Audiobooks are making waves globally, attracting big star names

Michelle Obama collaborated with the Amazon-owned Audible for the audio adaptation of her bestselling memoir 'Becoming'. Photo: AFP

As the audiobook market has been booming these past few years, a growing number of actors are lending their distinctive voices to the audio adaptations of our favourite books.

While Deloitte predicts that the global audiobook market will generate US$3.5bil (RM15bil) in 2020, publishers are increasingly willing to spend five-figure sums to attract big-name narrators such as Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hanks.