AudioFile Magazine's 2021 Best Audiobooks

Celebrate the joys of Black boyhood with stories from seventeen bestselling, critically acclaimed Black authors--including Jason Reynolds (the Track series), Jerry Craft (New Kid), and Kwame Mbalia (the Tristan Strong series)!

Black boy joy is…
 
Picking out a fresh first-day-of-school outfit.
Saving the universe in an epic intergalactic... Read more »

An astounding new feat of storytelling from Brian Selznick, the award-winning creator of The Invention of Hugo Cabretand Wonderstruck.A ship. A garden. A library. A key. In Kaleidoscope, the incomparable Brian Selznick presents the story of two people bound toeach other through time and space, memory and dreams. At the center of their... Read more »

Stuntboy, in the Meantime

“Have you ever wanted someone to take the fall for you, like fall down the stairs for you so you don’t get hurt? Well you’re in luck! Stuntboy will do exactly that for you, but SHH don’t tell anyone he’s actually DUN DUN DUN Portico Reeves. If I could listen to the audiobook for the first time again I would. With a wide array of narrators and the absolute best supporting background sounds it is a whole production and I would expect nothing but the best from Jason Reynolds and the amazing illustrator Raul the Third. This book is about Portico a boy with *blaring sounds ensues* the FRETS and parents on the verge of a divorce and how children deal with that. UGH you need this book!”

Armilene, Rediscovered Books

Brought to life by narrator Kevin R. Free with sound effects and music, this The Very Hungry Caterpillar audiobook includes a special read-along track of Eric Carle narrating his all-time classic story. 
 
One sunny Sunday, the caterpillar was hatched out of a tiny egg. He was very hungry. On Monday, he ate through one apple; on Tuesday, he ate... Read more »

If you enjoyed Big Little Lies, then you’ll love Apples Never Fall.

“Does anyone else have vivid memories of when and where they were reading books? For me, the most powerful sensations occur with audiobooks and the narrators that read them. Caroline Lee expertly narrates all of Liane Moriarty's books. I can still remember her crisp, hilarious Australian accent when I was moving into my first NYC apartment. It was The Husband's Secret, my second Moriarty but first in audiobook. I was absolutely hooked, not just by the compelling and crazy story (which I will always swear is increased tenfold in audiobook format!) but the HUMOR that Lee gets behind her words. Now, I'm once again moving apartments. Lee's voice hooked me from the beginning of Apples Never Fall and had me giggling at almost every sentence. Even the most mundane of statements turns into pure comedy with Lee's willowy and wavering Australian accent which gives perfect characterization to Joy and her family throughout this tense tale. Though you will definitely hate (or at least want to slap) every one of these characters at some point, Moriarty wows once again with her newest book. A highly enjoyable listen, I recommend this to anyone who likes thrillers with different angles (touches of humor and sass). It would be an especially good book to fill up a car ride or help aid a move (coming from personal experience).”

Kimi, Buttonwood Books and Toys

Cloud Cuckoo Land

“Spanning from the final days of Constantinople to the distant space-exploring future, this is about how stories resonant across space and time. I know that readers will emerge from its pages grateful: for our connections with each other, how great art outlasts all of us, how together we are all writing one big story, imperfect and hopeful.”

Samantha, Rediscovered Books

Harlem Shuffle

“A love letter to 1960s Harlem that’s also a heist novel, a family saga, and so much more. Colson Whitehead proves once again that he’s always at the top of his game!”

Alyssa Raymond, Copper Dog Books

Matrix

“Lauren Groff has created an incredibly powerful portrait of the compelling Marie de France, banished to 12th-century England to live in a failing abbey. I fell in love with Marie and the sisters she lives with.”

