The Lord of the Rings Audiobook Is Fantastic

Just the other day, I learned that Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the LoTR movies, did an unabridged audiobook version of the original trilogy, as well as one of The Hobbit:

The Hobbit (Libro.fm, Amazon, Audible)
The Fellowship of the Ring (Libro.fm, Amazon, Audible)
The Two Towers (Libro.fm, Amazon, Audible)
The Return of the King (Libro.fm, Amazon, Audible)

I’ve listened to about three hours of Fellowship so far; it’s very good. Serkis is an exceptional voice actor who doesn’t so much narrate as perform the book. The whole trilogy clocks in at around 65 hours¹ but I’m immersed already so it can go on as long as it wants for all I care.

And if you’re super hardcore, there’s also a Serkis-narrated version of The Silmarillion that clocks in at more than 19 hours. That is a lot of Middle Earth.

1. 75 hours if you include The Hobbit. You can shorten your listening time if you skip over the singing like I’ve been doing.↩

Tags: Andy Serkis · audiobooks · books · The Hobbit · The Lord of the Rings

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →