Best Audiobooks on Spotify

Audiobooks seem to have had a boom in popularity in recent years, and with the publishing industry taking notice of this rise, they seem to be putting a lot of effort into creating an enjoyable listening experience for their readers. For a while, it seemed that Audible by Amazon had a monopoly on them, marketing their audiobooks as they would their TV shows, but now Spotify has finally joined the game, providing a variety of audiobooks for their Premium subscription customers. Below are my recommendations of what I think are the best audiobooks on Spotify.

1. The Lord of the Rings

2. I’m Glad My Mom Died

3. Wuthering Heights

4. Daisy Jones and the Six

5. The Five

6. Blue Sisters

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The Lord of the Rings series, read by Andy Serkis

Laura, I hear you cry, you simply cannot be serious. You have written only two articles and in both, you recommend a Middle-Earth series? Well call it biasness if you want, but not recommending an acclaimed actor from Peter Jackson’s award-winning trilogy narrating this epic fantasy, would be an absolute travesty on my part, so you know. Deal with it.

Andy Serkis, perhaps most well known for his role as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, lends his vocal talents to J.R.R Tolkien’s iconic novels, bringing to life a story people often avoid due to its length and detail, making it one of the best fantasy audiobooks available on Spotify. While the books are still incredibly long (one chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring is just over two hours long), you may find yourself more easily lost in the world, guided by Serkis’ soothing voice and unbelievable character acting talents. There’s so much the trilogy missed out on, and while it may seem daunting looking at the length of the chapters, it doesn’t feel that long while you’re listening. Did I initially start listening to this audiobook because, secretly, I was excited to hear Serkis’ Gollum voice one more time? Yes, okay, fine, you got me. I promise you though, he’s a sensational storyteller, and Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilogy is a story worth being told and a story worth listening to.

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I’m Glad My Mom Died, read by Jennette McCurdy

With the recent documentary Quiet on Set having just been released, I would recommend reading the autobiography that quietly opened the floodgates of accusations. Jennette McCurdy was a child star best known for her role as Sam in the Nickelodeon show iCarly and its spin-off Sam & Cat. Post-Nickelodeon years, Jennette seemed to retreat from the limelight, until announcing her one-woman show I’m Glad My Mom Died, which eventually became the heart-breaking autobiography that dominated best-selling lists for weeks. 

In this unflinching account of childhood stardom, McCurdy dives deep into the expectations that were placed upon her as a young child, the guilt to achieve what her mother had always wanted, and the perils of fame. While it is a distressing book to listen to, McCurdy’s narration adding an emotional twist, I believe it is an important read. McCurdy details the relationship she had with her mother, the pressures that were placed upon her from a young age that lead to her eating disorder, her relationships with men twice her age, and her creative ambitions were otherwise stifled by those who felt they knew better. While she dives deep into the trauma her mother left with her, and how grief can look different for everyone, Jennette has created a darkly funny book that opens her wounds, sharing an astonishing story that ends with her healing journey. The chapters are short, but be aware they may be triggering depending on how well you can handle certain topics.

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Wuthering Heights, read by Billie Fulford-Brown

I’m going to share an open secret – I struggle when reading classic literature. I can never seem to wrap my head around the events that are being described on the page and often find myself re-reading the page to see if I can understand what’s happening. Nine times out of ten, I can’t. I have no idea what’s going on, and it stops me from finishing the book. Listening to an audiobook version of classic literature is so much easier for me to digest, and I recommend starting with the mother of all gothic tales, Wuthering Heights.

Set on the gloomy Yorkshire moors, Wuthering Heights follows the tumultuous love affair of Cathy and Heathcliff, navigating social expectations and standing as well as their desire for one another. The classical gothic genre is not one I find myself drawn to often – if it doesn’t have a horror twist, I am often reluctant to pick it up. Though the Bronte sisters’ novels have had a defining impact on literature as we know it, subverting patriarchal expectations of the time to create fiercely strong female characters, I am still unable to pay attention when actually reading it. The audiobook allows my mind to become absorbed in the story unfolding, wrapped up in the tortured affair of the two main characters, rather than reading the words on the page asking myself ‘who is this random person that’s just showed up, oh they’re someone who’s been there for the last ten pages, wait what page am I on? Oh no I’m going to have to start again.’ I think Billie Fulford-Brown provides a gentle, but powerful narration as she guides you onto the tumultuous moors. An audiobook like this provides the narrator with the opportunity to play around with the writing itself, but I couldn’t say for sure if this is something Billie does as this is the only version I’ve listened to, however, I still really enjoyed the journey her narration took me on.

