best-audiobooks-2024

Audio

We Solve Murders

Review by Deborah Mason

Famous for the Thursday Murder Club series, Richard Osman has inaugurated a new series with We Solve Murders (10.5 hours). Amy Wheeler, a professional bodyguard, and her father-in-law, Steve, a retired police investigator, stumble upon a money smuggling scheme involving ChatGPT and murdered social media influencers. With all the energy of a Carl Hiaasen novel, We Solve Murders also has the dry wit and well-defined characters of Osman’s earlier books.

Audie Award-winner Nicola Walker is a superb narrator whose exquisite comic timing makes We Solve Murders an engaging audiobook. Walker resists the temptation to play comic characters broadly, and instead gives even minor characters individuality. Her portrayal of Rosie D’Antonio, the world’s second-bestselling author (after Lee Child), is a terrific blend of world-weary wisdom, generosity and killer amounts of tequila. Walker similarly teases out the nuances of Amy and Steve’s relationship, leading us up to an outcome not only believable but inevitable.

Read our starred review of the print version of We Solve Murders.

Audie Award-winner Nicola Walker is a superb narrator whose exquisite comic timing makes the audiobook of Richard Osman’s We Solve Murders terrifically engaging.
Audio

Mina’s Matchbox

Review by Deborah Mason

Mina’s Matchbox (8.5 hours), by award-winning author Yoko Ogawa, is a magical coming-of-age story centered on two girls on the brink of adolescence: sturdy, pragmatic Tomoko and her fragile, artistic cousin, Mina. Told from Tomoko’s point of view and set in Ashiya, Japan, in 1972, Mina’s Matchbox is touched with fairy-tale enchantment, depicting a family in quiet crisis with delicacy and wonder.

Stephen B. Snyder’s translation is lyrical and humorous, and it’s enhanced by Nanako Mizushima’s nuanced narration. Mizushima conveys Tomoko’s awe towards her cousin’s wealthy, enigmatic family, expressing both her extreme awkwardness and her intense loyalty to Mina. Mizushima’s depiction of Mina is equally convincing, revealing both Mina’s frailty and her boundless heart. The result is a delightful audiobook that captures the everyday magic of friendship and love.

Read our starred review of the print version of Mina’s Matchbox.

Mina’s Matchbox is a delightful audiobook touched with fairy-tale enchantment, depicting the friendship between two cousins in 1972 Japan.
Audio

The Modern Fairies

Review by Tami Orendain

Clare Pollard’s The Modern Fairies (8 hours) transports listeners to a high-class Paris salon where socialites gather to do what they do best: tell stories. A work of historical fiction that features real famous writers Marie D’Aulnoy and Charles Perrault, The Modern Fairies is a sensual, clever reimagining of France during the reign of Louis XIV.

Narrator Kathryn Drysdale takes on the complex challenge of not only voicing a cast of dynamic characters, but also performing the fairy tales that they recite for one another. Energetic and enthusiastic, Drysdale expertly captures the bawdiness of these salons—as well as the darkness that dwells underneath.

Witty and sly, the audiobook edition of The Modern Fairies asks listeners to lean in to scandal, debauchery and deception, inviting us to be part of the gossip and in on the joke. Listening will make you feel like you’re in the salon yourself, allowing you to be a wary observer of the upper class, and giving you a front-row seat to the glittering origins of the fairy tale genre.

Read our starred review of the print version of The Modern Fairies.

Listening to Kathryn Drysdale read The Modern Fairies will make you feel like you’re in a 17th-century Paris salon yourself, with a front-row seat to the glittering origins of the fairy tale genre.
Audio

The Transit of Venus

Review by Deborah Mason

The Transit of Venus (15.5 hours), Shirley Hazzard’s 1980 novel and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, tells the story of two Australian sisters, Grace and Caroline Bell, from their arrival in postwar England to their middle age. It is a nuanced and richly detailed exploration of love, power, fate and remorse that gets better with each rereading—and is now available for the first time as an audiobook.

Hazzard’s writing is at once deceptively simple and surprisingly complex, full of wordplay, literary and scientific allusions, and sharp-eyed observations. It could have been tempting for a narrator to exaggerate the puns and games, to make sure that the reader “gets it.” Happily, acclaimed actor Juliet Stevenson beautifully balances wit, irony and compassion to mirror the subtle richness of Hazzard’s novel. The result is a performance that invites the audience to listen again and again to this remarkable book.

