The number of audiobooks borrowed through libraries around the world has more than doubled since 2019—a telling statistic that speaks to the exploding popularity of books in audio format.

For the librarians taking care of patrons’ needs every day, this news shouldn’t come as a surprise. Still, it’s a powerful indication of how patrons’ interactions with the written word are rapidly evolving.

This information comes from Statista, which relies on data from the OverDrive global network. According to the data, library users worldwide borrowed 114 million audiobooks from OverDrive alone in 2019. In 2023, that figure shot up to 235 million.

As the demand for books in audio format has increased, publishers have become more creative with their audiobook production. For instance, they’re releasing more audiobook originals, or productions created specifically for audio and not available in print. They’re also adding more music and sound effects, and they’re creating multicast productions that resemble radio plays from the mid-20th century.

Celebrity memoirs have proven to be especially popular in audio format, as listeners get to hear beloved stars narrate their life stories in their own unique voices. Memoirs from Barbra Streisand and Britney Spears did well in audio format last fall, and this year, listeners will be treated to new audio memoirs from Tiffany Haddish and Whoopi Goldberg.

Here are some of the latest audiobooks for the library market from publishers this spring.

Dreamscape Media

Established in 2010, Dreamscape Media is an award-winning independent publisher and multimedia studio that produces audiobooks, ebooks, films, documentaries, and TV shows for children and adults.

Norwegian author Jon Fosse won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of literary fiction that “give(s) voice to the unsayable.” Looking to bring his work to a wider audience, Dreamscape is producing English-language audiobooks of multiple Fosse titles. Narrated by actor and fellow Norwegian Dennis Storhøi, Morning and Evening, narrated by Dennis Storhøi, March 2024, ISBN 9781666657715, is an audio version of Fosse’s 2000 novella that tells the story of a fisherman named Johannes. The first part of the book is about Johannes’ birth as seen from his father’s perspective; in the second part, Johannes revisits important places and moments from his life as he’s dying.

Australian author Sulari Gentill’s previous novel, The Woman in the Library , was a bestseller. Her follow-up effort, The Mystery Writer , narrated by Katherine Littrell, March 2024, ISBN 9781666654738, is a thriller about an aspiring writer who meets and falls in love with her literary idol―only to find him murdered the day after she gave him her manuscript to read. Dreamscape is publishing the audiobook version simultaneously with the release of the print edition from Sourcebook’s imprint Poisoned Pen Press.

Acclaimed novelist Lydia Millet’s first work of nonfiction, We Loved It All: A Memory of Life, narrated by Xe Sands, April 2024, ISBN 9781666655872, argues that we extend to other living beings the protection they deserve at a time when the planet’s richness is being threatened. Drawing on Millet’s quarter-century of experience as an advocate for endangered species at the Center for Biological Diversity, this audiobook—debuting simultaneously with the print edition from W. W. Norton & Co.—should appeal to anyone concerned about the future of life on Earth.

Falling for Gage by Mia Sheridan, April 2024, ISBN 9781666658705, is a contemporary romance between a woman named Rory Casteel, who’s searching for her father, and Gage Buchanan, the man with whom she spent one wild night several weeks earlier. All Rory knows about her father is that he lives in Calliope and is an important part of the town. But when Rory arrives in Calliope posing as an art dealer to track him down, she has no idea that Gage will turn out to be a local resident as well—and he knows her cover story is false. The narrators are still being cast as of press time, but Dreamscape plans to have separate male and female narrators for each of the leads.

Actress, comedienne, and breakout star Tiffany Haddish had a New York Times bestseller with her last book, The Last Black Unicorn. Now, she’s back with a new collection of essays called I Curse You with Joy , May 2024, ISBN 9781666655735. In these self-narrated essays, Haddish reckons with her childhood trauma, the challenges of being a Black woman in the entertainment industry, and her bittersweet reunion with her estranged father after nearly 20 years. She also shares the lessons she’s learned during her career.

“We’re very excited for this audiobook,” says Marketing Director Jolene Barto. “We think it will be one of our biggest sellers.”

Blackstone Audio

Blackstone began in 1987 as an independent audiobook publisher in southern Oregon. In 2015, the company expanded with Blackstone Publishing, a new imprint focused on producing print and e-books. In January 2024, the company launched Blackstone Unlimited Audio, a new digital service for libraries. For a single, yearly subscription fee, libraries can offer free, unlimited audiobook downloads for their patrons from a collection of 6,500 titles, with authors such as Karin Slaughter and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

New Blackstone audiobook releases this spring include the fourth installment in the “Morning Show Mystery Series” from Blackstone Publishing, co-authored and narrated by Al Roker from NBC’s Today show. Murder on Demand, written by Roker and Matt Costello, April 2024, ISBN 9798200917990, finds celebrity chef Billy Blessing investigating a suspicious boating accident in Long Island.

