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8 Audie Award Winners and Finalists for the Avid Audiobook Listener

Kelly Dasta
April 7 2021
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If you’re an avid audiobook listener, the Audie Awards are one of the most exciting days of the year. On March 22, 2021, the Audio Publishers Association held a virtual awards ceremony, hosted by actor and narrator John Leguizamo. Awards were given in 25 categories, chosen from 1,500 submissions. Check out some of the titles honored at this year’s ceremony!

The Gift
by Edith Eva Eger

Business/Personal Development Winner

Written by psychologist and Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Eva Eger, this inspirational guide to healing will help listeners find joy in their everyday lives by stopping destructive patterns and negative thinking. Tovah Feldshuh’s narration is imbued with empathy as she lends her voice to the stories from Eger’s own life and the lives of her patients. Filled with compassion, insight, and humor, this deeply personal must-listen provides encouragement to anyone searching for healing.

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The Gift
Edith Eva Eger

Winner of the 2021 Audie Award

This practical and inspirational guide to healing from the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Choice shows us how to stop destructive patterns and imprisoning thoughts to find freedom and enjoy life.

Edith Eger’s powerful first book The Choice told the story of her survival in the concentration camps, her escape, healing, and journey to freedom. Oprah Winfrey says, “I will be forever changed by Dr. Eger’s story.” Thousands of people around the world have written to Eger to tell her how The Choice moved them and inspired them to confront their own past and try to heal their pain; and to ask her to write another, more “how-to” book. Now, in The Gift, Eger expands on her message of healing and provides a hands-on guide that gently encourages us to change the thoughts and behaviors that may be keeping us imprisoned in the past.

Eger explains that the worst prison she experienced is not the prison that Nazis put her in but the one she created for herself, the prison within her own mind. She describes the twelve most pervasive imprisoning beliefs she has known—including fear, grief, anger, secrets, stress, guilt, shame, and avoidance—and the tools she has discovered to deal with these universal challenges. Accompanied by stories from Eger’s own life and the lives of her patients each chapter includes thought-provoking questions and takeaways, such as:

-Would you like to be married to you?
-Are you evolving or revolving?
-You can’t heal what you can’t feel.

Filled with empathy, insight, and humor, The Gift captures the vulnerability and common challenges we all face and provides encouragement and advice for breaking out of our personal prisons to find healing and enjoy life.

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8 Audie Award Winners and Finalists for the Avid Audiobook Listener

By Kelly Dasta | April 7, 2021

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The Deep
by Rivers Solomon

Science Fiction Winner

This brilliantly imaginative audiobook is inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group Clipping—narrated by the Hamilton star himself! THE DEEP tells the story of water-breathing descendants of African slave women who have built their own underwater society and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future. Daveed’s lyrical narration is interwoven with music and sound, blending mediums for a unique listening experience. Get an inside look into the creation of the audiobook and watch a video of Daveed recording an excerpt!

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The Deep
Rivers Solomon

Winner of the 2021 Audie Award

ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019

The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group clipping

Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode “We Are In The Future,” The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.

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8 Audie Award Winners and Finalists for the Avid Audiobook Listener

By Kelly Dasta | April 7, 2021

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A Man Called Ove
by Fredrik Backman

Best Male Narrator Finalist

Academy Award–winning actor J.K. Simmons will make you laugh and cry while listening to this heartwarming tale. Ove is a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window . . . but behind his cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. Backman’s multidimensional characters come alive with Simmons’s expert narration, and this audiobook will leave you thinking about the profound impact one life has on countless others.

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A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman

MORE THAN TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll feel new sympathy for the curmudgeons in your life.” —People

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.”

But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

Fredrik Backman’s novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others. “If there was an award for ‘Most Charming Book of the Year,’ this first novel by a Swedish blogger-turned-overnight-sensation would win hands down” (Booklist, starred review).

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8 Audie Award Winners and Finalists for the Avid Audiobook Listener

By Kelly Dasta | April 7, 2021

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One by One
by Ruth Ware

Best Female Narrator Finalist

If you’re listening to an audiobook narrated by Imogen Church, you know it’s going to pack a punch. Her dramatic, animated performance will keep you enthralled throughout this suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain. Paying homage to Agatha Christie’s AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, this audiobook tells the story of a group of people trapped in an isolated house with an unidentified killer. With Church’s narration adding suspense to each scene, I couldn’t stop listening until the very end.

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One by One
Ruth Ware

“The Agatha Christie of our generation.” —David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Diabolically clever.” —Riley Sager, author of Final Girls

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain.

Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight coworkers…each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide.

