Read Me a Story, Brad Pitt When audiobook casting goes terribly wrong.

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The reader, actor Reg Rogers, is a white guy. Every character but the Indian-American narrator is black. This is always tricky audiobook territory, but here, not only has Rogers unwisely chosen to bring a little "sound of the street" to his characters, he's opted to bring the sound of the street from movies of the 1960s. JT, a twentysomething gang lieutenant, sounds like Sidney Poitier circa In the Heat of the Night.* Ex-gang members in their 50s veer toward Fred Sanford at best, Uncle Remus at worst.

After forcing us to suffer through seven hours of Rogers, the producers of the Gang Leader audiobook make an interesting choice: The book's final hour is read by the author. In that hour, the lives that Venkatesh worked so hard to bring to the page become real lives. He's no professional voice actor—he doesn't always punch the right words for emphasis, the art of the dramatic pause eludes him—but he tells a straightforward story in a straightforward fashion. No outrageous accents. No audio blackface. And the listener, and his subjects, are better off for it.

Read Me a Story, Brad Pitt
Actors can often find in the audiobook realm a stardom that has eluded them on stage and screen. Roles such as "Deputy" in the direct-to-video The Killing Grounds have not made Scott Brick a household name, but the man has narrated more than 200 books—he has a devoted following and is one of the most in-demand readers in the business. (His tone is cultured with a dash of swagger—he's brought an enjoyable air of righteous indignation to books like Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven.)

Lately, with the audiobook business booming, actual Hollywood stars are frequently stepping behind the mic. Kevin Spacey has read Bob Woodward. Oprah reads White Oleander. Matt Damon reads A People's History of the United States. While a big-name Hollywood actor may help sell a title, using a big star can backfire on the listener. I can't listen to Sean Penn read Bob Dylan's autobiography without thinking, "That's Sean Penn reading Bob Dylan's autobiography."

You can't help but wonder if the demands of celebrity prevent the Hollywood star from taking the time with the source material that an audiobook star would. Whether it's a clumsy cadence or a preponderance of retakes (which jump out at you when listening on headphones), there seems to be an inverse proportionality between the size of the star and the quality of the experience. Here, Brad Pitt shows off his español while reading Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses.

But we can't really blame Brad Pitt or, for that matter, any of the mis- or overmatched narrators who keep good books from becoming good audiobooks. The unsatisfied listener should direct her complaints to the producers making the casting and directing decisions, who keep making the same mistakes. As Brad might put it, no más.

Correction, Sept. 22, 2008: This article originally misspelled Sidney Poitier's name. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

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