13 best audiobooks that provide the perfect lockdown escapism

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For many of us, our favourite childhood memories involve being read to before bed. That special moment of listening to a story unfold, told by a voice which belongs to a person we loved and felt safe with.

There were also audio stories on cassette tapes for long car journeys – worlds opening up for us as alternatives to the traffic jams or endless stretches of motorway.

Being read to is surely one of life’s great pleasures. It is no surprise that audiobooks are big business these days – the only shock is that it’s taken so long for them to have this colossal revival.

During these extraordinary days and weeks, we need simple joys and easy wins – whether we’re alone and missing company or penned into a crowded house and in need of privacy and escapism.

Purists might say that choosing audio over paper is lazy, but we say that listening to information is still absorbing it and can feel like a luxury for multitaskers who perhaps don’t have the time to curl up with a novel.

With so many audiobook titles available – many with A-list actors performing the narration – it’s a tall order to pick a handful as best, but our selection includes brilliant debuts, literary classics, memoirs and award-winning novels.

All of the titles in our round-up offer something completely unique to the listener, but they are all so good that it would be hard for anyone not to derive some enjoyment from each of them.

A big part of a successful audio book is of course the physical voice of the narrator – their energy and their pitch. All of the books chosen in this roundup are beautifully performed.

You can trust our independent reviews. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps us to fund journalism across The Independent.