Find your next great audiobook on our podcast, Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine. Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile Editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. All in 6 minutes or less. It’s short, sweet, and just what your ears need. Want more? Listen to our bonus episodes featuring conversations with the best voices in the audiobook industry.
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Listen to an audiobook chapter by chapter. In collaboration with audio publishers and professional narrators, AudioFile serializes extraordinary audiobooks. Twice a week, we bring you a new chapter; listen throughout the week or binge them on the weekend. Hear great books brought to life with brilliant performances and produced with the highest audio standards. It's a wonderful way to take a break—an audiobook break.
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alex Richey discuss how narrator Henrietta Meire shows remarkable vocal range in this young adult audiobook featuring multiple human and dragon languages and accents. Vivian aims for an internship studying dragon languages, but when her parents are arrested as rebels, she sets free a dragon that starts a civil war. Desp…
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JANUARIES by Olivie Blake, read by Alexandra Palting, Daniel Henning, David Monteith, Ferdelle Capistrano, Olivie Blake, Stephanie Németh-Parker, Steve West
7:14
A full cast of narrators, including the author, delivers this enchanting collection of short stories about love, magic, and betrayal. AudioFile’s Alex Richey and host Jo Reed discuss how each of the 14 stories is tenderly delivered by an emotionally committed narrator. Some standouts include Stephanie Németh-Parker as a woman who grants wishes at a…
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DEATH OF THE AUTHOR by Nnedi Okorafor, read by Liz Femi, Anthony Oseyemi, Jason Culp, Chris Djuma
7:05
Liz Femi is the primary narrator of this meta-narrative about a paraplegic Nigerian American woman and her unexpected rise to fame. Suddenly unemployed, Zelu risks writing a novel unlike any she’s ever written before, a futuristic sci-fi epic about androids who exist after humanity becomes extinct. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alex Richey discuss h…
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AudioFile’s Alex Richey and host Jo Reed discuss how this fantastic ensemble of narrators excel equally at emotionally connecting to complicated emotional characters, elevating colloquial language, and enhancing mysterious, violent horrors. Kristolyn Lloyd portrays 25-year-old Calla as she struggles to hold her life together. Calla would do anythin…
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Narrator Rong Fu returns in the next audiobook in the Iron Widow series. Zetian has awakened Qin Zheng, legendary emperor of Huaxia from centuries past. He desires a complete overhaul of Huaxia to eliminate corruption and misogyny, but despite a common goal, it is still one Zetian is forced into. AudioFile’s Alex Richey and host Jo Reed discuss how…
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Author Marshall Karp and narrator January LaVoy join AudioFile’s Michele Cobb for a conversation about Marshall’s latest novel, DON’T TELL ME HOW TO DIE - a mystery-turned-thriller where January LaVoy’s superb talent brings an array of dimension to Karp’s carefully crafted characters. Marshall is the author of over a dozen crime fiction novels - in…
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss the 2025 winner for Best Fiction Narrator, awarded this week at the 30th annual Audie Awards. Listen to hear their conversation and a clip from the winner! You can catch up with the Audie Awards ceremony livestream: https://www.youtube.com/live/DZ6KZvPtgEA And see the full list of this year’s finali…
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss the 2025 winners for Audiobook of the Year and the Best Nonfiction Narrator, awarded at last night’s Audie Awards gala. Listen to hear their conversation and a clip from the winner! And you can catch up with the Audie Awards ceremony livestream: https://www.youtube.com/live/DZ6KZvPtgEA And see the f…
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb preview the 2025 Audie Awards! This year the Audies’ 30th anniversary will be celebrated with a gala event in New York City, and with a livestream that audiobook lovers can watch from the comfort of home. Listen in as Jo and Michele discuss some of the highlights to watch for in this year’s Audie Awards. Fo…
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Richard Powers’s PLAYGROUND is a 2025 Audie Award Finalist for Audiobook of the Year. We’re revisiting host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff’s discussion of how the six narrators' words flow forth, immersing the listener in four central characters and the minute details that comprise their respective worlds. Sections lack titles or labels, so …
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Adjoa Andoh narrates a short story collection of speculative fiction by Ann Leckie. We’re revisiting host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discussion of this 2025 Audie Award Finalist in Science Fiction. This collection includes works in the worlds of the Imperial Radch and the Raven Tower, as well as stand-alone pieces. Andoh’s stellar skill…
