• The Best Audiobooks of 2021 - Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (editors)
  • The Best Audiobooks of 2021 - Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown
  • The Best Audiobooks of 2021 - The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell
  • The Best Audiobooks of 2021 - Eartha & Kitt: A Daughter's Love Story in Black and White by Kitt Shapiro (with Patricia Weiss Levy)
  • The Best Audiobooks of 2021 - The Night Gate by Peter May

The Best Audiobooks of 2021, recommended by Robin Whitten

In 2021, as in previous years, AudioFile magazine picks out the very best audiobooks of the year, books that make great listening and where outstanding narration brings additional pleasure over and above reading the book in print with your eyes. Here, AudioFile editor and founder Robin Whitten picks out the best audiobooks of 2021 for us—out of the 2,300 books that she and her team listened to and reviewed.

  • The Best Audiobooks: the 2021 Audie Awards - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor (narrator)
  • The Best Audiobooks: the 2021 Audie Awards - The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and assisted by Alex Haley, Laurence Fishburne (narrator)
  • The Best Audiobooks: the 2021 Audie Awards - The City We Became: A Novel (The Great Cities Trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin & Robin Miles (narrator)
  • The Best Audiobooks: the 2021 Audie Awards - Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid & Nicole Lewis (narrator)
  • The Best Audiobooks: the 2021 Audie Awards - More Myself: A Journey by Alicia Keys

The Best Audiobooks: the 2021 Audie Awards, recommended by Michele Cobb

There are so many fantastic audiobooks being produced at the moment, across so many genres, that it’s hard to know where to start listening. Fortunately, every year, the judges of the Audie Awards pick out some of the very best. Here, Michele Cobb, Executive Director of the Audio Publishers Association, talks us through some of the 2021 winners, including the ‘audiobook of the year.’