I just thought I'd share a favorite audiobook: Lenny Henry's performance/reading of Neil Gamain's "Anansi Boys".

Interestingly enough, he hits a few of the notes mentioned in the article, but indirectly: He's black but manages to "cast" the story wonderfully (hitting accents from a number of locales); he occasionally ventures into falsetto territory (but to wonderful effect), etc.

The only criticism I'd make about the article itself is that it isn't explicit that even a normally solid reader can have a bad performance. For example, William Dufris is a widely regarded reader (I think mainly due to his channeling of the film actors in his "Maltese Falcon" reading) but I've listened to books in which he sounded like even he wasn't interested in the story.

There are a few other minor nits that audiophiles would probably have appreciated: abridged v. unabridged recordings, "series" read by different performers, etc.

You're right about the abridged vs unabridged - it seems actors can't read more than a few pages (must be from all those scripts) so they only tackle the abridged versions and those are usually so confusing as to be worthless.