Another new Blackstone mystery is the suspense thriller Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose, narrated by January LaVoy, Brittany Pressley, Cassandra Campbell, and Andrew Eiden, April 2024, ISBN 9798212024112. In this book, three siblings get together after their mother’s death, but a surprise discovery plunges them into family intrigue.

While going through their parents’ belongings, the siblings stumble upon a collection of home videos and decide to revisit those happier memories. However, their nostalgia is cut short when one of the VHS tapes reveals a night back in 1999 that none of them remember. On screen, their father appears covered in blood. What follows is a dead body and a pact between their parents to get rid of it before the video abruptly ends.

Rose is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including The Perfect Marriage, One of Us Is Dead, and You Shouldn’t Have Come Here. She’s also active on TikTok, with more than 672,000 followers.

The Sweet Blue Distance by Sara Donati, narrated by Kate Reading, April 2024, ISBN 9798212985901, is a female-driven Western saga in the vein of Lonesome Dove. A young midwife travels west to New Mexico Territory in the 1850s to care for women in need, and she faces dangers more harrowing than the ones she’s fleeing in this epic tale of survival, redemption, and love.

Blackstone’s most highly anticipated release this spring is a memoir written and narrated by EGOT-winning actress and comedienne Whoopi Goldberg. In Bits and Pieces, May 2024, ISBN 9798200918522, Goldberg reminisces about her family and their influence on her early life.

If it weren’t for her mother Emma, Caryn Johnson would never have become Whoopi Goldberg. When Goldberg lost her mother in 2010—and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later—she felt deeply alone. The only people who truly knew her were gone. In this intimate and heartfelt memoir, Goldberg shares many deeply personal stories of their lives together for the first time.

Goldberg is one of an elite group of artists who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award. She is a bestselling author, prolific producer, successful entrepreneur, and has been a host on ABC’s The View since 2007. She is also recognized worldwide for her humanitarian endeavors.

ECW Press

An independent book publisher based in Toronto, ON, ECW Press has been showcasing Canadian authors and stories since 1974. The company’s audiobooks division, which launched in 2015, publishes audio versions of front-list ECW titles. A separate division, Bespeak Audio Editions, produces audiobooks from other publishers’ works.

Denison Avenue written and narrated by Christina Wong, illustrated by Daniel Innes, February 2024, ISBN 9781778523427, is a moving story told in both words and visual art about gentrification, aging, grief, and the vulnerability of elder Chinese Canadians. ECW published the print edition in May 2023, and in February 2024, the company released an audiobook version of this work.

Because of the importance of images to the story, “we weren’t going to produce an audiobook version initially,” says Audiobooks Manager Cassie Smyth. However, ECW was approached by the CNIB Foundation, a charitable organization formerly known as the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. CNIB expressed interest in working with ECW to produce an audio version.

Both Wong and Innes collaborated to write the “alt text” that describes the book’s images. The resulting recording includes production notes that describe what’s happening visually in the book in very lyrical terms and with “a narrative flair that you don’t often find in alt text,” Smyth says.

For example: “A character ambles past along the empty sidewalk. Hunched over a folding shopping cart that’s overflowing with bags full of empty beer cans, the figure wears a loose shirt and jeans with a ballcap. . . High above, a row of pigeons crowd on the ledges of the old brick buildings.”

In Rebent Sinnerwritten and narrated by Ivan Coyote,April 2022, ISBN 9781773058740, Coyote talks about what it means to be trans and nonbinary today, at a time when many people seek to misgender trans people or deny their very existence. Coyote is a well-known Canadian spoken word performer and LGBTQIA+ advocate, and this Bespeak production is still a timely and powerful work two years after its release.

Galaxy Press

Established in 2002 and based in Los Angeles, Galaxy Press is the US publisher and distributor for the fiction works of bestselling author L. Ron Hubbard.

Throughout his career, Hubbard devoted a great deal of his time to helping others get published. In 1983, he created an annual competition called the “Writers of the Future Contest” to recognize the work of aspiring authors. The contest, which attracts thousands of entries from around the world, honors the best short science fiction and fantasy stories from previously unpublished writers—and it has helped launch the careers of successful authors such as Patrick Rothfuss and Andrea Stewart.

