Those of you who are following my reading adventures on Instagram may already have noticed that lately I’ve really been into audio books. It all started a few months ago when I listened to an old childhood favourite on my summer vacation. Since then I re-discovered my long forgotten love for audio books. Especially during the past few weeks when I’ve often felt stressed and had little time for reading audio books have been a great alternative and provided some much needed relaxation.
I’ve been listening to audio books from my local library and also from Spotify for which I recently created an account (with the goal to listen to my own podcast on there and see how those streaming services work). I was surprised about the great variety of interesting audio books on Spotify! So I compiled a little list of interesting audio books that I discovered on there. I divided into three categories: Contemporary German Books (mostly political nonfiction), Classic Book from the literary canon and books that are beloved on bookstagram.
Disclaimer: I haven’t listened to all the audiobooks but I have read most of them. Others I haven’t read or listened to yet but they are on my TBR or popular around the book blogging community so I chose to include them for all those interested. Audio books that I have read or listened to are marked with a *. I also included the reviews for those that I’ve read in the past two years.
Some of these audio books on Spotify are in English, some in German and some are German translations of other books. To make it clear for you which audio book has which language I will mark the English ones with (EN) and the German ones with (DE). Unfortunately I didn’t find as many English ones as Germans but please let me know if you have any recommendations that I should include.
1. Contemporary German Books
I was astonished to find that many great German audio books on Spotify! I have either read the ones that I’m listing here or they’re on my TBR. It’s probably no surprise for you that most of them are political nonfiction about racism, classism and love in a capitalist and patriarchal society. However, one feminist novel that I read last year also made the list. If you’re more into fiction I can recommend checking it out.
1. Şeyda Kurt – Radikale Zärtlichkeit. Warum Liebe politisch ist (DE)
I’m curently listening to this audio book and am enjoying it a lot.
2. Tupoka Ogette – exit racism. Rassimuskritisch denken lernen (DE)*
You can read my review of the book here.
3. Anna Mayr – Die Elenden (DE)
4. Alice Hasters – Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, aber wissen sollten (DE)*
You can read my review of the book here.
5. Paula Irmschler – Superbusen (DE)*
You can read my review of the novel here.
2. Classic Literature
These is only a small selection of the many classic books that you can find as audio books on Spotify. I chose to include only those that I have read or would like to read in the future. However, there are many more classics to choose from. My favourites from this list probably are “Wuthering Heights” and “Bonjour Tristesse.”
1. Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights (EN)*
2. Frederick Douglass – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (EN)
3. Virginia Woolf – Mrs. Dalloway (EN)*
You can read my review of the novel here.
4. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (EN)*
5. Françoise Sagan – Bonjour Tristesse (DE)*
You can read my review of the novel here.
3. Books that are popular around the Bookstagram Community
These audio books are all titles that I know are beloved by book bloggers. I haven’t read all of them and don’t intend to but I still thought they might be interesting for those who are interested in them. I can particularly recommend “Kim Jiyoung, born 1982” which was one of my favourite reads last year.
1. Roxanne Gay – Hunger. A Memoir of (My) Body (DE)
2. Han Kang – The Vegetarian (DE)*
I just listened to this last week and I still can’t make up my mind about it.
3. Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ – Stay with me (DE)
4. Cho Nam-Joo – Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 (DE)*
You can read my review of it here.
Not Audio Books but also Notable
Last but not least, I wanted to recommend the channels of two audio book narrators to you. First of all, the German actor Rufus Beck who narrated a broad variety of books from fantasy and children’s books like Harry Potter and the Artemis Fowl series to classic books from authors like Jules Verne or Mark Twain. The second narrator whose Spotify account is worth a visit is British actor Stephen Fry whose account includes children’s books like “Paddington Bear” and the Harry Potter series but also the musical project “The Mythos Suite.”
If you want more recommendations for audio books on Spotify I can recommend checking out these two blog posts: Best Audiobooks on Spotify (2021) (EN) and 15 empfehlenswerte Hörbücher auf Spotify (DE). They include some more titles than my post.
Do you have any audio book recommendations for me?
Which audio books on Spotify do I need to include if I ever write a second part of this post?
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