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We’re revisiting this discussion from Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly about this 2025 Audie Award Finalist in Science Fiction. Kevin R. Free is the perfect voice for Murderbot, the rogue security unit who would rather just be watching serials, but is protecting its humans — and having a mental breakdown. In a story that takes place immediate…
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Grant Overstake’s audio drama details racial strife in Wichita, Kansas, in 1968. We’re revisiting Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff’s discussion of this 2025 Audie Award Finalist in Young Adult. A seventh-grade boy’s life becomes upended when a Black family moves in next door. The narrators of this fraught coming-of-age story are excellent. The…
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Ramiz Monsef performs Taylor Brown’s historical novel set during the Battle of Blair Mountain in the early 1920s. We’re revisiting Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester’s discussion about this 2025 Audie Award Finalist in Fiction that will keep listeners on edge until the very last second. Lebanese American “Doc Moo” Muhanna serves as a medical…
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We’re revisiting our conversation about KNIFE, a finalist for Narration by the Author in the 2025 Audie Awards. Narrating his own work, Salman Rushdie offers an emotionally resonant account of the shocking knife attack that almost ended his life. Host Jo Reed and AudioFIle’s Michele Cobb discuss his memoir of the attack, its immediate aftermath, an…
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AudioFile’s Leslie Fine and host Jo Reed discuss how this brief novel set in a small Irish town in 1985 is no bucolic Irish tale. Aiden Kelly gives a masterful narration. Bill Furlong, the son of an unwed mother and now a coal merchant with a family, leads a comfortable life.During a coal delivery to the town’s convent, he finds a young woman locke…
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The stories in this audiobook collection have subjects as wide as the list of narrators is long, and the result is excellent. AudioFile’s Leslie Fine and host Jo Reed discuss how there is not a weak performance, and each narrator is perfectly suited to his or her story. “Radiolab: Singularities,” with its multiple narrators, makes great use of the …
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Grief is a looming presence in this audiobook. The three Blue sisters try to move on after the death of Nikki, their vivacious and beloved fourth sibling. AudioFile’s Leslie Fine and host Jo Reed discuss how Kit Griffiths narrates the sisters' parallel stories with a measured cadence, conveying the survivors' internal and external struggles as they…
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THE LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË by Elizabeth Gaskell, read by Lucy Scott, Penelope Rawlins, Georgina Sutton, Sarah Lambie, David Timson, Nigel Pilkingtonraft
7:37
Literary skill ensured Charlotte Brontë's place in the "classics" category, and this audiobook delves deeply into her life and times. AudioFile’s Leslie Fine and host Jo Reed discuss how Lucy Scott is the consummate British narrator, with a brisk pace and animated tone that remain consistent through an extensive audio performance. Supporting cast m…
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AudioFile’s Leslie Fine and host Jo Reed discuss how narrator Alexander Skarsgard provides the ideal voice for this audiobook. Just as one settles in with what seems like a typical Western, something occurs that reveals there’s nothing typical about it. Hakan, a reserved Swede of intimidating size, must navigate a strange country where dangers abou…
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Add outstanding audiobook narrator to Brown’s deep resumé. He is aftercall a Food Network personality, cookbook author, and avid food science researcher. Given his long running gigs on Iron Chef, Good Eats and his work as a pitchman for GE, among others, no surprise that he performs his “essays and ruminations” smoothly, smartly and wittily. His ra…
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss Jerry Brotton’s brief but delightful and highly informed audiobook exploring geographic direction. Narrator Liam Garrigan has a natural storytelling style, and his British accent and professional delivery work well for the material. The central idea is how the cardinal directions gave life meaning …
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Set in Canada and the European theater during World War Two, this moving debut from Jack Wang tells the story of Josiah Chang, a Canadian logger and riveter of Chinese ancestry. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss Feodor Chin’s precise and clear narration. The novel details Chang’s challenges and unveils a love story with Poppy, whom…
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PLAYGROUND by Richard Powers, read by Edoardo Ballerini, Robin Siegerman, Eunice Wong, Pun Bandhu, Krys Janae, Kevin R. Free
7:28
"The fate of continents is written in water," this audiobook professes, and the vital role of the ocean is at the heart of this expansive listening experience. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss Richard Powers’s new audiobook, narrated by a full cast. At the start, the narrators' words flow forth, immersing the listener in four cent…
