August 2025 Earphones Award Winners

Mia Hutchinson-Shaw delivers a heartfelt performance of this quirky YA romance. Evie is tired of being the nice girl. At her new boarding school she asks her dorm mate, Salem, an easygoing slacker, to help her become cool. In exchange, Evie will help Salem become a model student. They grow closer, but Evie is harboring a secret relating to why she's enrolled at this school.... Read More

Artist Robert Crumb did the impossible--he turned the medium of comic books into something both inspiring and repellent while securing a place in comic history. Rob Shapiro's understated delivery of this authorized biography is as captivating as Crumb's bizarre life. Listening to it will make people seek out not only Crumb's work in Zap Comix, Fritz The Cat, and others, but... Read More

Comedian Tamara Yajia narrates her debut memoir with dynamic energy. Her stories of her childhood in Argentina feature her hilarious yet often inappropriate Jewish family. After they move to the U.S., her grandfather's declining health brings them back to Argentina. Inspired by Madonna, Yajia almost becomes a child star, but an economic crisis forces another move to America,... Read More

Narrator Gail Shalan gives a spirited performance of this ghoulish mystery. Elvira, a half-siren who lives in a trailer park for monsters, is very skeptical of the human world outside it. When they learn that a human detective is on the case of the missing Marfa Monster Festival crown, Elvira and her friends decide to investigate on their own. But more monster residents... Read More

Julie Maisey brings verve and well-chosen characterizations to her performance of Griffiths's latest mystery. A departure from Griffiths's successful series featuring archaeologist Ruth Galloway, this new audiobook introduces Ali Dawson and a group of current-day investigators who travel in time. History-oriented instead of science- focused, the story is well researched and... Read More

Narrators AhDream Smith, Erin Spencer, and Khaya Fraites draw listeners into the lives of three single teenage mothers--Simone, Emory, and Adela. Through alternating perspectives, the narrations capture each character's struggles and hopes as the women navigate pregnancy and motherhood while coming of age in Padua Beach, Florida. Smith conveys Simone's resilience and heartache... Read More

Mia Hutchinson-Shaw's narration of the first book in this cozy mystery series is delightful. She brings a warm, engaging tone to the story of Prairie Nightingale, a divorced homemaker with two daughters. Her neighbors might call her a busybody, but Prairie's insatiable curiosity drives her to investigate when her neighbor, popular mom and entrepreneur Lisa Radcliffe, goes... Read More

Satire isn't easy to write or to perform. Both the author and the narrator succeed notably in this funny, trenchant debut novel. William DeMeritt uses all his acting skills plus a strong narrative delivery to portray the wide cast of characters who live in this audiobook. He convincingly inhabits the hyperactive mind of Anders, a 15-year-old Tom Sawyer-like youth with a talent... Read More

Elisabeth Rodgers narrates with tasteful objectivity yet infuses this engrossing audiobook with all the emotion it deserves. Sounding more like a novel than a true-crime story, this account of the lives of four University of Idaho students before their horrific murders reveals a group of popular young people who enjoyed partying, were part of loving families, and were naïve... Read More

Golden Voice Edoardo Ballerini narrates art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon's latest adventure, set largely in Italy and the Vatican. Ballerini's lyrical pronunciation of Italian proper names and places showcases the beauty of the Italian language. Listeners are swept into the intrigue surrounding the discovery and loss of a Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece, a situation that places... Read More

A mind-control expert examines the coercive and subtle ways people can be made to adopt distorted thinking that works against their own interests and free will. Describing examples like the brainwashing of Korean War prisoners and cults that distort personalities, Rebecca Lemov explains that these corruptions of self-interest and autonomy almost always follow a pattern of... Read More

Narrator Timothy Andrés Pabon, a gifted storyteller, is an excellent choice for this sweeping retrospective of the counterculture movement of the 1950s-1960s and what made it so influential. Pabon deftly manages long lists of names, deep scholarship, and stories of bohemian life. McNally's scholarship shines with Pabon's voice. Pabon shares what could have been dry research in... Read More

Erin Bennett's complex narration of this historical audiobook wraps listeners in a web of mystery. In early 1942, June Hudson manages the luxurious Avallon Hotel with calm certainty of her place in the world. When the State Department commandeers the West Virginia hotel to house Axis diplomats in the wake of Pearl Harbor, June realizes that nothing will ever be the same again.... Read More

