We all know taking daily walks is a healthy habit. Want to know what's even healthier? Listening to audiobooks while walking! Here are some of the best listens to get your brain flowing as you get your body moving.
Whether you walk for your health, a form of transportation, or to exercise a pet, you can get some extra mental mileage with your steps when you take a great audiobook along.
Audiobooks make perfect walking companions. They have the power to help you learn about any topic that catches your fancy, or to transport you to other, ancient or fantastical worlds. Whether you're on a treadmill, touring the neighborhood, or going to or from work, these are the best audiobooks for walking.
What better topic to learn about while walking than walking itself? Author Jeremy DeSilva explores the pros and cons of bipedalism, how the ability to walk on two legs affected our evolution, and how walking continues to affect human health and development today.
The race for perfection often seems futile and endless. Instead of getting lost in the struggle, let author Brené Brown and narrator Lauren Fortgang explain why perfection is overrated—and how the ability to embrace your imperfections is what makes you special, relatable, and human.
In Red, White & Royal Blue, the son of the US president and the Prince of Wales go from quarreling rivals (whose bickering wreaks havoc on international relations) to ardent lovers. Ramon de Ocampo's narration brings this delightful, award-winning romance to life.
Laura Esquivel's historical romance, about a woman who yearns for love and freedom, has been translated into English. Still, there's nothing quite like hearing a story in its original language! Spanish speakers and those looking to improve their Spanish will enjoy Yareli Arizmendi's reading of this modern classic.
From the best-selling author of My Lovely Wife, this one is for the dog walkers! In Sleeping Dogs Lie, Samantha Downing’s first audio novella, a young dog walker named Shelby brings home an adorable husky only to find his owner on the bathroom floor, dead. As the investigation begins, suspicion falls on the owner, his ex-wife, and Shelby herself, leaving detectives to, ahem, paw through the clues. Dual narration, a tight two-hour run time, and a satisfying reveal make this the perfect pooch-walking thriller.
For much of human history, the field of medicine was not as regulated as one might hope. Quack treatments like cocaine-infused alcohol and cancer-curing
arsenic proliferated. This audiobook is equal parts hilarious and horrifying, and Hillary Huber's narration will have you both cringing and chuckling at our ancestors' medical missteps.
After a series of devastating losses, Cheryl Strayed decides to drop everything and hike the Pacific Crest Trail—1,100 miles from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—alone. Despite her lack of experience, she completes the trek and in the process, learns her self-worth. What better memoir to listen to on your own walk, whether a hike in the woods or a stroll around the block?
If you enjoyed Hidden Figures, Dava Sobel's The Glass Universe is a must-add listen to your walking list. Cassandra Campbell's smooth narration introduces you to the many women—dismissively referred to in their day as human computers
or a harem
—who discovered countless stars and created the modern star classification system.
New York Times Bestseller
This American Book Award winning title about Native American struggle and resistance radically reframes more than 400 years of US history
A New York Times Bestseller and the basis for the HBO docu-series Exterminate All the Brutes, directed by Raoul Peck, this 10th anniversary edition of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States includes both a new foreword by Peck and a new introduction by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.
Unflinchingly honest about the brutality of this nation’s founding and its legacy of settler-colonialism and genocide, the impact of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s 2014 book is profound. This classic is revisited with new material that takes an incisive look at the post-Obama era from the war in Afghanistan to Charlottesville’s white supremacy-fueled rallies, and from the onset of the pandemic to the election of President Biden. Writing from the perspective of the peoples displaced by Europeans and their white descendants, she centers Indigenous voices over the course of four centuries, tracing their perseverance against policies intended to obliterate them.
Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. With a new foreword from Raoul Peck and a new introduction from Dunbar Ortiz, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.
Big Concept Myths
That America's founding was a revolution against colonial powers in pursuit of freedom from tyranny
That Native people were passive, didn’t resist and no longer exist
That the US is a “nation of immigrants” as opposed to having a racist settler colonial history
The audiobook of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic fantasy is narrated by award-winning actor Andy Serkis, famous for portraying Gollum in the film versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. His enthusiastic rendering of Bilbo Baggins's great adventure will make even the most ordinary walk seem suddenly wondrous.
Before watching the Netflix series that it inspired, listen to the audiobook of Shadow and Bone, a fantasy epic about a young woman's quest to save her nation. Then make sure you go on to listen to the rest of the audiobooks in Leigh Bardugo's Grisha series, all performed by Lauren Fortgang.
In her hilarious, best-selling essay collection, Samantha Irby covers topics that many women will find familiar and relatable, from dates gone horribly wrong to the difficulties of managing household finances. The author's dry narration is an effective counterpoint to the essays' wild subject matter.
The Words + Music series features two of the best walking companions: an excellent storytelling experience and the vibrancy of music. In this installment, Sting—frontman of legendary new wave rock band The Police—shares memories from his career, his artistic journey, and exclusive recordings of hits like Roxanne
and Message in a Bottle.
This mesmerizing audiobook will put you into a pleasant trance, thanks to its dreamlike setting and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s impeccable performance. Follow the story’s eponymous narrator as he winds through a labyrinthine mansion and slowly uncovers the mystery of how he came to be there in this unforgettable fantasy novel.
