“When I started in audio almost 29 years ago, people would say, ‘Oh, audiobooks are for the blind.’ And I’d say, ‘Well, no, you can listen to them too. It’s literature,’” says Dan Zitt, senior vice president of content production at Penguin Random House Audio. People have since caught on, and the demand for audiobooks continues to grow year-over-year. Records from OverDrive’s global network showed digital audiobook lending in libraries and schools was up 19 percent in 2024 over 2023.

Publishers are responding to consumers’ ever-increasing audiobooks appetite by looking beyond the latest front lists titles to expand catalogs and production in creative ways. For example, the audiobooks highlighted in this feature include spin-offs from popular podcasts. And Dreamscape Media acquires new, under-the-radar titles by offering support services to self-published authors and small indie presses without audio programs.

PRH Audio has begun recording new editions of back-list favorites. “We’re seeing a lot more listeners come to the audio format, and there are a lot of books that we’ve recorded in the past that we want to acquaint new listeners with,” Zitt says. PRH is also creating original works for the audiobook platform.

Similarly, UK-based Naxos Audiobooks mines copyright-expired public domain texts for classics, which make up 80 percent of its catalog. Naxos also looks outside of fiction, producing everything from philosophy to history to biography to poetry. “Poetry actually really lends itself to the audio format, being read out loud,” says Anthony Anderson, managing director at Naxos.

Read on for more on these publishers’ spring audio highlights.

Dreamscape Publishing

An imprint of RBMedia since August 2024, Dreamscape Publishing was founded in 2010. A leader in the audio market, Dreamscape publishes nearly 1,000 new audio titles a year across all genres and maintains a catalog of over 7,000 audiobooks. The Spring 2025 lists represents Dreamscape’s broad range.

USA Today best-selling author Catherine Cowles’s traditional publishing debut is All the Missing Pieces, narrated by Andi Arndt and Sebastian York, January 2025, ISBN 9781666685732. This romantic suspense is a rare stand-alone novel from the author of five previous, self-published series. A true-crime podcaster whose twin sister disappeared has been channeling her grief into her work and traveling the country covering cold cases, trying to help others in similar situations find justice. Things get more complicated when a sheriff falls for her.

From James Patterson coauthor Andrew Bourelle, Shot Clock, narrated by Emma Love, February 2025, ISBN 9781666688818, is a Dreamscape First title, available exclusively from Dreamscape for three months before publishing in any other format. In this race-against-the-clock thriller, a young professional basketball player is blackmailed into losing the NBA finals to save his brother’s life. “It’s for fans of Harlan Coben and Lee Child,” says Megan Smith, digital engagement marketing manager. “There’s a female narrator, because one of the main characters is a police officer whose dream was to be a WNBA star before she was injured in college.”

Delay, Deny, Defend, a 2010 book by legal scholar Jay M. Feinman, has been in the news in recent months when the title’s words were discovered written on the ammunition that Luigi Mangione used to shoot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. This first audio recording of the insurance injustice exposé is narrated by Pat Grimes, February 2025, ISBN 9781666691474. Citing dozens of stories of claims that were unfairly denied by insurance companies, the book also details how to shop for insurance policies, how to file claims, and how consumers and lawmakers can fight back against insurance injustice. “I don’t think anybody in America can deny the importance of this book,” Smith says. “That phrase and this book sparked wide-ranging reactions not just here but globally and have helped fuel conversations about the American healthcare system and our grievances with the industry.”

A Long Time Gone by Joshua Moehling, narrated by Linda Jones, February 2025, ISBN 9781666691450, is book three in the Ben Packard series, but it can also be read as a stand-alone. When new information about Deputy Packard’s missing brother surfaces, he starts to dig further into the disappearance and stumbles on a separate but connected suspicious death. “This one’s a perfect mix of thriller and police procedural, and also has that family drama element,” Smith says. “It’s a bit more complex slow-burn mystery, compared with his previous novels. It will keep listeners guessing and be very rewarding as the revelations and the twists unfold.”

A sweeping family saga set between Nigeria and New Orleans, The Edge of Waterby Olufunke Grace Bankole, narrated by Nicole Cash, February 2025, ISBN 9781666688672, follows three generations of women trying to maintain the familial bond across cultures and continents. “Fans of Homegoing would like this one. It will appeal to book clubs and literary readers who enjoy multigenerational narratives,” Smith says. “And Nicole Cash is really good with accents and voices, and making each character feel distinct.”

Penguin Random House Audio

With a catalog of over 20,000 titles, there’s no arguing that Penguin Random House Audio is an industry leader. A team of 21 full-time producers working in 14 recording studios in New York and Los Angeles produce nearly 2,000 audiobook titles every year across all genres, which publish simultaneously with hardcover editions. Titles include front-lists, acquisitions, audio originals, and rereleases of backlist titles.