For a fun, witchy listen, you can't go wrong with Aubrey Plaza, who hams it up in a quirky narration. Luna has always wanted to be a witch like her grandma in Puerto Rico. When she finds a real witch's house, she gets the curmudgeonly witch, Pheenie, to teach her all she knows. But first, Luna needs to help get the house ready for a Halloween party. Plaza doesn't disappoint.... Read More

Simply perfect! No detail is missing from an enchanting picture-book adaptation that needs no images. An orchestral score is seamlessly layered with the sounds of nocturnal creatures and the frightened murmured voices of Garden Glen residents who are scurrying to light lanterns to keep the darkness at bay. Narrator Elizabeth Knowelden's prim English accent perfectly suits... Read More

Who writer Joan Didion was has never been clearer than in her attempt to trace the emotional cosmos of her deeply troubled adopted daughter, Quintana. Built from a set of notes left on her desk, this posthumous work lends itself particularly well to narrator Julianne Moore's delicate twang. Whereas much of Didion's oeuvre is identifiable for its razor-sharp economy of language,... Read More

British narrator Catherine Bailey brings listeners neuroscientist Gina Rippon's exploration of the calamitous underdiagnosis of autism in girls and women. Braiding together the history of autism research, accounts of copious experiments, and the voices of autistic girls and women themselves, Rippon makes a powerful case that autism research has ignored its distinctive... Read More

Grace Gray narrates this WWII historical fantasy from the perspectives of three characters: Lydia Polk, a British woman who recently graduated from the Royal Academy of Witches; Rebecca Gagne, a Jewish resistance fighter in France; and Henry Boudreaux, a Haitian American art historian with a little magic of his own. Lydia must enlist the help of Rebecca and Henry to obtain a... Read More

Curiosity-driven research has led to discoveries in a number of unexpected areas, such as landmine detecting rats, fish cannons using pneumatic technology to transport fish, mantis shrimp "fight clubs," and duck sex. Narrator Eileen Stevens strikes an upbeat and engaged tone as she chronicles these and other experiments that have led to scientific progress both in the area of... Read More

January LaVoy gives a theater-caliber performance in this suspense novel involving the disappearance of a young woman from an upscale condo. When Bryden fails to pick up their three-year-old from day care, her husband, Sam, discovers that she has mysteriously disappeared. Enter a cast of friends, neighbors, and relatives--many of whom may know more than they're saying. Can... Read More

This audiobook recounts the extraordinary true story of a small group of women imprisoned in Ravensbrück, the Nazis' only all-female concentration camp during WWII. The powerful account traces their harrowing ordeal with relentless brutality, including starvation, forced labor, inhumane medical experiments, and extreme overcrowding. Narrator Lisa Flanagan delivers a performance... Read More

Listeners may be tempted to bypass this magnificent audiobook with its unfamiliar character names and sprinkling of Yiddish words. That would be a mistake. This story is universal in its community feeling, challenging parent-child relations, marital troubles, and eternal struggle between tradition and modernity. At a basic level, the story is about a Polish village in the early... Read More

Narrator Alexis Bledel superbly imparts the magical realism in this classic, which contains an insightful new introduction. One morning in a long-ago village, Winnie discovers a magical spring and the secret of the extraordinarily long-lived Tuck family. To protect their secret, Mae Tuck and her sons spirit Winnie away to their home. Winnie is smitten with Jesse Tuck and his... Read More

Narrator Mira Sorvino enchants as she portrays Jess Capodimonte Baratta, a good Italian daughter from New Jersey who finds the courage to break free from a life that seems to be happening without her consent. When an unwanted revelation and an unexpected windfall from her beloved Uncle Louie turn Jess's life upside down, she seeks clarity and a fresh start in her family's... Read More

Narrator Mira Sorvino enchants as she portrays Jess Capodimonte Baratta, a good Italian daughter from New Jersey who finds the courage to break free from a life that seems to be happening without her consent. When an unwanted revelation and an unexpected windfall from her beloved Uncle Louie turn Jess's life upside down, she seeks clarity and a fresh start in her family's... Read More

When a nonfiction audiobook is described as "monumental," it can be challenging for listeners. But Courtney B. Vance makes this biography of pioneering Black sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois highly accessible. The work is still long and detailed, but Vance's pace and tone keep it from seeming tedious. He varies his voice to suit the material, especially in denoting irony or when... Read More

Ifan Huw Dafydd gives a performance worthy of this emotional and powerful debut, winner of the Swedish book of the year award, the August Prize. Listeners will become attached to Bo, an elderly man who is determined to keep his son from taking his dog, Sixten, now that his wife is in a facility for dementia, leaving him with only part-time caregivers. Journal entries added by... Read More