Audiobooks Like The Secret History

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Donna Tartt narrates The Secret History herself, and her voice has a deliberate, almost ceremonial quality that matches the novel's concern with ritual and decay — there's a coldness to it, an aristocratic remove that feels entirely right for a story about beautiful people doing terrible things. At 22 hours the slow-burn tension is sustained by Tartt's own relationship to the material, and the other picks here share that literary darkness and the unhurried pace of fiction that believes its ideas are worth the time.

10 audiobooks for fans of The Secret History

  1. 1
    The Little Friend cover

    The Little Friend

    by Donna Tartt

    Narrated by Karen White

    ★ 3.38 ABR Score (84.8K ratings)
    ★ 3.48 Goodreads (83.6K) ★ 3.62 Audible (1.2K)
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    Twelve years after her brother Robin's unsolved murder, young Harriet Dufresnes launches her own investigation in 1970s Mississippi. Tartt's dense Southern Gothic unfolds slowly through richly detailed character portraits.

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  2. 2
    The Goldfinch cover

    The Goldfinch

    by Donna Tartt

    Narrated by David Pittu

    ★ 4.28 ABR Score (1.1M ratings)
    ★ 3.97 Goodreads (1.1M) ★ 4.33 Audible (42.4K)
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    A terrorist attack at an art museum kills Theo's mother and leaves him clutching a stolen Dutch masterpiece that will haunt his entire life.

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  3. 3
    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire cover

    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

    Harry Potter • Book 4

    by J.K. Rowling

    Narrated by Jim Dale

    ★ 5.00 ABR Score (4.4M ratings)
    ★ 4.57 Goodreads (4.2M) ★ 4.94 Audible (125.6K)
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    Jim Dale's performance transforms this darker turn into something almost unbearably gripping—his voices for the Triwizard Tournament's chaos and Voldemort's return will haunt you long after the 20+ hours end.

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  4. 4
    Demon Copperhead cover

    Demon Copperhead

    by Barbara Kingsolver

    Narrated by Charlie Thurston

    ★ 4.81 ABR Score (858.9K ratings)
    ★ 4.46 Goodreads (824.6K) ★ 4.77 Audible (34.3K)
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    A David Copperfield retelling set in Appalachian poverty, following a boy through foster care and opioid addiction. Charlie Thurston's authentic narration captures Demon's resilient voice and mountain dialect beautifully.

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  5. 5
    East of Eden cover

    East of Eden

    by John Steinbeck

    Narrated by Richard Poe

    ★ 4.78 ABR Score (674.9K ratings)
    ★ 4.44 Goodreads (655.0K) ★ 4.78 Audible (19.8K)
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    Two California families—the Trasks and Hamiltons—reenact biblical themes of good and evil across generations in Steinbeck's sprawling Salinas Valley epic.

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  6. 6
    Cutting for Stone cover

    Cutting for Stone

    by Abraham Verghese

    Narrated by Sunil Malhotra

    ★ 4.61 ABR Score (445.5K ratings)
    ★ 4.34 Goodreads (431.3K) ★ 4.65 Audible (14.2K)
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    A luminous family saga whose emotional depth justifies the full 24-hour audiobook. Malhotra captures both the intimacy and epic scope of this prose.

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  7. 7
    The Storyteller cover

    The Storyteller

    by Jodi Picoult

    Narrated by Mozhan Marno, Jennifer Ikeda, Edoardo Ballerini, Suzanne Toren, Fred Berman

    ★ 4.57 ABR Score (299.1K ratings)
    ★ 4.3 Goodreads (278.1K) ★ 4.61 Audible (21.0K)
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    When an elderly man asks baker Sage to help him die as penance for his Nazi past, she must confront family history and impossible moral choices. Multiple narrators handle the interconnected timelines skillfully, from modern grief support groups to Holocaust survival stories.

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  8. 8
    The Great Believers cover

    The Great Believers

    by Rebecca Makkai

    Narrated by Michael Crouch

    ★ 4.46 ABR Score (179.2K ratings)
    ★ 4.3 Goodreads (175.1K) ★ 4.59 Audible (4.1K)
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    Yale's art world triumph collides with the AIDS epidemic devastating 1980s Chicago in parallel with a mother's search for her daughter in modern Paris. Michael Crouch navigates both timelines with emotional precision, honoring each character's pain and resilience.

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  9. 9
    The House of the Spirits cover

    The House of the Spirits

    Trilogía Involuntaria • Book 3

    by Isabel Allende, Magda Bogin

    Narrated by Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez

    ★ 4.35 ABR Score (328.3K ratings)
    ★ 4.3 Goodreads (325.3K) ★ 4.45 Audible (3.0K)
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    Three generations of the Trueba family navigate love, politics, and supernatural forces in an unnamed Latin American country. The magical realist epic spans decades of political upheaval while exploring how personal relationships intersect with larger historical forces in unforgettable ways.

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  10. 10
    The Godfather cover

    The Godfather

    The Godfather • Book 1

    by Mario Puzo

    Narrated by Joe Mantegna

    ★ 4.35 ABR Score (468.1K ratings)
    ★ 4.4 Goodreads (468.0K) ★ 4.88 Audible (128)
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    Joe Mantegna's performance captures both the intimacy of family dinners and the brutality of Corleone business dealings. His narration honors Puzo's epic scope while highlighting the personal costs of power, tradition, and revenge in America's most infamous crime family.

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How We Rank Audiobooks

Rankings are driven by listener ratings and review counts from Audible and Goodreads. Books with high ratings across a large number of listeners rank higher — a 4.5 with 50,000 ratings says more than a 4.8 with 200.

Unlike most book lists, we weight audiobook-specific factors: narrator performance, production quality, and how well a story translates to audio. A great book with a poor narration isn't a great audiobook.

We don't accept paid placements or prioritize new releases. These rankings reflect what listeners actually enjoy, not what's being promoted.

Rankings update periodically as new ratings come in and new titles are added to the collection.

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