Some of the world’s most sought-after voices converged on Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers last night, as the Audio Publishers Association presented the 2025 Audie Awards in a gala celebration in Manhattan. Amid an epic awards season, the Audies are perhaps THE event for audiophiles, honoring excellence in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment.
Among the highlights, the one and only Barbra Streisand took home the Audiobook of the Year and Autobiography/Memoir awards for her self-narrated memoir, My Name Is Barbra, and we’re calling it—the legendary superstar is now an EGOTA! Other top honors went to George Orwell's 1984, a star-studded Audible Original that won Best Audio Drama, and Julia Whelan and Justin Vivian Bond, whose performances of The Women and Candy Darling won Best Fiction Narrator and Best Nonfiction Narrator, respectively.
Audible editors attending the gala took the opportunity to congratulate honorees and speak to the voices behind some of the year’s biggest audiobooks, including James’s Dominic Hoffman, Listen for the Lie’s January LaVoy and Will Damron, and Bookshops & Bonedust authorrator Travis Baldree. Check out some of our favorite moments from the event...
...and keep reading to see more of this year’s well-deserved Audie winners. If you’re searching for your next great listen, look no further—each is a standout listening experience. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!
Winner: Audiobook of the Year; Autobiography/Memoir
Written and narrated by Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout role in Funny Girl on stage and her Oscar-winning performance of it on film.
Winner: Audio Drama
Written by George Orwell, adapted by Joe White
Narrated by Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, Tom Hardy, Chukwudi Iwuji, Romesh Ranganathan, Natasia Demetriou, Francesca Mills, Alex Lawther, Katie Leung
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
Winner: Best Fiction Narrator
Written by Kristin Hannah
Narrated by Julia Whelan
Women can be heroes. When 20-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.
Winner: Best Nonfiction Narrator
Written by Cynthia Carr
Narrated by Justin Vivian Bond
Warhol superstar and transgender icon Candy Darling was glamour personified, but she was without a real place in the world. Growing up on Long Island, lonely and quiet and queer, she was enchanted by Hollywood starlets like Kim Novak. She found her turn in New York’s early off-off-Broadway theater scene, in Warhol’s films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and at the famed nightclub Max's Kansas City. She inspired songs by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones...
Winner: Business/Personal Development
Written and narrated by Emily Nagoski, PhD
Most of us struggle at some point to maintain a sexual connection with our partner/s or spouse. And many of us are given not-very-good advice on what to do about it. In this book, Emily Nagoski dispels the myths we’ve been taught about sex—for instance, the belief that sexual satisfaction and desire are highest at the beginning of a relationship and that they inevitably decline the longer that relationship lasts. Nagoski assures us that’s not true.
Winner: Erotica
Written by Marni Mann
Narrated by Savannah Peachwood, Connor Crais
Captivated. Addicted. Mesmerized. All the things I felt the minute I saw Addison Lark. The last thing I’d expected was to fall in love at a strip club.
But Addison was the woman of my dreams. It didn’t matter that I spent an obscene amount of money just to talk to her. The fiery redhead made me feel things I’d never felt before...
Winner: Español - Spanish Language
Written by Dahlia de la Cerda
Narrated by Irene Azuela, Maya Zapata, Astrid Mariel Romo, Gabriela Guraieb, Julio Dublán, Saran Vivanco
Medea me cantó un corrido se conforma de seis relatos breves que Medea, la protagonista, conecta a través de su paso por la vida de diversas mujeres que enfrentan una vida compleja, violenta y ajena a sus propias decisiones y deseos en muchos casos. Medea se conecta con estas mujeres, se refleja en ellas y extiende su mano para ayudarlas, acompañarlas y mostrarle a sus lectoras y lectores que la suerte y el destino muchas veces dependen del entorno, pero que pueden ser ganadas entre nosotras.
Winner: Faith-Based Fiction or Nonfiction
Written by Vanessa Miller
Narrated by Angel Pean
There is only one known queen who truly ruled a kingdom on American soil. Meet the queen of Happy Land, Transformative and breathtakingly honest, The American Queen is based on actual events that occurred between 1865 and 1889, and shares the unsung history of a Black woman who built a kingdom in Appalachia as a refuge for the courageous people who dared to dream of a different way of life.
Winner: Fantasy
Written and narrated by Travis Baldree
Set in the world of Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree's Bookshops & Bonedust takes us on a journey of high fantasy, first loves, and secondhand books. Viv's career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam's Ravens isn't going as planned. Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she's packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk—so far from the action that she worries she'll never be able to return to it.
Winner: Fiction
Written by Taylor Brown
Narrated by Ramiz Monsef
Rednecks is a tour de force, big-canvas historical novel that dramatizes the West Virginia Mine Wars of 1920 and 1921—from the Matewan Massacre through the Battle of Blair Mountain—the largest armed conflict on American soil since the Civil War, when some million rounds were fired, bombs were dropped on Appalachia, and the term redneck found an unexpected origin story.
Winner: History/Biography
Written and narrated by Edward F. O'Keefe
Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his senior thesis for Harvard in 1880 that women ought to be paid equal to men and have the option of keeping their maiden names upon marriage. It’s little surprise he’d be a feminist, given the women he grew up with. A dazzling and lyrical look at the making of one of America’s most remarkable presidents, The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt celebrates five extraordinary yet unsung women who opened the door to the American Century and pushed Theodore Roosevelt through it.