Acclaimed actress Juliet Stevenson’s performance is a beautifully balanced blend of wit, irony and compassion that mirrors the subtle richness of Shirley Hazzard’s remarkable 1980 novel, The Transit of Venus.
AudioPopular Fiction

Lies and Weddings

Review by Norah Piehl

Whether you eagerly devoured Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, or you’re coming to his “lifestyles of the rich, famous and problematic” subject matter for the first time, the audiobook of his latest standalone novel, Lies and Weddings, is sure to satisfy. Kwan’s thoroughly entertaining global romp spans locales ranging from Houston to Hawaii to British manor houses to Marrakech, as the three children of Lord and Lady Greshamsbury try to salvage the family fortune—and maybe find true love along the way. Narrator Jing Lusi adeptly captures a broad range of accents among the dozens of secondary characters. The production also unobtrusively integrates Kwan’s footnotes, which offer humorous asides—no mean feat in an audio adaptation. Though it clocks in at just over 15 hours, colorful descriptions of fashion, contemporary art and food—not to mention the hijinks of its characters—will keep readers on board for this splendidly enjoyable ride.

Read our starred review of the print version of Lies and Weddings.

The audiobook of Kevin Kwan’s latest standalone novel, Lies and Weddings, is a thoroughly entertaining global romp packed with colorful descriptions of fashion, contemporary art and food.
AudioScience Fiction

The Ministry of Time

Review by Tami Orendain

Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time proposes a world in which the U.K. government has started collecting people across time and space to test the feasibility of time travel. An unnamed narrator begins work as an assistant for these “expats”—including former spies, WWI captains and explorers from the 1800s—helping them adapt to modern culture.

Audiobook readers George Weightman and Katie Leung use their voices to depict the diverse characters in the audiobook. Leung’s excellent narration covers events in the present, demonstrating a deft ability to recreate the cadences of different time periods for different expats. Weightman narrates moments from the characters’ pasts, giving these reflections a solemn, nostalgic tone. Together, their complementary narrative styles reflect the time-twisting, culture-crossing nature of this book.

Weightman and Leung bring the many histories and personalities of this time-travel adventure to life, making The Ministry of Time a uniquely immersive listening experience.

Read our starred review of the print version of The Ministry of Time.

Audiobook narrators George Weightman and Katie Leung bring the many histories and personalities of this time-travel adventure to life, making The Ministry of Time a uniquely immersive listening experience.
NonfictionAudioMedicine

A Fatal Inheritance

Review by Tami Orendain

Lawrence Ingrassia is intimately familiar with the painful, inevitable question many face after losing multiple loved ones to cancer: Why? In his book, A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery (9.5 hours), Ingrassia explores research on hereditary cancer predisposition and introduces families—including his own—who are grappling with what this research could mean for them.

Narrator Roger Wayne gives this topic the care and honesty it deserves. He lends a friendly, personable tone to Ingrassia’s recollections: Happy memories are read with nostalgic tenderness, while painful moments are treated with solemn respect. Historical sections telling the stories of the doctors, scientists and patients involved in the progress of research emphasize the connection between the scientific and the personal.

Listeners will find A Fatal Inheritance to be an effective overview of research on cancer and hereditary predisposition, one that achieves serious investigation while remaining intensely human.

Read our starred review of the print edition of ‘A Fatal Inheritance.’

Listeners will find A Fatal Inheritance to be an effective overview of research on cancer and hereditary predisposition, one that achieves serious investigation while remaining intensely human.
FictionAudioShort Stories

The Black Girl Survives in This One

Review by Tami Orendain

The 15 short tales that make up The Black Girl Survives in This One (10.5 hours) have one thing in common: Their Black girl protagonists make it out of the horror story alive. Beyond that, these terrifying vignettes are anything but predictable, stretching the limits of the horror genre towards sci-fi, gothic, comedy and more.

Author and film historian Tananarive Due reads the anthology’s introduction, situating the book in the history of horror writers’ erasure and stereotyping of Black girls. Narrator Shayna Small reads the stories, honoring each unique atmosphere with different accents and inflections, making every story a distinct experience. Across the collection, her narration has a hushed, mesmerizing tone, luring listeners into each chilling tale.

Fans of horror are sure to enjoy The Black Girl Survives in This One’s array of new, creative takes on the genre.

These terrifying short stories starring Black girl protagonists are anything but predictable, stretching the limits of the horror genre towards sci-fi, gothic, comedy and more.
Audio

The Unclaimed

Review by Norah Piehl

Much has been written about the recent epidemic of loneliness in America. The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels (9.5 hours), an impeccably researched collaboration by sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans, traces that epidemic to its tragic and perhaps inevitable conclusion, as it follows the stories of four individuals whose bodies are unclaimed and destined for county disposal after their death. Nan McNamara’s direct and compelling narration mirrors the clarity of the text, which combines personal narratives with historical and cultural context, including the not insignificant task of explaining the bureaucratic apparatus surrounding death. Most moving are the stories of people providing ritual and ceremony for those they never knew: abandoned infants, forgotten veterans, the deserted and estranged. The extensive afterword is worth a listen, too, to understand and fully appreciate the complexities of the issue and the work involved in creating this heartbreaking but essential project.

