BARACK OBAMA'S Dreams From My Father (Canongate, 6 CDs, £18.99/offer £18) and The Audacity of Hope (Audible.co.uk download, £8.99) have to rate as the audiobooks of the year. When the world's most newsworthy political leader uses audiobooks to spread his message, then it's clear that the medium has come of age. Obama is a natural orator who has been putting his thoughts down for decades, and that the first of these memoirs-cum-political testimonies was published in 1995 makes us appreciate the honest consistency of his approach to life.

Equally honest is The Last Fighting Tommy (Hachette, 3 CDs, £14.99/£14.24), Richard van Emden's record of the life of Harry Patch, 110 years old this year. Patch's vivid recall of a life that began in the reign of Queen Victoria is not just about his mercifully brief time as the brigade's most accurate gunner (he was invalided out after four months at Ypres), but about his life as a plumber after the war: the ups of marriage in the Twenties and the downs of the Depression and another world war. We hear Harry's own husky measured voice in the introduction; the rest of his story is narrated by Alan Howard, who nicely recaptures his character.

Jennifer Worth's Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s (Orion, 4 CDs, £14.99/£14.24) tells of the work of the midwives based among the nuns of St Antony's. It is full of amazing characters and hair-raising as well as heart-warming experiences. Worth makes clear how much we've lost the personal touch and consistency of care that was once regarded as an essential part of looking after new mothers.

It has been a great year for poetry. Simon Armitage reading his own retelling of Gawain and The Green Knight (Faber, 2 CDs, £13/£12.35) brought this medieval tale of the importance of honesty and courtesy wittily into the modern world without losing the exaggerated alliteration of the original: “don't be surprised if the plot turns pear-shaped”, “leg-guards lagged his flesh”. For a more traditional, but wonderfully lively version, go for Jasper Britton reading Benedict Flynn's translation (Naxos, 2 CDs, £10.99 or £6.41 as a download from naxosaudiobooks.com ).

The poetry event of the year was, however, The Essential John Milton (Naxos, 8 CDs, £29.99/£28.49). Begin Roy Macmillan's life of Milton on the last CD, and then the two devoted to his poetry and political writings (stirring stuff on divorce, the freedom of the press and parliamentary democracy); that way you really understand this formidably learned and gifted poet before approaching the five CDs devoted to Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

More and more books are being offered in unabridged form. Classics can be cheaper because they are out of copyright. I loved both Arnold Bennett's subtle 1919 study of marital checks and balances Riceyman Steps (Assembled Stories, 11 CDs, £27.49/ £25.12) and Poppy Adams' gothic revelation of a genteelly intellectual but severely disfunctional family The Behaviour of Moths (Whole Story Audio, 9 CDs, £19.99/£18.99). Pricier because still in copyright is the book that was a talisman for a generation, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motor-Cycle Maintenace: An Inquiry into Values (Craftsman Audio, 11 CDs, £39.99/ £37.99). All three of these audiobook publishers' websites (assembledstories.com ; wholestoryaudio.co.uk ; craftsmanaudio.co.uk ) are filled with treasures: do explore them.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom (CSA Word, 6 CDs, £19.99/£18.99) was neatly summed up by E.M. Forster as being as much about the Arab Revolt of 1917-18 as Moby-Dick is about a whale. At 350,000 words it is a long haul for modern listeners; this abridgement keeps the swing and zing of Lawrence's prose and James Wilby narrates with the fierce engagement that the book deserves.

The title that lingers most in my mind this year is Lloyd Jones's startlingly immediate Mister Pip (John Murray, 2 CDs, £14.99/£14.24), shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. Its first-person telling makes it a natural audiobook, and Finty Williams's musical, youthful, determined young voice is exactly right for it. The mysterious “Mr Pip” educates children on a war-torn tropical island by getting their parents to offer learned wisdoms and using Dickens's Great Expectations as a spiritual journey.When soldiers come, bringing death and destruction, he teaches them their own power to survive oppression, to be like Pip and make things change.

We all have different personal tastes, and the best story in the world can be ruined if it is read by a reader who jars on you. The great innovation of 2008 has been the sample listening feature that this column now boasts at timesonline.co.uk/books. It is also available in bookshops, on the websites of audiobook publishers, and at audible.co.uk and amazon.co.uk.

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