2025 Audie Award Finalists
Audie Awards recognize the best books in audiobook form, often elevating the written word by the audio performance. Check out a selection of the finalists for 2025, with the full list available at https://www.audiopub.org/2025audies! Annotations from AudioFile, unless otherwise attributed.
-
Hamlet’s Children by Richard Kluger
FICTION A riveting new novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Kluger. A literary treasure for all World War II buffs set in Denmark during the 5-year Nazi occupation, Hamlet's Children is a major new historical novel by Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Kluger. (Publisher description)
View Hamlet’s Children by Richard Kluger -
George Orwell’s 1984 Audiobook
AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR Starring Andrew Garfield as Winston, Cynthia Erivo as Julia, Andrew Scott as the alluring, mysterious O’Brien, and featuring Tom Hardy as Big Brother, Audible presents a new dramatization of George Orwell’s classic tale. An immersive listening experience like none you’ve heard before, at a time when it has all never felt more chillingly relevant. (Audible description)
View George Orwell’s 1984 Audiobook -
The Ministry of Time
FICTION Katie Leung narrates this time-travel novel from the point of view of the unnamed protagonist, who works as a "bridge" at the British government's Ministry of Time. They have technology that allows them to pluck people out of time and are studying whether these "expats" can survive with no ill effects. The bridge is helping her expat, 1800s polar explorer Graham Gore, adapt to the future; they live together and inevitably grow closer.
Format: eAudiobook
View The Ministry of Time -
Rednecks
FICTION Ramiz Monsef performs this historical novel set during the Battle of Blair Mountain in the early 1920s. Lebanese American "Doc Moo" Muhanna serves as a medical doctor during the Mine Wars, tending to people in the camps and bandaging the wounds of those who were fighting against the bosses' hired guns.
Format: eAudiobook
View Rednecks -
The Women
FICTION The sure touch of Golden Voice narrator Julia Whelan transforms Kristin Hannah’s absorbing novel about Vietnam War combat nurses into an addictive listen. An intimate portrait and a sprawling account of a searing time, the story focuses on 20-year-old Frances McGrath, who, in 1965, impetuously chooses the Army Nurse Corps over cotillions and marriage.
Format: Audiobook CD
Availability: Available
View The Women -
Challenger
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY Jacques Roy adeptly treads the line between measured and conversational in this excellent performance of Higginbotham's investigation of the 1986 CHALLENGER catastrophe. Roy maintains the listener's attention through detailed accounts of the science and engineering underlying the NASA space program while also bringing to life the people involved.
Format: eAudiobook
View Challenger -
Codename Nemo
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY The white-knuckled saga of a maverick captain, nine courageous sailors, and a US Navy task force who achieved the impossible on June 4, 1944, two days before D-Day--capturing Nazi submarine U-505, its crew, technology, encryption codes, and an Enigma cipher machine. But at any moment, the mission could have ended in disaster. (NoveList Plus)
Format: eAudiobook
View Codename Nemo -
The Demon of Unrest
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY This compelling audiobook about the beginning of the Civil War gains resonance from its parallels with today's divisions and drift toward violence.
Format: eAudiobook
View The Demon of Unrest -
The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY Listeners should not expect risqué revelations about White House liaisons. The titular loves of Theodore Roosevelt are his mother, two wives, and two sisters. These five women were instrumental in creating the man who would become one of our most popular presidents.
Format: eAudiobook
View The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt -
The Showman
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY An acclaimed journalist gives readers the first inside account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team, who granted him unprecedented access. (NoveList Plus)
Format: eAudiobook
View The Showman