10 Best Award-Winning Audiobooks To Listen To This Spring 2021

We all know that reading more books opens your mind and offers you a different perspective of the world. But with your busy schedules, how do you get in any downtime to just sit, read and absorb what every paragraph has to offer?

Audiobooks are a wonderful way to get the most out of your reading arsenal as you go about your day or even if you just feel like listening (especially if reading bores you). With so many platforms online, you can listen to your favorite or the most recent releases with just a tap of a button.

Here are some of the best award-winning audiobooks to listen to this spring 2021.

1. Such A Fun Age

Written by Kiley Reid and narrated by Nicole Lewis, this page-turner won 2021’s Audie Awards for Best Fiction. A timely story on race and privilege, the novel revolves around Alix Chamberlain, a confident, privileged young woman, and her babysitter, Emira Tucker. The latter is confronted one night by the security guard of the high-end supermarket they frequent, seeing a black woman out late with a white toddler and accuses her of kidnapping. Emira is humiliated and furious, while her employer, Alix, resolves to make things right.

"Such A Fun Age" is available on AudiobooksNow.

2. The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001

Written by award-winning journalist and author Garrett Graff and narrated by a full 45-person cast with Holter Graham, the narrative offers a comprehensive blow-by-blow account of the tragic event in the words of those who were there to experience it -- from firefighters who responded to the fire of the Twin Towers to fighter pilots who scrambled on base to shoot down any hijacked plane; from teachers evacuating terrified students to grief-stricken family members helplessly watching events unfold. This heart-wrenching audiobook won 2020’s Audie Awards for Best Audiobook of the Year.

"The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11" is available here.

3. The Shape of Water

2018 Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Director, and 2018 Golden Globe winner for Best Director of a Motion Picture, Guillermo Del Torro joins celebrated author Daniel Kraus in releasing the audiobook version of "The Shape of Water." The haunting and heartbreaking tale is set in the Cold War era in Baltimore at the Occa Aerospace Research Center which is the cell of an amphibious man captured in the Amazon. A romance unfolds with a mute woman on the janitorial staff who uses sign language to communicate with the creature.

"The Shape of Water" audiobook is available here.

4. All The Light We Cannot See

Written by multiple award-winning author Anthony Doerr and narrated by Zach Appelman, this Pulitzer Prize winner and instant New York Times bestseller tells the story of a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as they trudge to survive the destruction that World War 2 brought about. Doerr interweaves the lives of his characters, almost against all odds, to show how people even on opposing sides can reveal the good within each other.

"All the Light We Cannot See" is available on AudiobooksNow.

5. Trigger Warning

Written by multiple award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman, "Trigger Warning" awes, captivates, haunts and entertains audience with its collection of short stories and novelettes following "Smoke and Mirrors" and "Fragile Things." This new anthology by Neil Gaiman once again pierces the veil of reality and transports readers to Gaiman’s own universe thus, it has garnered praise including the 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards Winner for Best Fantasy and the 2016 Locus Award Winner for Collection.

"Trigger Warning" is available to download here.

6. The Old Man and the Sea

As Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, "The Old Man and the Sea" is considered as one his most enduring works. Written in 1952, the dramatic novella revolves around the story of an old Cuban fisherman and his great ordeal with a massive marlin far off the Gulf Stream. The novel, written in his iconic contemporary literary style of tough, terse prose was a precursor to his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for literature. The classic novel is reintroduced as an audiobook narrated by Donald Sutherland.

Download "The Old Man and the Sea" here.

7. East of Eden

Published in 1952, this riveting novel was considered by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck himself as his magnum opus. Although a masterpiece of his later years, Steinbeck creates his most mesmerizing characters while exploring his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequence of love’s absence. Set in California’s Salinas Valley, the novel intertwines the lives of two rival families: the Trasks and the Hamiltons, whose generations mirror the fall of Adam and Eve, and the rivalry of Cain and Abel. This classic is reintroduced as an audiobook narrated by Richard Poe.

"East of Eden" is available for download on AudiobooksNow.

8. The Hobbit

Published in 1937, this children’s fantasy novel by English author J.R.R. Tolkien was widely acclaimed with a Carnegie Medal nomination and a New York Herald Tribune award for Best Juvenile Fiction. The story delves into Tolkien’s fantastical and detailed universe and follows his protagonist Bilbo Baggins on his journey from his light-hearted roots into the more sinister territory. The well-loved novel is also a widely acclaimed motion picture trilogy and is reintroduced as an audiobook narrated by an ensemble cast.

"The Hobbit" is available on AudiobooksNow.

9. Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand’s fourth and final novel opens with the immortal question: ‘Who is John Galt?’ Bagging the Prometheus Hall of Fame award, it is considered one of the most influential novels of our time in the genre of contemporary fiction. "Atlas Shrugged" is the story of a man who said he would stop the motor of the world, and was successful at doing so. The novel peeks into Rand’s own ideas of Objectivism, rational selfishness and criticizes a society that penalizes human intelligence and integrity. This novel is reintroduced as an audiobook narrated by Edward Herrman.

"Atlas Shrugged" is available on AudiobooksNow.

10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

In this 50th anniversary edition of Ken Kesey’s well-loved American classic, the audiobook version is narrated by John Reilly. Considered as one of the “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005” by Time Magazine and “UK’s 200 best-loved novels” by BBC’s The Big Read poll, the novel tells the memorable tale of a mental ward and its inhabitants. Kesey turns the conventional notions of sanity and insanity, serves as a study of institutional processes, and critique of psychiatry.

Download "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" here.