This list is part of our Best of the Year collection, an obsessively curated selection of our editors' and listeners' favorite audio in 2022. Check out The Best of 2022 to see our top picks in every category.
To say it’s a challenge to select the top fiction listens of the year (and this year especially!) is an understatement. But as hard as it is, it’s an even greater honor for our team to be able to listen deeply to so many amazing stories and then highlight the best of the best to you. Fiction is a big category—one that includes everything from epic family sagas to clever short stories, from historical fiction to near-future speculative works. But whatever the length, setting, or subject matter, every great work of fiction must have unforgettable characters. This is what led us to choose Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng as the winner. We promise you that you will never love a character more than Bird, a 12-year-old boy whose bravery and hope has left us in awe. And the list goes on from there—2022 is a year full of extraordinary characters and breathtaking performances!
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Audible's Fiction Audiobook of the Year, 2022
This is the one I simply could not stop listening to. Shaped by current events, Our Missing Hearts explores the power of art, love, and storytelling in the face of fear and persecution. At first glance, it may seem like a departure for a Celeste Ng novel: a dystopian tale set in a near-future where the US government begins reassigning custody of children whose parents are accused of being un-American. But after listening, I found this story had all the heart you’d expect from Ng, along with plenty of family drama. Lucy Liu’s performance captures the essence of each unforgettable character (Bird, Margaret, Sadie… I love you all!). —Tricia F.
In a time when it’s a lot easier to be cynical and even nihilistic about the world, George Saunders is here to show us, once again, how to find empathy in the most hopeless-seeming places, all while managing to fit in some humor—because even at its most challenging, life is kind of funny. With performances by the author, as well as Tina Fey, Michael McKean, Edi Patterson, Jenny Slate, Jack McBrayer, Melora Hardin, and Stephen Root, experiencing these stories in audio brings them to a whole other level. As always with his work, I walked away from this listen feeling a little more hopeful that we’re all going to be okay. —Aaron S.
Gabrielle Zevin’s exhilarating novel riffs on Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Homer, and video games to explore the idea that "every day we are alive is a chance to try again.” At the center of the story are two childhood friends and gamers, Sam Masur and Sadie Green, who reconnect in college and, against the odds, end up bootstrapping a video game that becomes a blockbuster. Told from shifting perspectives (wonderfully portrayed by narrators Jennifer Kim and Julian Cihi) and spanning 30 years, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is about this life-changing success and everything that comes after, including heartbreak, disappointment, and the occasional tragedy. —T.F.
In the ’70s and ’80s, a woman who called herself Miranda Grosvenor seemed to know everything about everyone in showbiz. She cold-called and developed flirty friendships with men such as writer-director Buck Henry, Paul Schrader, Robert De Niro, and Billy Joel, without ever meeting them in person. With an all-star cast, this Audible Original series gives all the dish. I was so charmed by Rachel Brosnahan’s voice that I totally understand how her character enchanted famous men, some to the point of obsession. —Edwin D.
Beartown—the book series, the town, and its glorious cast of characters—is not easy to say goodbye to, and The Winners is a series finale I never wanted to end. If you've listened to the first two books, or watched Beartown on TV, you won't want to miss The Winners. If you haven't listened yet, I cannot recommend it enough. Fredrik Backman is a genius at creating characters you fall in love with, settings you want to travel to, and stories that pull you in completely. Narrator Marin Ireland will have a welcome place in my heart (and ears) forever. —T.F.
Former tennis champion Carrie Soto is pushing 40 when she decides to come out of retirement and attempt to reclaim her title. Set in the '90s, Carrie’s journey echoes the path of a certain other GOAT we all cheered on at the 2022 US Open. Listening to this audiobook is such an elevated experience. It's a spectacular full cast helmed by Stacy Gonzalez, but you've also got newspaper clippings, press releases, and sports shows peppered in to the audio production, including performances from Mary Carillo and Patrick McEnroe as sportscasters. As a tennis fan and audiobook enthusiast, I found it magical. —Katie O.
Young Mungo is both a vivid portrayal of working-class life and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. Set in the 1990s in the east end of Glasgow, Scotland, it's a story about masculinity, the pressure to conform, and a young man’s struggle to find his place in the world. From the subject matter to narrator Chris Reilly’s thick Scottish brogue, everything about this novel is heavy—it still weighs on me. The characters created by writer Douglas Stuart are beyond real-to-life and will leave me, and everyone who listens, changed forever. —T.F.
