Best Books of 2023

The Future

By: Naomi Alderman
Narrated by: Guinevere Turner, Natalie Naudus, Jeremy Bobb, Santino Fontana, Graham Halstead, Lorelei King, Fred Sanders & Naomi Alderman
Length: 13 hours 3 minutes

“The Future by Naomi Alderman is a near-future thriller that just keeps surprising you. I loved her debut, so I expected great things, but she managed to exceed those expectations. Tech moguls have arranged the world to just keep amassing more power, and a small group sets out to undermine them. Every time you think you know the whole story,... Read more

White Cat, Black Dog

Stories

By: Kelly Link
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman, Dan Stevens, Dominic Hoffman, Kristen Sieh, Ish Klein, Tanya Cubric & Patton Oswalt
Length: 7 hours 50 minutes

“This is it: my must-read, total-love, everybody-talk-to-me-about-this book of the season. Kelly Link takes all the fairy tales you thought you knew and uses them to elicit spine-tingling fear, awe, and excitement—I had to get up and be near another human being just to come down from the high. The perfect collection for anyone looking to be deep... Read more

Whalefall

A Novel

By: Daniel Kraus
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
Length: 8 hours 7 minutes

“A completely addictive page turner! I consumed it in one big gulp! Marvelous! Read more

The Wager

A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

By: David Grann
Narrated by: Dion Graham & David Grann
Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

“If, like me, your idea of fun is reading stories of others going through almost unfathomable hardship, you can hardly do better than David Grann (the expert nonfiction yarnspinner behind Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z) and the horror-filled tale of the Wager, a British warship sent to attack Spanish treasure ships on the far... Read more

Tom Lake

A Novel

By: Ann Patchett
Narrated by: Meryl Streep
Length: 11 hours 22 minutes

“Remember the scene in Mama Mia where Meryl Streep is brushing Amanda Seyfried's hair as they get her ready for her wedding day? Nostalgic music plays in the background as they look through old photos and reminisce together. Watching it you feel cozy and warm and loved. Well that is EXACTLY how reading Tom Lake made me feel. Ann Patchett did a... Read more

The Sun Walks Down

A Novel

By: Fiona McFarlane
Narrated by: Emma Jones
Length: 12 hours 57 minutes

“A riveting read. I was grabbed by the landscape, the characters and the premise right off the bat. Set in South Australia in the 1880's, it's the story of a missing child and the varied crowd that searches for him amid the backdrop of the mountains and desert of the outback. I couldn't put it down. Read more

Starling House

A Reese's Book Club Pick

By: Alix E. Harrow
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
Length: 12 hours 25 minutes

“Alix E. Harrow my love, you will always be famous to meeeeeee! I don't know where to begin - this is the infamous house book, the beautiful gothic masterpiece about the haunted, living house. It's perfect. How can I talk about this book besides to weep and throw myself to my knees, rending my hair from my scalp? Starling House will creep beneath... Read more

Soil

The Story of a Black Mother's Garden

By: Camille T Dungy
Narrated by: Camille T Dungy
Length: 10 hours 16 minutes

“'History is perennial', Dungy writes as she muses on her decision to withhold the death of a beloved garden bunny from her young daughter while choosing to discuss another police murder of an unarmed Black person. Part nature writing, part exploration of the African diaspora and Black identity, part memoir, Dungy puts herself in conversation... Read more

The Road to Roswell

A Novel

By: Connie Willis
Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
Length: 14 hours

A delightful novel about alien invasions, conspiracies, and the incredibly silly things people are willing to believe—some of which may actually be true—from the Nebula and Hugo award-winning author of Blackout and All Clear

“An absolute blast with abundant humor, copious references to old westerns, and . . . a delightful, intergalactic twist on... Read more

River Spirit

By: Leila Aboulela
Narrated by: Waceke Wambaa
Length: 11 hours 34 minutes

When Akuany and her brother Bol are orphaned in a village raid in South Sudan, they’re taken in by a young merchant Yaseen who promises to care for them, a vow that tethers him to Akuany through their adulthood. As a revolutionary leader rises to power—the self-proclaimed Mahdi, prophesied redeemer of Islam—Sudan begins to slip from the grasp of... Read more