This impeccably researched audiobook, compellingly narrated by Nan McNamara, traces the American epidemic of loneliness to its tragic and perhaps inevitable conclusion in the stories of four individuals whose bodies are unclaimed after their death.
Audio

James

Review by Deborah Mason

In James (8 hours) Percival Everett retells one of America’s most beloved and most controversial novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the point of view of one of America’s most beloved and most controversial characters, the escaped slave Jim. Everett subverts Twain’s depiction of Jim as the passive witness of Huck’s adventures, and instead reveals Jim, who goes by James, to be the increasingly dynamic subject of his own story.

Voice is crucial to this reenvisioning, as James deliberately changes his diction depending on whether he is speaking to white people, to other enslaved people, or addressing himself. Much of the tension and drama in the story occurs when James slips and his voice accidentally, and dangerously, reveals his true self. Dominic Hoffman’s deft performance of James’s many voices reveals his complexity and humanity with more immediacy and power than simply reading the words on the page could.

Voice is crucial in James, Percival Everett’s retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Dominic Hoffman’s deft performance reveals James’ complexity and humanity with great immediacy and power.
FictionAudioPoetry

Root Fractures

Review by Norah Piehl

Award-winning poet Diana Khoi Nguyen traverses deeply personal emotional landscapes in her second collection, Root Fractures. Nguyen’s poems, as the title suggests, trace her family’s fractures, from their origins in Vietnam, to her father’s attempts to resettle and assimilate in California, to her brother’s self-erasure from the family. Movingly read by Nguyen herself, the audiobook offers a close approximation of attending a poetry reading. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of producing this audio version was that Nguyen, who’s also a multimedia artist, often incorporates photographs and unique text treatments in her written work. The audiobook of Root Fractures comes with a PDF of these poems, whose visual forms are also described on the recording. Clever techniques, such as muted sound to approximate grayed-out text or multiple tracks to replicate overlapping text, make the auditory experience a beautiful complement to the visual one.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Root Fractures.

Movingly read by author Diana Khoi Nguyen herself, the audiobook of Root Fractures offers a close approximation of attending a poetry reading.
FictionAudioSatire

Come and Get It

Review by Tami Orendain

Come and Get It (13 hours) follows the colliding stories of students, resident assistants and professors at the University of Arkansas—and it’s full of intrigue, betrayal and a lot of drama. The audiobook is read by Nicole Lewis, who also lent her voice to Kiley Reid’s hard-hitting debut novel Such a Fun Age.

Lewis’ narration drips with nuanced sarcasm. She gives a vibrant voice to Reid’s clever prose and cutting social commentary. Word choice and accents matter in Come and Get It, and Lewis takes full advantage of the audiobook format to give characters their own unique voices, expertly acting out their evasions, backhanded compliments and double-entendres. Listening in feels like hearing a friend share a piece of enthralling, complicated gossip from their undergraduate days.

Darkly funny and provocative, Come and Get It is absolutely absorbing. Listeners will get lost in the story: Reid writes unabashedly about the unique dramas of university life, and Lewis’ dynamic choices as narrator make it difficult to turn the audiobook off.

Read our review of the print edition of Come and Get It.

Darkly funny and provocative, Come and Get It is absolutely absorbing. Kiley Reid writes unabashedly about the unique dramas of university life, and Nicole Lewis’ dynamic choices as narrator make it difficult to turn the audiobook off.
Audio

The Fury

Review by Norah Piehl

Alex Michaelides has crafted a superb psychological thriller in The Fury (8 hours), combining classic whodunit elements with contemporary storytelling techniques. Glamorous American actress Lana Farrar invites a small circle of friends (and frenemies) to her private Greek island for a getaway. This includes playwright and consummate hanger-on Elliot Chase, who narrates the story. After one of their number turns up dead, Elliot reveals ever more secrets and lies—including some of his own. Alex Jennings’ reading, with its measured pace and conversational, almost confessional tone, perfectly captures Elliot’s personality, as well as the varied voices of the small cast of characters. Listeners will be loath to press pause on this entirely unpredictable tale.

Read our review of the print edition of The Fury.

Listeners will be loath to press pause on this entirely unpredictable tale of a Greek island getaway gone wrong.

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