In what feels like the blink of an eye, we’re nearing the end of 2021. As the year wraps up, Audiobooks.com is looking back on the listens that have made this year one for the, well, books. From time-travelling epics to buzzworthy celebrity memoirs, these are the audiobooks that Audiobooks.com listeners and staff can’t get enough of.

Discover Audiobook.com’s top 10 audiobooks and staff favorites of the year below!

1. The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, narrated by Rebecca Lowman

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey.

As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.

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2. Billy Summers by Stephen King, narrated by Paul Sparks

Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?

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3. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, narrated by Julia Whelan

From Kristin Hannah, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.

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4. Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, narrated by Davina Porter

#1 New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon returns with the newest novel in the epic Outlander series.

The past may seem the safest place to be…but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. …Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same.

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5. The Judge’s List by John Grisham, narrated by Mary-Louise Parker

Investigator Lacy Stoltz is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change. Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades.

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6. What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey, narrated by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry

Have you ever wondered ‘Why did I do that?’ or ‘Why can’t I just control my behavior?’ Others may judge our reactions and think, ‘What’s wrong with that person?’ When questioning our emotions, it’s easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It’s time we started asking a different question.

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7. The Storyteller by Dave Grohl, narrated by Dave Grohl

Features excerpts from five never before heard demos performed by Dave Grohl and an original story exclusive to The Storyteller audiobook.

So, I’ve written a book.

The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child. 

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8. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, narrated by Dion Graham

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys comes a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s. Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

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9. Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty, narrated by Caroline Lee

From the outside, the Delaneys appear to be an enviably contented family. Even after all these years, former tennis coaches Joy and Stan are still winning tournaments, and now they’ve sold the family business they have all the time in the world to learn how to ‘relax’. But now Joy Delaney has disappeared and her four adult children are re-examining their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh, frightened eyes. 

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10. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, narrated by Simon Jones and Marin Ireland

Set in Constantinople in the fifteenth century, in a small town in present-day Idaho, and on an interstellar ship decades from now, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book.

Read more and sample the audio →

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Looking for Book Recommendations?

• Here are the audiobooks our members have been loving, along with our staff picks that we’ve been championing.

• Looking to share your love of books? Our handy Book Clubbin’ questions make it super easy to start a book club. Or, Netflix n’ buddy-read with this year’s book-to-screen adaptations (just be prepared for the perennial debate: is the book better than the movie/show?).

• If you’re looking for something extra, we’ve got author and narrator interviews to give you a gleam inside their worlds.

• For the curious-minded, audiobooks can teach you a thing or two, from nature therapy to personal finance. It can even keep the little ones busy so you can steal some time back for yourself.

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