When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech startup, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other: PowerPoint presentations and strategy sessions broken up by mandatory bonding on the slopes. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. The storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, however, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit.

As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further…one by one.

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These Ghosts are Family
by Maisy Card

Literary Fiction & Classics Finalist

THESE GHOSTS ARE FAMILY is a truly immersive audiobook that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations. Maisy Card’s rich, ambitious debut captures the portrait of a family caught in the sweep of history, slavery, and migration and the personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret. Karl O’Brian Williams’s narration weaves through multiple perspectives, vividly embodying the voice of each family member.

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These Ghosts are Family
Maisy Card

A “rich, ambitious debut novel” (The New York Times Book Review) that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

*An Entertainment Weekly, Millions, and LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2020 Pick and Buzz Magazine’s Top New Book of the New Decade*

Stanford Solomon’s shocking, thirty-year-old secret is about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford has done something no one could ever imagine. He is a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley.

And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.

These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of a single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the houseboy who loved Vera, whpose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions.

This “rich and layered story” (Kirkus Reviews) explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is a “beguiling…vividly drawn, and compelling” (BookPage, starred review) portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.

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The Honey-Don't List
by Christina Lauren

Romance Finalist

If you’re searching for the perfect romantic comedy on audio, look no further than this hilarious and heartfelt novel from beloved bestselling author Christina Lauren. Carey Duncan and James McCann are tasked with keeping the rocky relationship of design gurus Melissa and Rusty Tripp from exploding . . . but then the two start to feel sparks of their own. Narrators Patti Murin and Jon Root provide an intimate listening experience, flawlessly capturing the chemistry between Carey and James.

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The Honey-Don't List
Christina Lauren

From the New York Times bestselling author behind the “joyful, warm, touching” (Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author) The Unhoneymooners comes a delightfully charming love story about what happens when two assistants tasked with keeping a rocky relationship from explosion start to feel sparks of their own.

Carey Duncan has worked for home remodeling and design gurus Melissa and Rusty Tripp for nearly a decade. A country girl at heart, Carey started in their first store at sixteen, and—more than anyone would suspect—has helped them build an empire. With a new show and a book about to launch, the Tripps are on the verge of superstardom. There’s only one problem: America’s favorite couple can’t stand each other.

James McCann, MIT graduate and engineering genius, was originally hired as a structural engineer, but the job isn’t all he thought it’d be. The last straw? Both he and Carey must go on book tour with the Tripps and keep the wheels from falling off the proverbial bus.

Unfortunately, neither of them is in any position to quit. Carey needs health insurance, and James has been promised the role of a lifetime if he can just keep the couple on track for a few more weeks. While road-tripping with the Tripps up the West Coast, Carey and James vow to work together to keep their bosses’ secrets hidden, and their own jobs secure. But if they stop playing along—and start playing for keeps—they may have the chance to build something beautiful together…

From the “hilariously zany and heartfelt” (Booklist) Christina Lauren comes a romantic comedy that proves if it’s broke, you might as well fix it.

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8 Audie Award Winners and Finalists for the Avid Audiobook Listener

By Kelly Dasta | April 7, 2021

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If It Bleeds
by Stephen King

Thriller/Suspense Finalist

Whether you’re a veteran King fan or a new listener, you need to add this audiobook to your TBLT list. This extraordinary collection of four new and compelling novellas will pull you into intriguing and frightening places, and Will Patton, Danny Burstein, and Steven Weber narrate each story with a chilling blend of eeriness and suspense.

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If It Bleeds
Stephen King

From #1 New York Times bestselling author, legendary storyteller, and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary collection of four new and compelling novellas—Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds—each pulling you into intriguing and frightening places.

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, including “The Body” (Stand By Me) and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (Shawshank Redemption). Like Four Past Midnight, Different Seasons, and most recently Full Dark, No Stars, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.

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8 Audie Award Winners and Finalists for the Avid Audiobook Listener

By Kelly Dasta | April 7, 2021

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The Only Good Indians
by Stephen Graham Jones

Thriller/Suspense Finalist

THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS is a psychological horror novel that provides cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Four American Indian men and their families are haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge. Narrator Shaun Taylor-Corbett’s exceptional storytelling prowess will leave you hanging on to his every word.

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The Only Good Indians
Stephen Graham Jones

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From USA TODAY bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a “masterpiece” (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition. Labeled “one of 2020’s buzziest horror novels” (Entertainment Weekly), this is a remarkable horror story that “will give you nightmares—the good kind of course” (BuzzFeed).

From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.

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Photo credit: istock / Memorystockphoto

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