AudioFile’s 2023 Best Biography & Memoir Audiobooks include stories of crime, family connections, the acting life, and more. All are brilliant performances of works that give listeners a window into the lives of others.
For the full list of 2023 Best Audiobooks, visit AudioFile’s website.
THE ART THIEF: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel
Read by Edoardo Ballerini, Michael Finkel [Note]
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 5.5 hrs.]
Narrator Edoardo Ballerini performs his customary magic with Finkel’s memorable portrait of Stéphane Breitwieser, the sly European thief who pilfered nearly $2 billion in art objects, enhancing the narrative’s strengths and minimizing its shortcomings.
HOW TO SAY BABYLON: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
Read by Safiya Sinclair
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 16.75 hrs.]
Author/narrator Safiya Sinclair emphasizes the poetry of her words as she narrates her memoir about growing up in a close-knit Jamaican family with a strict Rastafarian father. Her soft accent sounds like gentle waves.
KING: A LIFE by Jonathan Eig
Read by Dion Graham
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Macmillan Audio | 20.75 hrs.]
Dion Graham superbly narrates this riveting audiobook, emulating the majestic cadence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, speeches while capturing the Civil Rights leader’s deep, resonant tone and deliberate ministerial intonation.
MAKING IT SO: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart
Read by Patrick Stewart
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 18.75 hrs.]
Yorkshireman Sir Patrick Stewart presents a revealing, clear, and beautifully written memoir, discussing of his journey from humble beginnings to the heights of international stardom. His performance is compassionate, sensitive, and powerful, with well-paced timing and notable precision exercised in every word.
WHILE YOU WERE OUT: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence by Meg Kissinger
Read by Meg Kissinger
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Macmillan Audio | 11 hrs.]
Journalist Meg Kissinger gives a stellar narration of her extraordinarily affecting memoir about growing up in the 1960s in a close-knit Irish-Catholic family of eight children, many of whom were afflicted with mental illness.
WHY FATHERS CRY AT NIGHT: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances by Kwame Alexander
Read by Kwame Alexander
AudioFile Earphones Award
[Hachette Audio | 3.5 hrs.]
Poet and narrator Kwame Alexander brings poignancy to his “snapshots of a man learning to love. Again.” His memoir is a savory-sweet mix of poems, letters, and recipes, shot through with a poet’s rhythms and unique experiences that strike a universal chord.
Photo Credit:
Safiya Sinclair photo by Beowulf Sheehan
Kwame Alexander photo by Portia Wiggins
AudioFile will feature exclusive interviews with narrators from this year’s Best Audiobooks on their podcast, Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine. Follow the podcast here. Dion Graham’s interview will be airing on December 4th.
