To listen to an audiobook is, at first, a strange experience. It takes a while for you to stop forming the words and instead let your mind conjure up the imagery of the world you enter. Some are hit-and-miss as a listening experience, not because they are badly written (it’s always usually the contrary), but because the narrator doesn’t quite get it right; how the story is recited makes or breaks it.

Perhaps this is why many of those I’ve loved have been narrated (by and large) by professional actors – they never miss their cues. A tip: listen to the audio sample before buying to see if it suits you – you’ll know right away if not. Unexpectedly, hearing the often familiar voices has been just what I needed during the pandemic. I let them take the lead, guiding me to places both wonderful and strange, and for a few hours, I forgot about all else. Below are some recent favourites.

WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE BY OPRAH WINFREY

This multi-award-winning audiobook is best heard in the wise tones of the author herself. After film critic Gene Siskel asked her, "What do you know for sure?" Oprah Winfrey said it was this very question which made her take stock of her life. It’s also the title of her monthly column in O Magazine, which she wrote for over a decade, which is collected in one place. It’s exhilarating, uplifting and a gentle reminder that, Covid-19 or not, life will go on and we will continue to achieve the dreams we have with hard work and determination.

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING BY DELIA OWENS

Kya Clark is a young woman growing up practically on her own in the wild marshes outside Barkley Cove, a small coastal community in North Carolina. Known as ‘Marsh girl,’ she’s always been alone, abandoned by her mother and family from a young age. In 1969, Chase Andrews, Kya’s former lover is found dead and she’s suspected of his murder. Reese Witherspoon featured this in her now-infamous book club (she’s also adapting it for TV) and said the beautiful audio version takes her right back to “sweltering Tennessee summers.”

HEARTBURN BY NORA EPHRON

Heartburn centres around Rachel Samstat, a successful cookery writer, who discovers seven months into her second pregnancy that her husband Mark is having an affair with the tall wife of a politician, just as Nora Ephron discovered during her own second pregnancy while married to Carl Bernstein, the journalist who broke the Watergate scandal. It's Ephron at her best and the award-winning narration by Meryl Streep means the audio experience is as perfect as it is intriguing.

A LONG PETAL OF THE SEA BY ISABEL ALLENDE

Looking for an epic story to get lost in? This epic novel spans decades, from 1938 to 1994, and crosses continents, following two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a new place to call home. We meet Victor Dalmau, a 23-year-old medical student fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He searches packed refugee camps for Roser, who is pregnant with his brother Guillem’s child. The audio takes you right to the centre of the heart-wrenching story.

BAD BLOOD BY JOHN CARREYROU

This tale takes you down a rabbit hole of a scandal that continues to be in the news today. The salacious story of biotech startup Theranos and the staggering frauds masterminded by its founder, Elizabeth Holmes has to be, in this case, heard to be believed. Written by Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou, the audio takes you even deeper into the jaw-dropping scandal than the two documentaries on the topic – and is a captivating listen from start to finish.

THE DUTCH HOUSE BY ANN PATCHETT

If anyone was going to sway you to turn to an audiobook, it’d be Tom Hanks, who skillfully narrates this modern fairytale of children expelled from the mansion of their childhood by an evil stepmother – a rather simplistic description which only hints and the layers and luminosity of the story. The book itself was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and like all the best fairy tales, is best heard, in this case, read aloud by another.

Jennifer McShane, September 2020.