one another in a life-and-death battle between savagery and what is left of a civilizing force. Golding reads his novel with a sense of distance that makes the events all the more chilling. His voice is raspy and grave, and he narrates his text without strong accents but with great inflection. His sense of pacing—of line and scene—is wonderful and contributes to an atmosphere as portentous as it is unsettling.

In Dylan Thomas: The Caedmon Collection (CD. unabridged. Caedmon: Harper­Collins. 2004. ISBN 9780060790837. $29.95), the Welsh poet uses his wonderfully rich and tactile voice to read his poetry, as well as the lovely A Child's Christmas in Wales and a selection of other works. The recordings, the earliest of which was made in 1952, have just enough reverb to evoke turn-of-the-century microphones à la The King's Speech. Part of Caedmon's remarkable series of poets reading their own work, this collection gathers a number of different recordings that feature Thomas's extraordinary musical voice. Once one hears Thomas read his work, one forever hears his evocation of Welsh landscapes, snowball-besieged cats, and the exhortation to “rage against the dying of the light.”

Maya Angelou narrates her own harrowing and resilient story of coming of age, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (8 CDs. library ed. unabridged. Books on Tape. 2011. ISBN 9780307879394. $40), with great empathy for her younger self. Her voice, warm and deep, stretches and fades, sometimes stressing words, sometimes letting them lilt up and away. Even though it is her own story, Angelou creates character voices with easy shifts in speech patterns and pace that add to her keenly observed and poetically rendered tale (her grandmother's quick, no-nonsense morning prayer is particularly evocative). Poets should almost always read their own work—in whatever form—and Angelou's autobiography of her early childhood in the segregated South, tragic sexual abuse, and literary awakening proves that rule.

Comedians also should read their own work, as Tina Fey demonstrates in her riotous memoir, Bossypants (5 CDs. library ed. unabridged. 5¹/3 hrs. AudioGO. 2011. ISBN 9781609417192. $64.99). Sharing stories about Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, Second City, and her adult life as a parent, Fey details the determined path she forged to get ahead in a man's world as well as the crazy high-pressure work of her chosen career. In what is essentially a series of comic sketches, Fey riffs on everything from photo shoots to gynecological exams to fake ads on SNL. What makes the whole thing pull-over-because-you-are-going-to-crash-your-car-while-laughing funny is Fey's pacing and tone. Just like in stand-up, delivery is everything. And Fey—arch, fervent, and shark-tooth smart—delivers.

David Sedaris proved the read-your-own-work rule long before Fey came on the scene. In Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (5 CDs. library ed. unabridged. 6¼ hrs. AudioGO. 2011. ISBN 9781611138238. $54.99), he narrates a collection of essays about Halloween candy, plotting his sister's death, and the various jobs he's held—with a snarky allure that somehow manages to be both touching and hysterical. Sedaris's self-deprecation plays well on audio. His voice displays a sincere, cut-short drawl that carries inflection brilliantly as he slips into voices punctuated with perfect pauses.