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GRANDDAUGHTER by Bernhard Schlink, Charlotte Collins [Trans.], read by Richard Burnip, Sarah Moule
7:26
Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss an exceptional audiobook from Bernhard Schlink. Both Richard Burnip and Sarah Moule are fine narrators who perform with an impeccable tempo, pace, and cadence. The mysterious plot concerns a Berlin bookseller, Kaspar, who engineered his wife Birgit’s escape from East Germany 40 years earlier. After…
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss a captivating memoir by English writer and academic Sarah Moss, performed by Morven Christie. From an early age, society taught Moss that girls are to be restrained, smart but not too smart, and at home, she learned a girl must stay thin above all else. Moss’s memoir follows her life as she pus…
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National Book Award winner Imani Perry contemplates the connection between the color blue and African and African American history and culture. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss Perry’s narration of her audiobook. From the traditional practice of dying indigo cloth in West Africa to the blues musical tradition in America, Perry…
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Christine Lakin performs Adrienne Young’s atmospheric mystery novel set in a small town in Northern California. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss a story full of twists and turns. When James receives a call that her twin brother Johnny has unexpectedly died, she travels back to her tiny hometown to take care of his affairs. But…
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Hannah van der Westhuysen gives a quiet, melancholic performance of this contemplative, grief-filled reimagining of KING LEAR. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss Julia Armfield’s story set in a vague future of drowned cities and constant rain. The story revolves around three queer sisters after the death of their famous father, …
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Kendra Winchester discuss Nobel Prize winner Han Kang’s latest novel, a haunting story focused on the friendship of two women. Greta Jung performs the story of Kyungha, who receives an urgent request from her friend, Inseon, to come see her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon asks Kyungha to care for her bird, Ama, at her ho…
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Sally Phillips’s heartfelt performance of Alice Franklin’s novel has perfect pacing and inflection. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss a story of a young girl who believes she is an alien. From Little Alien's first attempt at language, listeners sense something extraordinary about her. The story’s narrator, an analytical linguist, br…
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Sarah LaBrie, a successful television writer based in Los Angeles, narrates her gripping memoir of family trauma in a calm, sweet voice that keeps listeners engaged. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss this deeply personal memoir that explores mental health and self-acceptance. Throughout LaBrie’s childhood her mother ricocheted from …
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Maggi-Meg Reed shines in Christopher Bollen’s psychological thriller pitting an octogenarian against an 8-year-old boy. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss this story full of dark humor, plot twists, and increasing suspense. Set during Covid at the Royal Karnak Hotel on the banks of the Nile, the story features 81-year-old Maggie Burk…
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Oscar-winning actor, respected singer, and self-declared icon whose comebacks and reinventions have had their own comebacks and reinventions, Cher offers the first volume of her memoir. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss this memoir narrated both by Cher and by actor and friend Stephanie J. Block, who portrayed Cher in a Broadway mus…
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Sebastian Humphreys delivers an enthusiastic performance of a delightful cast of characters in Orlando Murrin’s new mystery. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Michele Cobb discuss this British mystery with a foodie bent. Chef Paul Delamare steps in as a culinary teacher to help his injured friend, celebrity chef Christian Wagner, and finds himself in th…
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Sam Woolf creates a foreboding atmosphere in this disturbing mystery with strong Christie vibes. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss this newest story from Ragnar Jónasson set in Iceland in 1952, 1983, and 2012. Listeners enter a tuberculosis sanatorium repurposed from the 1940-50s and meet likable Helgi, who is reopening an investig…
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss a new historical audiobook from Fiona Davis. Charlotte Cross is an assistant curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1978. Charlotte is quietly conducting Egyptology research that harkens back to her devastating experience in Egypt in 1936. Linda Jones’s excellent narration re…