Rosanna Nissen, Barrett Bookstore

Justine is the first volume in The Alexandria Quartet, four interlinked novels set in the sensuous, hot environment of Alexandria just before the Second World War. Within this polyglot setting of richly idiosyncratic characters is Justine, wild and intense, wife to the wealthy businessman Nessim, a Mari complaisant. Her emotional and sexual... Read more »

‘The politics of love, the intrigues of desire, good and evil, virtue and caprice, love and murder, moved obscurely in the dark corners of Alexandria’s streets and squares, brothels and drawing-rooms – moved like a great congress of eels in the slime of plot and counter-plot.’ In Balthazar, the second volume in Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, the... Read more »

‘I knew that Clea would share everything with me, withholding nothing – not even the look of complicity which women reserve only for their mirrors.’ In Clea, the concluding part of The Alexandria Quartet, Darley returns to Alexandria now caught by war-fever. The conflagration has its effect on his circle – on Nessim and Justine, Balthazar and... Read more »

‘Mountolive who had already found the open sesame of language ready to hand, suddenly began to feel himself really penetrating a foreign country...’ In Mountolive, the third volume in Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, the events surrounding the interwoven community of Nessim, Justine, Narouz, Pursewarden and the other major characters are given a... Read more »

If you enjoyed Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist), then you’ll love The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.

“This book really won me over with its brilliant writing and entrancing story. Honestly, I was intimidated by the length and title (especially as someone who doesn't love poetry) but the blurb was so good and it sounded right up my alley. The narrators, Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton & Prentice Onayemi, all have gorgeous voices and immediately draw you in. It took a bit for me to get fully invested in the story but holy cow, Jeffers weaves an IMPRESSIVE tale. It was both too long and too short; I savored every word and was sad it when it was over. There is true talent in being able to hold your attention for 816 pages, especially for a slow burn of a literary novel and this one is well worth it in the end. With rich language, multi-generational family history, borderline poetic (and yet not intimidating poetic), this book is for fans of Pachinko, Homegoing, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, or any work of Jesmyn Ward's.”

Kimi, Buttonwood Books and Toys

Facing the Mountain

“Hooked by page 5! Daniel James Brown crafts a story as compelling as Isabel Wilkerson's Warmth of Other Suns. Told in the voices of those who lived it, Facing the Mountain describes the Japanese experience in American during WWII in the words of Japanese American soldiers and their interred families. Heroes every one.”

Casey, Innisfree Bookshop

Four Hundred Souls

“An absolutely stunning history of African America for people who do not normally read history. Compiled of short stories, essays, and poems, it is perfect for someone who is intimidated by lists of names and dates. Each individual voice stands on its own but together they truly make a 'choir' that flows together beautifully. This is a one-of-a-kind history that is essential reading for everyone.”

Tia, Quail Ridge Books

An Audiobook OriginalThere is no dearth of writings about the founding of America, but in this under-reported and under-taught story of the American Revolution, light is shed on the role Benjamin Franklin played in bringing the northern and southern colonies together against corrupt British rule. Along with an “Inner Circle” of British... Read more »

A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR • One of our most brilliant biographers takes on one of our greatest living playwrights, drawing on a wealth of new materials and on many conversations with him.

“An extraordinary record of a vital and evolving artistic life, replete with textured illuminations of the plays and their performances,... Read more »

The author of eighteen spellbinding detective novels set on the Navajo Nation, Tony Hillerman simultaneously transformed a traditional genre and unlocked the mysteries of the Navajo culture to an audience of millions. His best-selling novels added Navajo Tribal Police detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee to the pantheon of American fictional... Read more »

The long-buried story of three extraordinary female journalists who permanently shattered the barriers to women covering war
 
Kate Webb, an Australian iconoclast, Catherine Leroy, a French daredevil photographer, and Frances FitzGerald, a blue-blood American intellectual, arrived in Vietnam with starkly different life experiences but one shared... Read more »

“In her long and extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson has not only exceeded as an actor, she has shaped the course of history.” –President Barack Obama, 2016 Presidential Medal of Honor ceremony"Just As I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. Here, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been... Read more »