The Martian Audiobook by Andy Weir
An astronaut stranded alone on Mars has to science his way back to life one improvised problem at a time, and the result is the rare survival story that makes competence itself feel thrilling.
Why the audiobook wins
Wil Wheaton narrates this edition of The Martian with the deadpan comic timing the book needs, because Mark Watney's survival log is really a running joke he's telling himself to stay sane. Wheaton, a lifelong nerd's nerd, clearly relishes every disco jab and duct-tape triumph, and he never lets the technical passages go flat — you can hear him grinning through the orbital mechanics.
If you know the film, you know the beats; what you haven't heard is Watney's voice sustaining that voice for the better part of eleven hours, log entry by log entry, with the small defeats and dumb luck that a two-hour cut has to compress or cut. It's the kind of audiobook built for a long drive, because you'll want to keep listening past your exit.
Wheaton's comic instincts and Weir's math-as-suspense plotting are a genuine match, and eleven hours of a man arguing with Mars flies by. One credit gets you the whole ride.
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