Winner: Horror (Judges’ Category)
Written by Chuck Tingle
Narrated by André Santana, Charlie Jane Anders, CJ Leede, Georgia Bird, Liz Kerin, Mara Wilson, Mark Oshiro, Sarah Gailey, Stephen Graham Jones, T. Kingfisher, TJ Klune
Misha knows that chasing success in Hollywood can be hell. But finally, after years of trying to make it, his big moment is here: an Oscar nomination. And the executives at the studio for his long-running streaming series know just the thing to kick his career to the next level: kill off the gay characters, "for the algorithm," in the upcoming season finale.
Winner: Humor
Written by Kate McKinnon
Narrated by Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne
From beloved Saturday Night Live alum Kate McKinnon comes a madcap new adventure about three sisters, a ravenous worm, and a mysterious mad scientist. Gertrude, Eugenia, and Dee-Dee Porch do not belong. They don’t belong in the snooty town of Antiquarium, where all girls have to go to etiquette school and the only dog allowed is the bichon frise. They don’t belong with their adoptive family, where all their cousins are named Lavinia and their Aunt has more brooches than books. And they certainly don’t belong at Mrs. Wintermacher’s etiquette school...
Winner: Literary Fiction & Classics
Written by Percival Everett
Narrated by Dominic Hoffman
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Winner: Middle Grade
Written by Kwame Alexander
Narrated by Angel Pean, Nile Bullock, Karen Chilton, Aaron Goodson, Dominic Hoffman
Set during the turbulent segregation era and the beginning of The Great Migration, this second book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Door of No Return trilogy stars Kofi’s granddaughter, Charley, as a baseball phenom with big dreams in a spellbinding story of struggle, determination, and the unflappable faith of an American family.
Winner: Multi-Voiced Performance
Written by Garrett M. Graff
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Garrett M. Graff, full cast
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Plane in the Sky and Pulitzer Prize finalist for Watergate comes the most up-to-date and complete account of D-Day—the largest seaborne invasion in history and the moment that secured the Allied victory in World War II.
Winner: Mystery
Written by Amy Tintera
Narrated by January LaVoy, Will Damron
After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life.
Winner: Narration by the Author
Written and narrated by Whoopi Goldberg
From multi-award winner Whoopi Goldberg comes a new and unique memoir of her family and their influence on her early life. If it weren’t for Emma Johnson, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. Emma gave her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life, always encouraging them to be true to themselves. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010—and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later—she felt deeply alone; the only people who truly knew her were gone.
Winner: Nonfiction
Written and narrated by Hanif Abdurraqib
Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling.
Winner: Original Work
Written by Thomas E. Sniegoski, Christopher Golden
Narrated by Tim Carlin, Rob McFadyen, Nora Achrati, Scott McCormick, Eric Messner, Lydia Kraniotis, full cast
In the early 1990’s, Hellboy, Liz Sherman, and Abe Sapien are drawn into a bizarre case in New York, linked both to Hellboy’s 1980 adventure with Anastasia in Brazil and to The Lobster’s encounter with the Proteus Club in 1933. A strange community of bizarre humans has been living in secret beneath Manhattan for more than 60 years. Now, though, someone is stalking them, murdering them one by one—someone who claims to be the ancient goddess Sem-Karul. With aid from the now elderly Cynthia Tynan, Hellboy and the BPRD must face the Goddess of Manhattan, and the monsters who serve her.
Winner: Romance
Written by Kennedy Ryan
Narrated by Ines del Castillo, Jakobi Diem, Kennedy Ryan
Soledad Barnes has her life all planned out. Because, of course, she does. She plans everything. She designs everything. She fixes everything. She’s a domestic goddess who's never met a party she couldn't host or a charge she couldn't lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrette for that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goes poof in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion.
Winner: Science Fiction
Written by Gareth Brown
Narrated by Miranda Raison
Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making coffee for customers, and living an unassuming, ordinary life. Until the day one of her favorite customers—a lonely yet charming old man—dies right in front of her. Cassie is devastated. She always loved his stories, and now she has nothing to remember him by. Nothing but the last book he was reading.
Winner: Short Stories/Collections
Written by Stephen King
Narrated by Will Patton
“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of 12 stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to digest.
Winner: Thriller/Suspense
Written by Gregg Hurwitz
Narrated by Scott Brick
Once a black ops government assassin known as Orphan X, Evan Smoak left the Program, went deep underground, and reinvented himself as someone who will go anywhere and risk everything to help the truly desperate who have nowhere else to turn. Since then, Evan has fought international crime syndicates and drug cartels, faced down the most powerful people in the world and even brought down a President. Now struggling with an unexpected personal crisis, Evan goes back to the very basics of his mission—and this time, the truly desperate is a little girl who wants him to find her missing dog.
Winner: UK-Produced Audiobook
Written by Philip Pullman
Narrated by Ruth Wilson
Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal—including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world. Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? ... A masterwork of storytelling and suspense, Philip Pullman's award-winning The Golden Compass is the first in the His Dark Materials series, which continues with The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.
Winner: Young Adult
Written by Grant Overstake, May Wuthrich
Narrated by Dani Martineck, Dion Graham, Tavia Gilbert, Johnny Heller, Kevin R. Free, full cast
With his father’s mysterious disappearance and his brother Ronnie enlisting in the Vietnam War, 13-year-old TJ Crowley is left alone with his racist, unstable mother, Kate. The newly enforced Fair Housing Act results in the unthinkable for the Crowleys when a Black family, headed by the eminent Dr. Washington, crosses the racial red line and moves in next door. Kate is quick to warn TJ that their new neighbors are strictly off-limits and makes a panicked call to beg Ray, her old flame, to travel to their home in Wichita, Kansas, to help deal with “the problem next door.”
