I'm an avid audiobook listener. One of the review magazines I subscribe to is Audiofile. I bought it for my brother, who hadn't actually read anything for pleasure since he had been in high school. Now every Christmas he and my sister-in-law get a stack of audiobooks as gifts. It's their favorite present, and I have managed to turn them on to some really great books. I primarily use the Audies, the audio book world's version of the Emmy's, to choose the titles I buy for them and myself. I would say Academy Awards, except as far as I can tell, it's reviewers who hand out these awards. I have to tell you, I don't think I have been disappointed picking from the list of Audie finalists. I have found some truly wonderful selections from there.

One of the things you have to be aware of when reading a review magazine like Audiofile, they don't poorly review anything. Some review magazines are like this, they only include reviews of things they positively review, like Publishers Weekly. Some review magazines include negative and positive reviews, like EW or Kirkus. In Audiofile, they box audiobooks they feel are exceptional, so it's easy to pick out the ones they particularly liked.

I prefer Sci Fi and my brother and sister-in-law like the teen genre. My sister in law does not like too much violence, so these books tend to be safe books for them.

Some of our favorites:

The Golden Compass - I don't know if this can be surpassed as far as quality of production goes.

The Artemis Fowl series - for teens, but really excellent narration. Though the most recent seems to have a newcomer.

The Abhorsen Trilogy - Tim Curry does an excellent narration here. He's often touted for his work on the Series of Unfortunate Events, but I think this one is much much better. He's more understated here, and the tone of the series is much more intense. The books say they are for ages 10 and up, but this is a British author, and I would definately rate these for a similar age group as the Dark Materials (Golden Compass) trilogy

Ender's Game - A very engaging series, and the reader is quite good as well. This is one I even got my father to read, and he's very picky.

World War Z - mentioned in this article. It's a zombie book, but it's written very much like a post apocalyptic piece.

The Bartimeaus Trilogy - This is one I think is better in audiobook than print. It has footnotes which the reader chooses to read as asides from the main character's point of view. It's very effective.

Anything by David Sedaris - he reads his own stuff, and I have given this to everyone in my family to listen to.

There are many more, but they tend to all be on the Audies lists. I linked to it before but here is the link again.

http://www.theaudies.com/