Somewhere, someone is already asking: Wait a minute, do audiobooks even count as reading?

So let’s get that out of the way. Yes, they do. There are many ways to read or enjoy a text, and an audiobook is one of them.

Would a sleepy child at bedtime scold you by saying, “Thanks, but doing all those voices in ‘Goodnight, Moon’ doesn’t count as reading.” Or on a romantic picnic, would your dearest declare, “If you’d read those poems quietly to yourself instead of sharing the verses with me, it would have counted as reading.”

Listening to an audiobook can overcome the digital distractions of the 21st century that derail your attention by acting a bit like a PeopleMover at the airport; maybe most of us can get across the terminal without it, but a little free momentum can help get you there faster (and keep you from exiting the duty-free store with a 2-gallon bottle of Scotch and/or perfume).

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For big books – and fall 2026 is bursting with big ones – an audiobook is especially helpful, transporting you through the story without causing your arms to buckle as you benchpress a 999-page tome. And a good narrator can make even the largest cast of characters individually memorable.

So let’s take a look at a wide range of just-released audiobooks available in fall 2026, and you’re almost certain to find some that suit your tastes. If you don’t, you can always revisit a classic like Juliet Stevenson reading George Eliot’s “Middlemarch,” Simon Prebble conjuring up an array of characters in Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,” or Ross Gay narrating his joy-affirming “The Book of Delights.” (And note that not every narrator is listed below this time because there are so many titles and some productions have multiple narrators, but please know we typically include them because we know how essential they are to making an audiobook succeed.)

And finally, get your audiobooks wherever it makes sense to you: On the free Libby or Hoopla Digital apps that work through local libraries. Or purchase your audiobooks through Libro.fm, Google Play, Chirp or Audible. Or just eavesdrop the next time you see me on a picnic loudly declaiming poetry.

Audiobook narrator Simon Vance has told a thousand stories. This is his.

Biography and memoir

What’s more fun than a celebrity memoir? Having the celebrity read the book aloud with a little added flair (think of Barbra Streisand’s asides in her nearly 50-hour “My Name Is Barbra” or Bruce Springsteen’s exuberant vocalizing in “Born to Run,” for example). This fall we’ve got some terrific examples coming: A memoir co-written (with Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts) and narrated by the iconic star of “Roots,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Reading Rainbow,” LeVar Burton, “Take My Word for It: A Memoir”; the Michael Douglas tell-all (and then some) “One Helluva Ride”; and Dustin Hoffman’s “Look at Me,” which we can’t wait to listen to (and can’t help imagining the recording session as if it were the tomato scene from “Tootsie”).

More: “We Thought They’d Never Leave: Musings on Food and Family” by Tony Shalhoub, with Josie Adams; “Never Say Die: A Memoir” by Ke Huy Quan; “Daphne & Me” by Jane Leeves; “Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?” by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea; “The Gospel According to DMX” by DMX; “Nobody Broke Your Heart: An Intimate Biography of Elliott Smith” by Jamie Fisher.

Looking for something without a celebrity attached? Consider “Between the River and the Railroad Tracks: A Memoir” by Nicole R. Fleetwood; “And If I Die Before I Wake: A Memoir” by George M. Johnson; “The Blue Hours: My Summers and Winter in Antarctica” by Stephanie Krzywonos; “The Bookshop Woman: My Year Transforming Lives—One Book at a Time” by Nanako Hanada, trans. by Cat Anderson; “Death of an Ordinary Man” by Sarah Perry; and “Secrets: A Reporter’s Memoir” by Bob Woodward.

The Book Pages: Making audiobooks with Henry Winkler and John Stamos

Award winners and nominees

Fall is easily one of our top four seasons. Sure, it’s got all your cozy requirements covered – coats and sweaters, blankets and slippers, soups and cocoa, to name just a few – but it’s also the heart of awards season for books. And if you’re only looking at the winners, you’re missing some great longlists, too.

Some of the nominated (and winning) titles you can plug into include “Kin” by Tayari Jones; “The Disappearers” by Marlon James; “May We Feed the King” by Rebecca Perry; “John of John” by Douglas Stuart; “The Things We Never Say” by Elizabeth Strout; “The Palm House” by Gwendoline Riley; “Black Bag” by Luke Kennard; “Switzy” by Emma Cline; “Holloway” by Elana K. Arnold; “When Tomorrow Burns” by Tae Keller; “That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic” by Keala Kendall; “The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America” by David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels; “Shook” by Julian Randall; “Paradiso 17″ by Hannah Lillith Assadi’a; “Red Ants” by Kimberly Blaeser; “Dèy” by Edwidge Danticat; “Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You” by Julián Delgado Lopera; “Python’s Kiss” by Louise Erdrich; “Beginning Middle End” by Valeria Luiselli; “The Renovation” by Kenan Orhan.

Nonfiction

There are plenty of great books coming out this fall to inform, enlighten or engage us on the big questions of time … or just distract us from everything for a little bit: “The Telephone: A New History” by James Gleick; “The Havana Syndrome” by Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados; “Murder in Paris ’68” by Edward Chisholm; “Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State” by Michael Lewis; “Unreliable Boyfriend: An Insider’s View of Dealing with a Chaotic Superpower, Plutocrats, and Other Complicated People” by Chrystia Freeland; “Serling: A Journey into the Twilight Zone with TV’s First Visionary” by Alan Sepinwall; “Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy” by Ben Macintyre; “The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World” by Nathaniel Philbrick.

The Book Pages: The story of an audiobook narrator

Cheat, prey, love: Crime, sci-fi and romance

Everyone knows that genre books have some of the most fervent readers and fans. So how about one of these: “Other Worlds Than These” by Stephen King and Peter Straub (and narrated by Patton Oswalt); “Threshing Day” by Rebecca Yarros (with a full cast); the “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series by Matt Dinniman; “The Thrice-Bound Fool” by Christopher Buehlman; “Empire of Storms” by Sarah J. Maas; “The Sixth Faction” by Veronica Roth; “Life Out of Order” by Audrey Niffenegger; “Alma Vampires” by Elena Armas; “Broken Rival” by Tessa Bailey; “A Married Little Christmas” by Abby Jimenez; and “Cold Sunset” by William Boyd.

Bestsellers, adaptations and more big books

You know that book everyone has been talking about? For some readers, that’s all they need to go jumping into the zeitgeist, but you can always sample the big new book on audio, such as Kathryn Stockett’s “The Calamity Club”; Elizabeth Kostova’s “Mystery Play”; Min Jin Lee’s “American Hagwon”; China Miéville’s “The Rouse”; Caro Claire Burke’s “Yesteryear”; “Exit Party” by Emily St. John Mandel or “Whistler” by Ann Patchett.

Want more? Of course you do, and there are plenty of new titles coming as well as so many already out to discover. We’ll be back with more book, bestseller and audiobook coverage, so get the free Book Pages newsletter.

She writes novels about Vietnamese women. An audiobook narrator gives them a voice

Map: 100 Southern California independent bookstores to visit in 2026