The best audiobooks on Audible, chosen by narrator as much as by book

How we chose

The narrator has to add something you would miss on the page: an author's own voice telling their own life, an actor whose performance changes the book, or a production that could only exist as audio. Rating counts and prices are Audible Australia's on the day we checked. Audible does not publish sales or listening totals, so a rating count is the nearest public sign of how many people have listened.

Authors reading their own lives

Born a Crime, read by Trevor Noah

Noah's memoir of growing up mixed-race in apartheid South Africa, where his parents' relationship was against the law. He reads it himself, moving between the languages and accents of his childhood in a way print cannot. Much of the book is about his mother.

Becoming, read by Michelle Obama

The former first lady's memoir, from Chicago's South Side to the White House. Her reading won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2020. At 19 hours it is the longest on this list.

Greenlights, read by Matthew McConaughey

The actor's memoir, built from decades of his diaries. It is written to be performed, with bumper-sticker lines, poems and stories, and he performs it. It has more than 13,240 ratings on Audible Australia.

The Happiest Man on Earth, read by Jacek Koman

Eddie Jaku survived Auschwitz and later made his life in Sydney, where he lived to 101. The memoir was published in 2020, the year he turned 100. Australian actor Jacek Koman reads it. Under five hours, and one of the most-rated books here on Audible Australia.

Actors who change the book

Project Hail Mary, read by Ray Porter

Andy Weir's novel of a science teacher who wakes alone on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there. Porter performs every voice, including the alien one, which is a large part of the book's reputation in audio. With 19,747 ratings, it is the most-rated audiobook on this site on Audible Australia.

The Hobbit, read by Andy Serkis

Serkis played Gollum in the films and recorded the whole of Tolkien's novel in 2020, voicing every character. City of Sydney's Libby catalogue held 88 copies of a Hobbit audiobook when we checked, so the wait is short; make sure the edition you borrow is his.

Educated, read by Julia Whelan

Tara Westover's memoir of growing up in a survivalist family in Idaho with no schooling, and getting all the way to a PhD at Cambridge. Whelan has narrated hundreds of audiobooks and is also a novelist.

Boy Swallows Universe, read by Stig Wemyss

Trent Dalton's novel of a boy growing up in 1980s Brisbane among drug dealers, a jailbird babysitter and a mysterious phone in a secret room. Wemyss is one of Australia's best-known audiobook narrators, and this is the Australian voice on the list. At 16.7 hours and A$39.14 it is one to use a credit on.

Productions that could only be audio

Lincoln in the Bardo, read by 166 voices

George Saunders' Booker Prize-winning novel is made of the voices of ghosts in the graveyard where Abraham Lincoln's young son lies. The audiobook gives each voice its own reader, 166 in all, including Nick Offerman, David Sedaris and Saunders himself. On the page the speakers are labelled like a script; in audio each one simply has a voice.

One for the spiritual shelf

The Power of Now, read by Eckhart Tolle

The book that founded our spiritual shelf, read by its author at his own unhurried pace. Of the spiritual books on this site it has the most ratings on Audible Australia, 3,281. More on which Tolle book to start with.

Common questions