The Most Anticipated Audiobooks of September

Each month, our friends at AudioFile Magazine share a curated list of the best audiobooks for your literary listening pleasure.

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SEPTEMBER FICTION

The View From Lake Como by Adriana Trigiani | Read by Mira Sorvino, Adriana Trigiani
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Penguin Audio | 12.25 hrs.]

Narrator Mira Sorvino enchants as she portrays Jess Capodimonte Baratta, a good Italian daughter from New Jersey who finds the courage to break free from a life that seems to be happening without her consent. When an unwanted revelation and an unexpected windfall from her beloved Uncle Louie turn Jess’s life upside down, she seeks clarity and a fresh start in her family’s ancestral home of Carrara, Italy. Sorvino offers exceptional depth of expression to Jess’s journey, bringing every raw emotion to the surface and letting it play out with genuine fervor.  

How to Dodge a Cannonball by Dennard Dayle | Read by William DeMeritt
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Macmillan Audio | 9.25 hrs.]

Satire isn’t easy to write or to perform. Both the author and the narrator succeed notably in this funny, trenchant debut novel. William DeMeritt uses all his acting skills plus a strong narrative delivery to portray the wide cast of characters who live in this audiobook. He convincingly inhabits the hyperactive mind of Anders, a 15-year-old Tom Sawyer-like youth with a talent for twirling a flag and spinning a story. An outstanding listening experience.  

Something to Look Forward To by Fannie Flagg | Read by Fannie Flagg
[Random House Audio | 7.25 hrs.]

This collection of interconnected short stories is a delight. Southern humorist and actress Fannie Flagg narrates her own work with a touch of whimsy. You can almost hear the sparkle in her eye as she portrays an assortment of characters all over the country throughout decades. As listeners enjoy a cross section of very different Americas, Flagg elicits laughs with her humorous observations of the human condition and her wry delivery.  

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater | Read by Erin Bennett
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Penguin Audio | 11.5 hrs.]

Erin Bennett’s complex narration of this historical audiobook wraps listeners in a web of mystery. In early 1942, June Hudson manages the luxurious Avallon Hotel with calm certainty of her place in the world. When the State Department commandeers the West Virginia hotel to house Axis diplomats in the wake of Pearl Harbor, June realizes that nothing will ever be the same again. Bennett successfully takes on the momentous task of crafting authentic voices for a myriad of characters.  

Sons and Daughters by Chaim Grade, Adam Kirsch [Intro.], Rose Waldman [Trans.] | Read by Rob Shapiro
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 28.5 hrs.]

Listeners may be tempted to bypass this magnificent audiobook with its unfamiliar character names and sprinkling of Yiddish words. That would be a mistake. This story is universal in its community feeling, challenging parent-child relations, marital troubles, and eternal struggle between tradition and modernity. Rob Shapiro’s tour-de-force narration will have listeners convinced they’re witnessing an actual place and time—a vibrant way of life that was tragically obliterated only a few years later.  

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SEPTEMBER NONFICTION

The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy by James Patterson, Vicky Ward | Read by Elisabeth Rodgers
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Hachette Audio | 11 hrs.]

Elisabeth Rodgers narrates with tasteful objectivity yet infuses this engrossing audiobook with all the emotion it deserves. Sounding more like a novel than a true-crime story, this account of the lives of four University of Idaho students before their horrific murders reveals a group of popular young people who enjoyed partying, were part of loving families, and were naïve about the dangers of posting their lives online for anyone to see. Fascinating listening. 

W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race by David Levering Lewis | Read by Courtney B. Vance
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 35 hrs.]

When a nonfiction audiobook is described as “monumental,” it can be challenging for listeners. But Courtney B. Vance makes this biography of pioneering Black sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois highly accessible. The work is still long and detailed, but Vance’s pace and tone keep it from seeming tedious. This audiobook does justice to the man, and Vance’s narration does justice to the book. 

The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp
by Lynne Olson | Read by Lisa Flanagan
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 10.75 hrs.]

This audiobook recounts the extraordinary true story of a small group of women imprisoned in Ravensbrück, the Nazis’ only all-female concentration camp during WWII. Narrator Lisa Flanagan delivers a performance so overwhelming that it will bring tears to the eyes of listeners. But as well as she chronicles the women’s lives in Ravensbrück, Flanagan adeptly shifts gears when explaining their continued efforts after the war to document Nazi atrocities to ensure their sacrifices would not be forgotten.

Notes to John by Joan Didion | Read by Julianne Moore
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 6.5 hrs.]

Who writer Joan Didion was has never been clearer than in her attempt to trace the emotional cosmos of her deeply troubled adopted daughter, Quintana. Built from a set of notes left on her desk, this posthumous work lends itself particularly well to narrator Julianne Moore’s delicate twang. With distinct tones for Didion and her Freudian psychoanalyst, Moore cohesively reproduces transformative years of talk therapy, sensitively voicing Didion’s keen analyses of depression and the never-ending guessing games and exhausting delegations that parents of alcoholics and addicts will find heartbreakingly familiar. 

Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution
by Peniel E. Joseph | Read by Peniel E. Joseph
[Hachette Audio | 14 hrs.]

The year 1963 marked a pivotal turning point in U.S. history, and this audiobook captures its drama and significance in vivid detail. Author and narrator Peniel E. Joseph guides listeners through the era’s defining moments and people. Joseph’s steady, expressive delivery seamlessly shifts from outrage to admiration, mirroring the emotional intensity of the period. He highlights the iconic figures of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as those working behind the scenes, weaving their contributions into the larger story. The result is a deeply engaging account that should be essential listening for anyone interested in America’s civil rights history.