We asked our audiobook columnists, Connnie Ogle (fiction) and Marion Winik (nonfiction), along with young readers’ editor Laura Simeon, to select their favorite audiobook listens of the year. Here are the titles they nominated:

FICTION

Set in New Zealand, Rebecca K. Reilly’s engaging Greta & Valdin (Simon & Schuster Audio, 9 hours and 28 minutes) features a large cast of characters led by two queer siblings navigating love, sex, careers, racism, and the idiosyncrasies and whims of their lively Maori and Russian family. Lead narrators Natalie Beran and Jackson Bliss display impeccable comic timing throughout this audiobook, a welcome and joyful respite after a particularly divisive year.

Jennine Capó Crucet’s hilarious and powerful Say Hello to My Little Friend (Simon & Schuster Audio, 8 hours and 42 minutes) is narrated, crucially, by a reader with an impeccable Miami accent.  The novel—about Ismael “Izzy” Reyes, a Cuban-born failed Pitbull impersonator who decides to reinvent himself as Scarface’s Tony Montana—is wildly imaginative. But it’s also shrewdly grounded by Crucet’s innate understanding of place and people, an elegy for a doomed city. Krizia Bajos’ painstakingly accurate narration is the antithesis of Al Pacino’s on-screen cartoonishness, helping the author’s outrage land with authority.

Percival Everett’s reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn earned a Kirkus Prize for Fiction in 2024, so it comes as no surprise that the novel is also one the best audiobooks of the year. Like Mark Twain’s classic, James (Penguin Random House Audio, 7 hours and 49 minutes) is driven by a strong voice, the sheer force of its narrator propelling the action, in which two runaways—a boy and an enslaved man—embark on adventures along the Mississippi River. Dominic Hoffman highlights the depth and intelligence of Everett’s Jim, and told from his thoughtful perspective, the story takes on an intriguing new light and is all the more compelling for it.

Irish writer Kevin Barry delivers an unforgettable performance of his rich and ribald Western, The Heart in Winter (Penguin Random House Audio, 5 hours and 54 minutes). Set in the debauched mining town of Butte, Montana, in 1891, the story of an opium-fogged poet and the bride of a pit boss who run away together with a posse at their heels sizzles with dazzling, profane beauty and sharp humor. It’s a profound tragicomedy enhanced by Barry’s skills as a storyteller and a reader.—CONNIE OGLE

NONFICTION

To say that beloved queer cabaret performer Justin Vivian Bond is the perfect narrator for Cynthia Carr’s Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar (Macmillan Audio, 14 hours and 2 minutes) is an understatement, darling. Bond’s interpretation of the trans icon’s speaking voice and their sympathy for her experience add sparkling texture to this riveting and tragic story. As we all know from the Lou Reed song “Walk on the Wild Side,” Candy came from “out on the island”—and that is where Carr begins, with the difficult 1950s Long Island upbringing of the child who found celebrity at Andy Warhol’s Factory and died at the age of 29. Carr’s entrancing treatment makes Candy the star she truly was.

It had been over three decades since Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Salman Rushdie’s death for the “blasphemies” of his novel The Satanic Verses when the author was attacked and stabbed 15 times, partially blinding and nearly killing him. In Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder (Penguin Random House Audio, 6 hours and 22 minutes), the author’s warm, grandfatherly voice fills with all the emotions he describes—the outrage of the assault, the tenderness of his marriage, the wonder inspired by several unusual coincidences. Readers who count Rushdie among the greatest living authors will come away treasuring him as never before.

Brittney Griner’s memoir of her harrowing ordeal in the Russian prison system is a nailbiter, even if we already know how Coming Home (Penguin Random House Audio, 10 hours and 36 minutes) turns out. Griner and co-writer Michelle Burford bring every part of the WNBA baller’s nightmare vividly to life, from the hasty packing that left two nearly empty cannabis vape cartridges in her duffel to the terrors of the prison camp where she spent a Gulag winter in damp clothes and frozen dreadlocks. The deep-voiced Griner—she mentions her voice as one of the many things she’s been bullied for, along with her height, her flat chest, her race, and her sexual orientation—reads the introduction and epilogue herself; professional golfer Andia Winslow does a bravura job with the rest.

If you can’t quite remember who actor Griffin Dunne is, listening to him read The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir (Penguin Random House Audio, 12 hours and 18 minutes) will ensure you never forget. Dunne bookends his memoir with an account of his sister Dominique’s murder and the subsequent trial, balancing that chilling material with the tale of his extraordinary childhood among the glitterati of the 1970s: his aunt and uncle, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, and everybody from Frank Sinatra to longtime best friend Carrie Fisher. His star-studded, star-crossed saga is a winner.—MARION WINIK

YOUNG READERS

In author David Dorado Romo’s skillful hands, the history of the U.S./Mexico border region is as far from a dry textbook as one can imagine. Borderlands and the Mexican American Story (Listening Library, 6 hours and 32 minutes) is a comprehensive, well-told middle-grade work filled with facts that will come as startling revelations to many and serve as important correctives to false xenophobic narratives. Narrator Victoria Villarreal has a clear and measured—yet expressive—speaking style that allows listeners to easily absorb the rich content and leaves space for their own emotional responses to what they’re learning.

Kyla Zhao’s May the Best Player Win (Listening Library, 5 hours and 54 minutes) introduces middle-grade readers to May, a seventh grade chess champion whose success is a mixed blessing. The attention she receives for her accomplishments strains her relationship with Ralph, a teammate and former friend; his jealousy emerges in the form of vicious, sexist jabs. The pressure to compete for team captain—and then lead the team to success at Nationals—weighs on her, undermining the joy she once felt while playing. Narrator Annie Q. Riegel’s voice has a sincere, heartfelt quality that perfectly complements both the nail-biting and subtle moments in this coming-of-age tale.

Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay (Listening Library, 6 hours and 42 minutes) is a sweeping intergenerational YA novel follows the fathers and sons of the Maghabol family, beginning with Filipino immigrant Francisco’s 1929 arrival in the U.S. In 2020, Francisco’s great-grandson, Enzo, is dealing with the spreading Covid-19 pandemic and tensions between his father, Chris, and his Lolo Emil, who’s just moved in. This layered story moves forward and backward in time, and the distinct voices of the ensemble cast of narrators—Ramón de Ocampo, Jesse Inocalla, Manny Jacinto, and JB Tadena—support the robust characterization and help readers follow the interwoven threads.

Angela Shanté’s poetry collection for teens, The Unboxing of a Black Girl (Recorded Books, 1 hour and 17 minutes), is a moving, insightful meditation on Black girlhood through the lens of her own life. In “The Boxes We See,” she writes, “we fold / and bend / shift and break / to fit into them, // boxes wrapped in religion / in patriarchy / in capitalism / in hate // boxes that help us survive / a jagged-edged world.” The author’s conversational narration adds to the intimacy; listeners will feel guided by a caring older sister.—LAURA SIMEON

Connie Ogle is a writer in Florida. Marion Winik hosts NPR’s The Weekly Reader podcast. Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.