January 2026 Earphones Award Winners

Cia Court captures all the profound and devastating flaws in an engaging yet reprehensible protagonist. Margo and Ian have been stymied in their efforts to find a forever home outside Washington, D.C. Intense and simmering with rage issues, Margo takes matters into her own morally questionable hands when her dream home is listed for sale. Court shines in her delivery of Margo's... Read More

Samuel Barnett delivers a fresh interpretation of the St. George and the Dragon legend. George, whom Barnett portrays in a snide, harried tone that makes him bitingly funny, becomes increasingly hysterical as his contemporary London life falls apart. After he inexplicably time travels to the medieval era, his neuroses are subsumed into the immediacy of survival and the... Read More

Peter Noble coolly performs this twisty crime novel. Using a narrative tone that is distant and objective, he still manages to inhabit each character, providing credible male and female voices while instilling each with appropriate emotion. In this story filled with betrayals, secrets, and stunning surprises, he handles the Scandinavian pronunciations with ease. The... Read More

Edoardo Ballerini convincingly portrays thugs, a torch singer, all manner of gumshoes; he does Hungarians, Germans, English elites. His vocals are spot-on. The wildly imagined plot begins in Milwaukee and then shifts to Eastern Europe. Hicks McTaggart, a former strike breaker, now a private eye, likes to dance and to romance--until he runs afoul of the Milwaukee mob. Much of... Read More

A dynamic ensemble of all-star narrators brings to life these stories assembled--and in one case, published--for the first time. Representing Sanderson's writing experimentation and growth over the course of 25 years, they feature worlds in which reality is unstable and characters move freely through simulations, universes, and bodies. The narrators are impressively well... Read More

"Bridgerton" heartthrob Luke Thompson performs this novel with restraint, ensuring that the self-deluded first-person narrator is fully believable. The setting, Venice in 1899, has a gloss of wrongdoing. The protagonist, an unsuccessful English writer named Evelyn Dohlman, is a morally ambiguous soul. He speaks no Italian, and his recent bride, an American heiress, has cooled... Read More

Christian Coulson's narration is beautifully enhanced by inspiring flute music and immersive sound effects. Norbury's story introduces listeners of all ages to the fundamental principles of a peaceful life rooted in Zen Buddhism. Coulson's portrayals of Big Panda and Tiny Dragon offer teachable moments filled with gentle warmth and practical insights as they address complex... Read More