Poverty, by America

By: Matthew Desmond
Narrated by: Dion Graham
Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

“This is an incredibly well written book that I think anyone who is living comfortably in America should read. It is heavy and sad, but even though hearing hard things is hard, it can be necessary. Some sections have a lot of stats, but it doesn’t get too bogged down with numbers. The final few chapters are more inspiring with a call-to-action... Read more

The Pole

By: J.M. Coetzee
Narrated by: Colin Mace
Length: 3 hours 31 minutes

“Passionate from an arms length until its not - this novel is a lovely and thoughtful way to spend an afternoon or evening, and you will be thinking about it afterwards. The audio version is particularly moving. Read more

Owner of a Lonely Heart

A Memoir

By: Beth Nguyen
Narrated by: Beth Nguyen
Length: 5 hours 27 minutes

Named a Best Memoir of 2023 by Oprah Daily • Selected by Time, NPR, and BookPage as a Best Book of 2023

“This book…is what memoir writing in the hands of a caring, curious wunderkind can be.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

From the award-winning author of Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, a powerful memoir of a mother-daughter relationship fractured by... Read more

Our Share of Night

A Novel

By: Mariana Enriquez
Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
Length: 27 hours 16 minutes

“A masterpiece of supernatural horror.”—The Washington Post
“An enchanting, shattering, once-in-a-lifetime reading experience.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)

ONE OF TIME AND THE ATLANTIC’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S TEN BEST HORROR BOOKS OF THE YEAR • LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD • GOOD MORNING... Read more

Our Migrant Souls

A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”

By: Héctor Tobar
Narrated by: André Santana
Length: 7 hours 33 minutes

A new audiobook by the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer about the twenty-first-century Latino experience and identity.

"Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's... Read more

No Two Persons

A Novel

By: Erica Bauermeister
Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik, Braden Wright, Carol Jacobanis, Cassandra Campbell, Gabra Zackman, George Newbern, Jesse Vilinsky, Max Meyers, Rachel L. Jacobs & Stephen Graybill
Length: 8 hours 54 minutes

“This is a wonderfully written story about a how one book impacts the lives of 10 people, including its author, agent, audiobook narrator, and those who happen to read it. Each chapter focuses on a different person whose life the book significantly touches, and I was equally invested in each of them. I don't usually like when stories focus on... Read more

Never Whistle at Night

An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

By: Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
Narrated by: Erin Tripp, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Joelle Peters, Kaniehtiio Horn, Lisa Cromarty, Maika Harper, Shane Ghostkeeper, Sheldon Elter & Tara Sky
Length: 13 hours 23 minutes

“This book is a horror short story collection featuring stories from 20+ indigenous authors! The title of this book comes from a belief in many native cultures that whistling at night calls bad spirits. These stories cover all kinds of terrifying topics and will leave you feeling thoroughly unsettled. Read more

Mott Street

A Chinese American Family's Story of Exclusion and Homecoming

By: Ava Chin
Narrated by: Ava Chin
Length: 11 hours 34 minutes

“Essential reading for understanding not just Chinese American history but American history—and the American present.” —Celeste Ng, #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

* TIME 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 * San Francisco Chronicle's Favorite Nonfiction * Kirkus Best Nonfiction of 2023 * Winner of the Chinese American Librarians... Read more

Looking Glass Sound

By: Catriona Ward
Narrated by: Christopher Ragland & Katherine Fenton
Length: 12 hours 58 minutes

“A coming of age story that takes a very dark turn. Wilder meets Harper and Nathanial when his family is vacationing on the Maine coast. They discover friendship, love and a serial killer, The Dagger Man, that is plaguing the town. Fast-forward to college, where Wilder's roommate, Sky, encourages him to write a story about his experiences from... Read more

Light Bringer

A Red Rising Novel

Red Rising: Book #6

By: Pierce Brown
Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds
Length: 30 hours 8 minutes

Darrow returns as Pierce Brown’s New York Times bestselling Red Rising series continues in the thrilling sequel to Dark Age.

“Brown’s plots are like a depth charge of nitromethane dropped in a bucket of gasoline. His pacing is 100% him standing over it all with a lit match and a smile, waiting for us to dare him to drop it.”—NPR, on Dark Age

“The... Read more