Galaxy Press publishes the winning entries in an annual anthology called L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future narrated by Jim, Tamra, and Taylor Meskimen, May 2024, ISBN 9781619867765. Volume 40 of this collection is coming out in May 2024. The audiobook version will be available as a digital download and features 18 hours of audio narrated by actors and family members Jim, Tamra, and Taylor Meskimen.

In 2008, Galaxy Press embarked on a six-year effort to republish more than 150 short stories and novelettes written by Hubbard in the 1930s and 1940s in the form of an 80-volume book and full-cast audio drama series. These stories from Hubbard’s “Golden Age” of pulp fiction writing span nearly every genre, from Westerns and mysteries to fantasy and science fiction.

Available in CD and digital download formats, the audiobook versions are produced like an old-time radio program, featuring a cast of actors. The stories are sold in collections by genre, such as Murder Mystery 10th Anniversary Audiobook Collection Vol. 1 , November 2018, ISBN 9781619866102; Sci-Fi / Fantasy 10th Anniversary Audiobook Collection Vol. 1 , November 2018, ISBN 9781619866126; and The Wild Wild West 10th Anniversary Audiobook Collection Vol. 1 , November 2018, ISBN 9781619866119.

Battlefield Earth is one of Hubbard’s best-known novels. Published in 1982, the book takes place in the year 3000, when an evil race called the Psychlos have taken over the Earth’s natural resources—and it's up to Jonnie “Goodboy” Tyler to battle the Psychlos and restore normalcy to the world.

The audiobook version of Battlefield Earthby Hubbard, June 2016, ISBN 9781619865129 (for the digital download) is an epic, 48-hour production featuring a cinematic soundtrack with more than 150,000 sound effects. It is narrated by a cast of 67 actors that includes Josh Clark, Scott Menville, Fred Tatascorie, and Stefan Rudnicki.

Thomas Nelson Publishers

Thomas Nelson Publishers of Nashville, TN is a leading publisher of works focused on personal growth and spiritual leadership. It’s one of three imprints within the Christian Publishing division of HarperCollins, each of which produce about 30 to 40 new titles per year.

One of the releases that Nelson Publishers is most excited about this spring is Welcome to the Basement, written and narrated by Tim Ross, February 2024, ISBN 9781400248186. In this book, Ross—a podcaster, preacher, and social media influencer with a real gift for communicating—explains how many people overlook the most important messages from the teachings of Jesus.

“We miss too many moments trying to save souls instead of just doing good in the world,” he notes.

When Ross was growing up in Los Angeles, he envisioned a career in law enforcement. His mother worked for the LAPD for 30 years. At age four, he wanted to be Batman. At age 12, he wanted to be a homicide detective. By 16, he had memorized the entire California penal code.

But God had other plans for Ross, and in 1996—at age 20—he pledged his life to Jesus. He became a youth pastor, a preacher, and finally a podcaster. Last year, he started a podcast called The Basement , which now has more than 450,000 listeners across multiple channels.

In Welcome to the Basement, Ross explains how Jesus’ “first shall be last” teachings upset the establishment, and he explores what it truly means to turn one’s own life upside-down. In a conflict-riddled world that values celebrity, visibility, and self-promotion, Ross posits that Jesus invites his followers to join him in “the basement,” where ordinary acts of love, service, empathy, and kindness have extraordinary power to transform lives.

“I grew up in a Black Pentecostal church,” Ross says. “It was very much focused on the fire of God and the power of God. And I watched a lot of people walk out of that church and be the meanest people I’d ever seen in my life. I thought: Man, you guys are really good at chasing down demons, but then you’re mad at the waitress at Ruby’s for not getting your order right.”

He adds: “So much of the stuff that Jesus did was just nice, like feeding the poor and the hungry. The do-gooder part of Jesus’s life was so profound that we’re still talking about it 2,000 years later. I believe it’s these moments of doing good that can rub off the rough edges of the self-righteous.”

A companion workbook, Welcome to the Basement Study Guide by Ross, February 2024, helps listeners apply the book’s lessons within their lives. “There’s a difference between getting it and knowing it,” Ross explains. The study guide includes exercises designed to help listeners act on the book’s suggestions, as well as quizzes to help them assess their own progress. Sold separately from the book, the study guide is available in paperback (ISBN 9780310170686) and ebook (ISBN 9780310170754) formats.

In November 2023, Ross released a mobile app called “B-Side.” In addition to offering content from Ross’s podcast and others, the app builds community through a Discord channel where users can come together and share messages of inspiration.

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