Among great works of literature, former President Bill Clinton's autobiography, "My Life," hardly rates a footnote.

Among the great audiobooks of 2005, however, it was voted "audiobook of the year" by the Audio Publishers Association, edging out a 22-CD set of James Joyce's "Ulysses" and a multi-voice recording of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning."

This is the second award Clinton received for "My Life." He bagged a Grammy this year in the only other nationally recognized award for spoken-word entertainment.

This also is the second time in the 10-year history of the Audie awards that the association's 100-plus judges selected a "best of the best," regardless of topic, category, age group or narrator. A more unlikely, diverse group of finalists for a literary award is hard to imagine. Such is the capricious world of audiobooks, though, where often the written word is less significant than the spoken.

Not to diminish Clinton's ability as an author, but his first-place prize was won, in large part, on his exceptional skills as an orator. Each of the three finalists for audiobook of the year also competed for awards in one of 28 other categories, ranging from best mystery to best package design. None of the three finalists won in the individual categories in which they competed.

The winners were selected from 550 audiobooks released from Nov. 1, 2003, to Oct. 31, 2004. In the "nonfiction, unabridged" category, Clinton's "My Life" lost to Russell Shorto's "The Island at the Center of the World," narrated by L.J. Ganser.

For some reason, Clinton's autobiography was not entered in the more appropriate category of "biography/memoir."

The winner of that category was "Bob Dylan Chronicles: Vol. One," narrated by Sean Penn.

In the "classics" category, "Ulysses" lost to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," narrated by the versatile Jim Dale, who narrated last year's winner of audiobook of the year, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by J.K. Rowling.

Finally, in the category of audiobooks for children ages 8 and older, Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning" lost to Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's "Peter and the Starcatchers," read by the ubiquitous Dale.

His performance on "Starcatchers" also earned Dale the top award for solo narration by a man. Another award of note includes one for inspirational/spiritual recordings won by Pittsburgh's Fred Rogers, who died in 2003.

"The World According to Mister Rogers"-- part biography, part anecdotes, part speech and song excerpts -- was cobbled into an audiobook read by an all-star quartet of narrators including Tyne Daly, John Lithgow and Lily Tomlin.