Best Audiobook: Fiction
The winner and shortlist for the Best Audiobook: Fiction category at The British Audio Awards. Supported by Weirdos Book Club
General fiction books, including literary and genre titles not covered in the other categories. The audiobook categories celebrate the process from text to listener, including the work of the narrator and audio production team.
Winner
All My Precious Madness
Mark Bowles
Spiracle
Paul Hilton
Spiracle/Kate Bland, David Griffiths, Sophie Haxworth, Jeremy Mortimer
The success of All My Precious Madness shows how top-quality audiobooks are now within reach of the smallest publishers. Indies Galley Beggar Press and Spiracle teamed up to turn Mark Bowles’ debut novel into a compelling storytelling experience, with narrator Paul Hilton capturing all the emotion, empathy and humour of the book’s monologue style.
“It’s such an impressive performance and he totally inhabits the book,” the judges said. “There’s something alchemical there – it’s the perfect marriage of voice and script.”
Shortlist
Default Step
All My Precious Madness
Mark Bowles
Spiracle
Paul Hilton
Spiracle/Kate Bland, David Griffiths, Sophie Haxworth, Jeremy Mortimer
Shortlisted for the Goldsmith's Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Mark Bowles' debut novel All My Precious Madness, in which protagonist Henry Nash finds himself furiously at odds with the modern world and his troubled past, is narrated by Paul Hilton, a first for the actor. Author Bowles praised the reading, stating it "captures everything I could have imagined and more."
His Dark Materials
Philip Pullman
Penguin Audio
Ruth Wilson
Chris Thompson
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman's outstanding, much-loved fantasy trilogy for all ages, is narrated by a single voice for the first time. Ruth Wilson, who portrayed Mrs Coulter in the BBC TV adaption, rises to the challenge of bringing Pullman's intricate and fantastically detailed world thrillingly to life.
Intermezzo
Sally Rooney
Faber
Éanna Hardwicke
Katy Robitzski
Sally Rooney's bestselling fourth novel focuses on the Dublin lives and loves of two brothers and so a new male narrator was cast, Éanna Hardwicke, who played Rob Hegarty in the BBC TV adaptation of Normal People. This previous experience with Rooney's writing helped him greatly with the sensitive, nuanced reading of the audiobook.
Precipice
Robert Harris
Penguin Audio
Samuel West
N/a
Set over the summer of 1914, Precipice seamlessly blends fact and fiction in the story of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and his affair with 26-year-old aristocrat Venetia Stanley as the country teetered on the brink of the First World War. Samuel West's narration perfectly captures the mood and the accents of the early 20th century.
The Benefactors
Wendy Erskine
Sceptre
Wendy Erskine, various
Niall Doran, Dan Jones, Cathy Ife
Wendy Erskine's dazzling, polyphonic debut, a tale of wealth and class in contemporary Belfast, was read by the author and a multitude of additional narrators, many discovered through an open casting submissions process, making it the largest cast to date for a Hodder audiobook production. The use of real people, rather than solely actors, makes for a rich and authentic listening experience.
The Wood at Midwinter
Susanna Clarke
Bloomsbury Circus
Susanna Clarke
Neil Gardner, Rusty Bradshaw
Susanna Clarke reads her own enchanting short story, inspired by a lost footnote from her fantasy classic Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. A Christmassy treat with a perfect musical score and a bonus track in which the author discusses her influences, literary and otherwise.
