In 2016, our team of audiobook reviewers listened to
more than 250 titles. Below we list our favorites across
several categories, as well as our narrator of the year. BY ANNIE CORENO
FICTION
BEFORE THE FALL
Noah Hawley, read by Robert Petkoff
(Hachette Audio)
Reader Petkoff dramatizes Hawley’s riveting
novel about a plane crash to full effect.
HERE I AM
Jonathan Safran Foer, read by Ari Fliakos
(Macmillan Audio)
Foer’s novel requires a very talented narrator—
and it got one. The prose is fast, forceful, funny,
and friendly, and actor Fliakos handles it all
superbly.
YOU WILL KNOW ME
Megan Abbott, read by Lauren Fortgang
(Hachette Audio)
Reader Fortgang catches the subtle mood shifts of the
characters in Abbott’s piercing thriller about the hypercom-petitive world of women’s gymnastics and what one family
will sacrifice in the name of making their daughter a
champion.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
Colson Whitehead, read by Bahni Turpin
(Random House Audio)
Turpin shifts between the ages, races, and accents of the large
cast of characters in Whitehead’s powerful historical set in
Georgia in the 1850s. Her turn as protagonist Cora, a teenage
slave girl who lives on a cotton plantation, mesmerizes with its
display of conflicting emotions and attachments.
THE TRESPASSER
Tana French, read by Hilda Fay
(Penguin Audio)
The warts-and-all portrait of protagonist
Antoinette is the heart of French’s sixth
entry in the Dublin Murder Squad series, and
reader Fay’s ability to mix the natural lyric
quality of her Irish brogue with Antoinette’s
working-class, chip-on-shoulder hostility
makes for a fully sustained, award-worthy
performance.
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON
Elizabeth Strout, read by Kimberly Farr
(Random House Audio)
Author Strout and reader Farr have
produced a masterly fusion of material
that could easily have become maudlin
but never does. It is a simple yet deep
depiction of the fierce love and intense
pain of a mother-daughter
relationship.
PW’S
BEST AUDIOBOOKS OF 2016