The Audie Awards are presented to the best works in an important and growing part of the book market–audiobooks. Audiobooks are not the lion’s share of the book market. That battle is being waged between eBooks and print books. But the audiobook market share is increasing with the advent of new technologies for acquiring and listening to recorded books. In fact, in 2013, audiobooks accounted for an estimated $200 million of the book market, and by 2016 they are expected to reach about $750 million of the market.

Granted, these shares pale in comparison to those of the other book media, which stretch into the billions. But the market is still significant, and the ringing endorsement of a win, or even a nomination for, an Audie Award is a major coupe for the book and all those that benefit from its sales.

The Audies are awarded in a variety of categories based upon things such as genre, age group and performance type.

This year’s winner in the Literary Fiction category is THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt, narrated by David Pittu. Below is a description of that audiobook and the finalists in the same category:

THE GOLDFINCH
Donna Tartt
Read by David Pittu
32.4 hrs. • Unabridged

From Audible: The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity. It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

AMY FALLS DOWN: A NOVEL
Jincy Willett
Read by Amy McFadden
10.53 hrs. • Unabridged

From Audible: Amy Gallup is an aging novelist and writing instructor living in Escondido, California, with her dog, Alphonse. Since recent unsettling events, she has made some progress. While she still has writer’s block, she doesn’t suffer from it. She’s still a hermit, but she has allowed some of her class members into her life. She is no longer numb, angry, and sardonic: she is merely numb and bemused, which is as close to happy as she plans to get. Amy is calm. So, when on New Year’s morning she shuffles out to her backyard garden to plant a Norfolk pine, she is wholly unprepared for what happens next. Amy falls down.

THE CURIOSITY: A NOVEL
Stephen Kiernan
Read by Kate Udall, Erik Bergmann, George Guidall
15.6 hrs. • Unabridged

From Audible: Dr. Kate Philo makes a breathtaking discovery in the Arctic: the body of a man buried deep in the ice. Heedless of the potential consequences, Kate’s boss orders that the frozen man be reanimated. As the man begins to regain his memories, the team learns that he was – is – a judge, Jeremiah Rice. Thrown together by fate, Kate and Jeremiah grow closer. But the clock is ticking and Jeremiah’s new life is slipping away. Kate must decide how far she is willing to go to protect the man she has come to love.

THE SON
Philipp Meyer
Read by Will Patton, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Shepherd, Clifton Collins Jr.
17.8 hrs. • Unabridged

From Audible: Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power,The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim. Spring, 1849: Eli McCullough is 13 years old when a marauding band of Comanches takes him captive. Brave and clever, Eli quickly adapts to life among the Comanches, learning their ways and waging war against their enemies, including white men – which complicates his sense of loyalty and understanding of who he is.

THE TESTAMENT OF MARY
Colm Toibin
Read by Meryl Streep
3.1 hrs. • Unabridged

From Audible: Meryl Streep’s performance of Colm Tóibín’s acclaimed portrait of Mary is hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “an ideal audiobook,” presenting the three-time Academy Award-winner in “yet another great role.” Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary presents Mary as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity. In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son’s crucifixion. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel. They are her keepers, providing her with food and shelter and visiting her regularly. She does not agree that her son is the Son of God; nor that his death was “worth it”; nor that the “group of misfits he gathered around him, men who could not look a woman in the eye,” were holy disciples. This woman who we know from centuries of paintings and scripture as the docile, loving, silent, long-suffering, obedient, worshipful mother of Christ becomes a tragic heroine with the relentless eloquence of Electra or Medea or Antigone, in a portrait so vivid and convincing that our image of Mary will be forever transformed.

WHITE DOG FELL FROM THE SKY
Eleanor Morse
Read by Carla Mercer-Meyer
14.23 hrs. • Unabridged

From Audible: Botswana, 1976: Isaac Muthethe thinks he is dead. Smuggled across the border from South Africa in a hearse, he awakens covered in dust, staring at blue sky and the face of White Dog. Far from dead, he is, for the first time, in a country without apartheid. A medical student in South Africa, he was forced to flee after witnessing a friend murdered by white members of the South African Defense Force.