PRH Audio is also leading the way in the diversification of narrators. The company’s five-year-old mentorship program was created to bring underrepresented actors into the field. The program’s success is such that three of its narrators have been nominated for audio awards this year. A second initiative, AhabTalent.com, is a casting platform developed to cast a wider (worldwide) net for talent, to better serve PRH authors with authentic voices. “We’re changing our industry from the inside, so we’re really excited about that,” says Dan Zitt, senior vice president of content production.

For the 10th anniversary of Hanya Yanagihara’s 2015 best-selling A Little Life, PRH Audio recorded a new edition narrated by actor Matt Bomer, February 2025, ISBN 9780593910672. Four adrift former college classmates move to New York City in search of their place in the world with only their friendship and ambition to fall back on. The group revolves around the enigmatic Jude, who proves to be the most troubled by midlife. “Hanya is such an elegant writer,” says Zitt. “But Matt’s performance really does make it a beautiful listening experience. It’s the perfect marriage of a great storyteller and a beautiful story.”

Avid fans of the Emily Henry/Julia Whalen pairing can look forward to Great Big Beautiful Life, April 2025, ISBN 9798217063987. A reclusive octogenarian heiress gives two writers—one with a Pulitzer and one looking for her big break—one month to compete for the opportunity to write her biography. Complicating things, the tension between the writers develops into something beyond professional competition. “It’s a dazzling, sweeping novel,” Zitt says. “We’ve published seven of Emily’s books at this point in audio, and they’re beloved.”

Crime Junkie podcast host Ashley Flowers delves into crime fiction again with coauthor Alex Kiester for The Missing Half, May 2025, ISBN 9798217065394. Two women in small-town Indiana, whose sisters disappeared in the same way, team up to solve their cold cases. “If you listen to Ashley’s podcast, you know everything is thoroughly researched, and for her fiction she molds forensic mysteries into these narratives that feel like true crime,” Zitt says.

We Can Do Hard Things by Glennon Doyle, Amy Wambach, and Amanda Doyle, May 2025, ISBN 9798217077632, is another title born of a popular podcast. Here, in original writing, the hosts tackle life’s top 20 FAQs, addressing questions like Why am I like this? How do I know what to do? Why can’t I be happy? Why am I so angry? How do I let go? “They really have profound thoughts about these age-old questions,” Zitt says. “Listening to this book can comfort you, clear your head, untangle some things inside of you, and help you draw courage from their wisdom and solidarity.”

Ron Chernow, the Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Ulysses S. Grant, takes on the father of American literature in Mark Twain,narrated by Jason Culp,May 2025, ISBN 9780593951842. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born in 1835, was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi and a newspaper reporter before he began writing fiction under his pen name. “It’s a timely subject matter,” Zitt says. “Twain witnessed and wrote about many sociopolitical issues that we’re still grappling with today: racism, class inequality, access to education, and things like that.”

Naxos Audiobooks

Naxos Audiobooks was founded in 1994 with the mission to record abridged classics, primarily English classics but also European literature in English translation, on cassette and CD. The company’s 2010 transition to digital allowed for the switch to unabridged editions. Naxos’s current catalog of about 1,200 titles includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s classics.

A gothic classic on the spring list, Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin, January 2025, ISBN 9781781985465, was first published in 1820. Irish actor Stephen Hogan, who has won AudioFile’s Earphones Award, narrates. “The theme is quite Faustian in the sense that the main character sells his soul to the devil to live for 150 years,” says Anthony Anderson, managing director. The story moves from the late 17th to early 19th century as Melmoth wanders the world, trying to find someone to take his place and free him from his deal with the devil. “It’s quite an influential book,” Anderson says. “It influenced writers like H.P. Lovecraft and Baudelaire. Honoré de Balzac wrote an unauthorized sequel.”

The sixth installment in Naxos’s survey of the works of the Australian English author Elizabeth von Arnim is Love, read by Lucy Scott, February 2025, ISBN 9781781985533. Written in 1925, the novel explores the affair of a 47-year-old widow, Catherine, and a 25-year-old man, and the scandal and social ostracism they face as a result. Catherine’s own daughter disapproves of the relationship, despite her own marriage to a much older man. “Elizabeth von Arnim herself had an affair with a much younger man after her first marriage,” Anderson says. “So, it’s partly autobiographical and reflects some of the issues she faced in 1920s London society, which didn't really accept that kind of age gap when it was older woman, younger man.”

Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles, narrated by David Timson, January 2025, ISBN 9781781985854, is an English crime classic that may be lesser known stateside. Set in an English village in 1931, a philandering doctor poisons his insufferable wife. “The funny thing about this book is that it tells you in the first paragraph who did it,” Anderson says. “You know who the victim is and why he [the perpetrator] did it, and the whole book is about how he did it and does he get away with it. There are bits of humor in it, and with him [Timson], you always get a twist at the end. The plotting is quite clever.”

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