Aaronovitch wins Listening Books Members Choice Award

Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London: Amongst Our Weapons (Orion) has won the Members Choice Award 2022 presented by Listening Books. The award will be presented by Stephen Fry, patron of the charity, in an online presentation on 25th January. 

Aaronovitch’s novel was selected from a shortlist of 20 titles including Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry (Transworld), two books from Natasha Pulley, and Marcus Rashford’s The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence (Macmillan). The shortlist represented the audiobooks with the highest number of listens from Listening Books members.

"This is a particularly good award, it’s an honour," said Aaronovitch. "People look down on listening to books and I don’t see why. I listen to books all the time and I think it is a wonderful way to hear a story. After all, when you write you are hearing it in your head and so having it spoken out loud is practically an extension of what you are doing." 

Narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Amongst Our Weapons is the ninth instalment in the Rivers of London fantasy crime series following detective and apprentice wizard Peter Grant. 

The inaugural prize was won last year by Robert Thorogood for The Marlow Murder Club (HarperCollins).

Listening Book members have an illness, disability, learning difficulty or mental health condition which makes reading print difficult or impossible. The charity helps a community of more than 115,000 adults and children.