There is no interoperability; vendors only support voice control of audiobooks from their own stores on their own devices or apps.
Amazon smart speakers
The Amazon voice assistant Alexa can control audiobooks on Amazon smart speakers (e.g. Amazon Echo), but for Amazon Audible only (Amazon owns Audible).
See Audible (an Amazon Company) - Voice Commands for Listening on Alexa Devices.
Google smart speakers
Google is discontinuing support for audiobooks on its smart speakers.
Google is removing the audiobook feature in 2024:
- Playing and controlling audiobooks on Google Play Books with your voice [will no longer be supported]. You can still cast audiobooks from your mobile device.
Apple HomePod smart speakers
Information below for iOS 17 / iPadOS 17 / HomePod 17 (and later versions).
You will need to enable Voice Recognition
Apple - Set up voice recognition on HomePod or HomePod mini
and Personal Requests.
Apple HomePod User Guide - Set up voice recognition and Personal Requests
It will only work for requests using your voice, for content from your device. It's not playing it centrally from an Apple server, it's airplaying it from your device (which means if you try to play other audio from your device strange things will probably happen). It uses the Books app on your device, so you will have to have Books installed.
The syntax is just to say "play audiobook [audiobook title] on Books".
e.g.
"Hey Siri, play audiobook The Thursday Murder Club on Books"
and, all things being equal, it should start playing on your HomePod.
Appendix: Amazon Audible app
Just as a side note, you can also voice control the Audible app on an iOS device, but only if the app is open and in the foreground. This is on the device only, it won't work through a smart speaker as far as I know.
Amazon Audible newsroom: Hands-Free Listening Comes to the Audible App. Just Ask Alexa.
“Alexa, read The Sandman.”
This is just one of many voice commands that the Audible app can understand
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