Meet Jonathan Davis

Jonathan Davis

A beloved narrator of nonfiction and sci-fi alike, Davis is a three-time recipient
and 16-time nominee of the coveted Audie Award.

Top Performances

"We must free ourselves from the suggestion that we are guests in this country!"
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"Why would Count Dooku want to wade into Vallt internal affairs?"
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"In preparing the psychological attack on a city, Genghis Khan began with two examples."
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"We killed for each other, we died for each other, and we wept for each other."
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"Words shouted in anger and resentment seemed to be reverberating off the bedrooms walls…"
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  • The Minuteman
  • "We must free ourselves from the suggestion that we are guests in this country!"
  • Catalyst (Star Wars)
  • "Why would Count Dooku want to wade into Vallt internal affairs?"
  • Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
  • "In preparing the psychological attack on a city, Genghis Khan began with two examples."
  • We Were Soldiers Once... and Young
  • "We killed for each other, we died for each other, and we wept for each other."
  • Mean Streak
  • "Words shouted in anger and resentment seemed to be reverberating off the bedrooms walls…"

Greatest Hits

Editor's Pick

More About Jonathan Davis

Davis gained his earliest fans with sci-fi, making a big splash with Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (one of his earliest narrations), several Star Wars titles, and his performance of Robert J. Sawyer’s Calculating God which won the Audie for Sci-Fi in 2009. But with a varied list of nearly 500 books to his name, sci-fi certainly isn’t his only jam.
If there is such a thing as a nonfiction cult classic in audio, it may very well owe its success to Jonathan Davis. His narration of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World took an often (wrongly) mythologized, but little known, subject and made it as gripping as any thriller. Similarly, his performance of Oliver Sacks’s pop-science hit The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat completely enthralled listeners, and his brilliantly paced handling of Francis Fukuyama’s unabashedly intelligent The Origins of Political Order took something that might seem above your pay grade and turned it into a story with an engaging narrative arc.
Born in the States, Davis and his family moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico when he was five to live near his uncle Sholom Secunda, who was an esteemed composer of Yiddish theater. Of his uncle, Davis remarks, ''Sholom was a wonderful storyteller, who instilled my desire to become an actor." That upbringing helped to equip him with many of the different accents and dialects that he brings to his work. His fluency in Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew has allowed him to imbue many of his performances with a rich and rate authenticity, from Chaim Potok’s The Chosen to Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind. And in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz’s not-to-be-missed tour de force, Davis brings a wisdom and depth to each character, allowing each to come alive as a separate, vividly-envisioned person.


Awards and Accolades

Audie Award
History, 2012

Audie Award
Short Stories, 2011

Audie Award
Science Fiction, 2009

AudioFile Earphones
Award Winner


The Narrator Hall of Fame





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