Once again, Kevin Wilson has left me with a perma-smile on my face. He’s just that kind of storyteller—full of quirky characters that feel oddly familiar and outrageous circumstances that feel completely plausible. In this coming-of-age tale set in the '90s, Frankie and Zeke are two oddball teenagers who meet by chance and end up spending an otherwise lazy summer creating an art project that goes viral before going viral was even a thing. And not just popular viral—people seriously lose their minds. Ginnifer Goodwin, who you may know from her TV and film roles on Big Love, Once Upon a Time, and Zootopia, is a perfect Frankie, and makes listening an utter delight. —T.F.
Historical fiction always requires a degree of speculation, and some novels that explore the past start by asking, “What if?” This is what author Laurie Lico Albanese asks and answers in Hester. What if a 24-year-old Nathaniel Hawthorne fell into a forbidden romance with Isobel Gamble, a (fictional) 19-year-old seamstress whose talent with needle and thread seems almost magical? Set in Salem well before Hawthorne became famous, Hester explores this possibility, giving us a fascinating potential origin story for The Scarlet Letter. And this listen is a prime example of brilliant casting—I’m so happy to have Saskia Maarleveld as the voice of Isobel permanently imprinted in my mind. —T.F.
In Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver takes a literary classic and makes it her own, not by peering into the dark corners of Dickensian England, but by shining a light on present-day Appalachia. Damon is the only child of a teenage alcoholic. An attitude problem soon earns him the nickname “Demon.” His hair color explains “Copperhead.” And when his mother overdoses, Demon becomes a ward of the state. Like its inspirational source, his story is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking—the story of an irrepressible boy I came to adore, especially after listening to narrator Charlie Thurston’s inspired performance. Kingsolver uses the fire of this boy’s spirit to illuminate the darkest recesses of our country and give us a truly great American novel. —T.F.
I’ve only started digging into big dramatized, multicast productions in the past few years, and I’m always delighted by how different the experience is compared to listening to an audiobook. And I think The Big Lie may be one of my favorite scripted dramas yet. Everything about this podcast just works. I was sucked in immediately and enjoyed every aspect of this tour de force of audio storytelling. Of course, with the likes of Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Kate Mara, Ana de la Reguera, Bradley Whitford, Lisa Edelstein, David Strathairn, Giancarlo Esposito, and more, the cast is amazing—but the score and sound design also blew me away. If you’re going to pull out all the bells and whistles, this is how you do it. —T.F.
Inspired by real events, Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s moving novel Take My Hand is an exploration of Black women’s involuntary sterilizations in 1970s Montgomery, Alabama. Civil Townsend finds herself at a moral crossroads in her first nursing job when she is instructed to administer birth control shots to two sisters, India and Erica Williams, ages 11 and 13. What happens to the girls is an unspeakable tragedy that haunts Civil for 40 years, until she returns to Montgomery to seek the sisters' forgiveness. Lauren J. Daggett’s powerful narration deftly balances an older Civil, now an Ob-gyn, acting as the first-person narrator, with a young Civil experiencing the emotional weight of these events in real time. —Margaret H.
As a fan of the science fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale, I thought I knew what to expect, but Unlicensed is a pure mystery set in LA, so the atmosphere is more “Noir Vale” than “Night Vale” proper. Molly and Lou, voiced by Molly Quinn and Lusia Strus, respectively, embody the frayed and jaded genius I didn’t know I needed here at the end of a long year IRL. The atmospheric sound design and twisty plot (no spoilers, but I didn’t see that ending coming!) made for a satisfying story and a much-needed escape, definitely one of the most immersive listens of the year. —Christina H.
This may be Ian McEwan’s most ambitious work to date. With the pivotal moments of the 20th century as the backdrop, Lessons tells the story of one man’s life—Roland Baines, a piano-playing poet with a haunted past. Capturing what feels like a life in its entirety, from childhood to old age—witnessing international crises, enduring personal tragedies, and contemplating everyday life—Ian McEwan has created a beautifully crafted novel. Both epic and intimate, having the right voice to carry the listener through this long journey is essential, and narrator Simon McBurney’s performance is simply magnificent. —T.F.
The title, True Biz, is ASL (American Sign Language) slang for “real talk.” It’s a story full of romance and politics that takes place at a school for the deaf. Author Sara Novic, being deaf, wanted to bring ASL into the recording of the novel and what they ended up doing is fascinating. There are two narrators, Lisa Flanagan and Kaleo Griffith, but during the parts where characters were using ASL, the author was recorded signing under the narration. So, you can actually hear the sound of the signs. I just think it's so cool. Deaf culture is so rich and I love that this book immerses you in it and uses the audio experience in a thoughtful and creative way. —Kat J.