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss this compelling coming-of-age novel set on a Maine island. Evan Sibley performs Lewis Robinson’s audiobook with narrative drive, a convincing tone, and a sure sense of the unfolding drama. The setting is a posh but remote club on fictional Whaleback Island—just the place to retrain young misfits to…
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When executed as beautifully as this one, multigenerational novels are all consuming in the best way. Sandra Oh's performance of Min Jin Lee’s audiobook makes the experience even more immersive. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss this story of young Sunja, who is saved from ruin and moves from Korea to Japan. Thus a family tale begi…
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Danez Smith, a poet, performance artist, and devotee of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes presents a selection of Hughes’s early poems, songs, and other writings, created from 1921 to 1927. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Robin Whitten discuss this collection and Smith’s extraordinary performance. With their clear baritone voice and extraordinar…
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Each American poet laureate is expected to carry out at least one project, and the 24th, Ada Limón, created this anthology of poems about humans in nature. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss Kim Ramirez’s narration of this collection that includes a range of exemplary contemporary poets. Ramirez gives each of the 50 poems its due, …
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THE DALLERGUT DREAM DEPARTMENT STORE by Miye Lee, Sandy Joosun Lee [Trans.], read by Shannon Tyo
8:35
Shannon Tyo’s gentle, soothing tone proves effective and engaging as she narrates Miye Lee’s Korean bestseller, now in translation by Joosun Lee. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss the whimsical story. Penny lands her dream job at the Dallergut Dream Department Store. Each floor of the store sells different types of dreams. As Penn…
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Ciaran Saward gives an appealing narration of Maiga Doocy’s fantasy. AudioFile’s Emily Connelly tells host Jo Reed about the fun of this magical adventure. Leo, a rakish scriver from a privileged gentry family, and Sebastian Grimm, a studious caster whose parents are farmers, are rivals in their fifth year at the Fount, a school of magic. After Gri…
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Cindy Kay sweeps listeners away into Samantha Sotto Yambao’s memorable and otherworldly story. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss an audiobook full of magic and adventure. On the day Hana is due to inherit her family’s pawn shop, where people from our world can trade away their greatest choices and regrets, she wakes to find it ran…
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Caitlin Davies performs Sarah Beth Durst’s enchanting fantasy story about a reclusive librarian finding her way home. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Emily Connelly discuss the fun of listening to this magical audiobook. Academic librarian Kiela has lived in the Great Library of Alyssium for years, caring for the Empire’s spellbooks with only a sentie…
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THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE 2024 by S.A. Cosby, Steph Cha [Eds.], read by Stacy Gonzalez, Bill Andrew Quinn, John Pirhalla, Jane Oppenheimer, Nicole Lewis
7:20
Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss this anthology that presents widely varied mystery and suspense tales. They are quite well read and will hold the attention of mystery lovers and curious listeners. Jane Oppenheimer’s intimate and expressive narration of Abby Geni’s “The Body Farm” tells a story of justifiable homicide. Nicole Lewi…
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Dr. Sacks was a prodigious researcher, tireless clinician, voracious reader, competitive weight lifter, indefatigable traveler, influential neurologist, and long-winded correspondent. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss James Langton’s narration of Sacks’s letters, through which he seems to inhabit the great man’s extraordinary mind.…
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British food writer, television personality, and memoirist Nigel Slater writes stylishly, and his fine performance is a happy surprise for listeners. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss this packed text with short chronicles of Slater’s experiences dining, cooking, traveling, and reporting from countries ranging from Lebanon to Icela…
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Maya Hawke performs Joan Didion’s classic collection superbly. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss how Hawke pays attention to Didion’s exquisite prose and captures her careful observations. Hawke gets Didion’s measured pace and thoughtful tone just right as she conveys the much-admired author’s idiosyncratic, elegant language. The a…
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Host Jo Reed and AudioFile’s Alan Minskoff discuss an exquisite novel on audio from celebrated Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels. Her novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, looks at love, loss, and human connection. Michaels’s intimate delivery and empathetic tone serve her bittersweet and elegiac text well. Starting in 1917 with a battlef…
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