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Daisy Jones and the Six, read by too many people to list

When this was released on Amazon Prime as a TV show (produced by Reese Witherspoon’s production company, so you know it had some power behind it), I was so excited. I had read the book just before it came out, and while it had some flaws, it still captured my attention. The 70s vibes, the structure of the book (I thought using an interview format to discover the story of this lost band was an interesting technique), and given that this was mostly, if not entirely, dialogue, the strong characters were important as they took as through their version of events. Well, I found the show to be ultimately disappointing, so an audiobook will have to do it justice for me instead.

Set in the mid-70s and loosely (if not, entirely) inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s own interpersonal relationships, Daisy Jones and the Six follows a fictional band of the same name, interviewing former members, as well as those in the industry who witnessed everything, all of them giving their own interpretations of the meteoric rise and quick fall of the group. With a whole cast of characters, it’s easy to establish your own personal favourites, and while you’ll never know exactly what happened on those days, you can build yourself a picture. What I really enjoy about this particular audiobook is that each character has their own individual voice behind it. While audiobooks are generally one, maybe two voices, this essentially has its own cast to really make you feel as though you’re listening to a collective group of people share their own narratives. It’s a really unique way to have this novel read to you, and I’m honestly really glad I found this on Spotify.

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The Five, read by Louise Brealey

Image by Cornerstone

I’m a fairly easy to please gal. You give me feminist retellings of famous stories, I’ll snap it up. You hand me a true-crime podcast, I will unfortunately listen. To combine these two things – a feminist retelling of perhaps the most infamous true crime tale out there, and there’s an audiobook version of this? It took me only a week or so to read The Five by historian Hallie Rubenhold and it took even less time for me to listen to the audiobook version like it was my own personal podcast.

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, details the days of Jack the Ripper’s victims, their marriages, their children and ultimately, what led to their untimely demise. It discusses how the women were branded sex workers at the time, despite most of them not being on record as such. Most importantly though, it delves deep into the history of women who, for the rest of time that followed, were defined more by their brutal deaths than by the lives they led, and how they all in some way fell victim to the rigid classism that plagued Victorian London at the time. Wanting to give more to their life, Rubenhold writes in such a way that doesn’t make you feel as though you’re reading a historical novel, and the effortlessness in how she writes is only highlighted by the audiobooks narrator, Louise Brealey. An actor well-known for her role in BBC’s Sherlock, Brealey brings to life the surrounding setting of the Industrial Revolution as well as bringing a certain warmth and softness to these women’s lives, creating an atmosphere of empathy. If you’re interested in true crime, I do think it’s an important audiobook to have saved in your Spotify library.

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One I’m Excited to Listen to – Blue Sisters, read by Kat Griffiths

Following on from her phenomenal debut, Cleopatra & Frankenstein, Coco Mellors has now released her widely anticipated follow up novel Blue Sisters. This new trending fiction book tells us about three sisters, Avery, Bonnie and Lucky, who have returned home to sell their childhood home after the death of the fourth sister, Nicky, the grief of this loss sending the remaining sisters spiralling.

When I read Cleopatra & Frankenstein, I will admit – I enjoyed it a lot more at the beginning than I did towards the end. It seemed the toxic relationship of the main characters, Cleo and Frank, was having an almost outward effect on the rest of the ensemble that were introduced throughout the novel. However, I will say, Mellors wrote in such a poetic way, describing the innermost thoughts of each character so vividly but so wonderfully that even the darkest thoughts had a way of keeping a hold on me. It was for my own personal reasons that I didn’t rate it higher than I did. It’s Mellors writing style that is making me want to listen to the audiobook version of her newest title, as I honestly think the lyrical language she uses will be lovely to listen to, and will probably make any potential triggers of my own, easier to digest.

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Conclusion

Honestly, the joy of audiobooks is that not only can you feel the story coming to life, but if you begin to feel fatigue from listening to the same voice(s) over and over again, you can just pause it until you’re ready to come back. If you struggle to physically pick up a book a read, it’s tick off any reading goals you may have at the start of the year, and also, with many options of Spotify’s audiobooks included in their Premium price, you don’t actually need to spend any extra on books that have piqued your interest but you may not be able to actually buy right now (a constant battle of mine – do I buy more books or do I buy the things I actually need to replace). I hope from this list, you discover an audiobook worth listening to – even if it’s a jumping off point and you find something you think is better along the way. 

If you have any recommendations of your own, be sure to let us know!

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