AUDIBLE EDITOR

Rachel Smalter Hall

Rachel is a current Audible editor, past librarian, and lifelong book worm. She suspects that we're all essentially weirdos, and loves listening to personal stories that confirm her suspicions.

COLLECTION

Educated

A Memoir

By: Tara Westover

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins

Release date: 02-20-18

Language: English

5 out of 5 stars 126,194 ratings

How much would you give up for a great education?

This unbelievable memoir made my skin tingle from beginning to end. Tara Westover grew up on a little junkyard in Idaho with her survivalist family. Her father was so suspicious of the government that she didn’t even have a birth certificate, and school and doctors were out of the question. But Tara had always been a little curious about the world, and, against all odds, she got her hands on a test prep book and taught herself enough to pass the ACT and get into college (never mind that she’d never heard of the Holocaust). She’d ultimately earn a PhD from Cambridge. But her education came at a great price, destroying ties with the only family she’d ever known. Bonus: Julia Whelan narrates, what more do you even need to know?!
The Changeling

A Novel

By: Victor LaValle

Narrated by: Victor LaValle

Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins

Release date: 06-13-17

Language: English

4 out of 5 stars 2,136 ratings

It's Weird, and I Mean That in the Best Way

I want to hug strangers in the street and whisper in their ears how amazing The Changeling is, that it’s one of the weirdest, most wonderful damn books I’ve listened to in a long time. At the heart of this modern-day fairy tale is Apollo Kagwa, a scrappy book dealer and devoted dad who wears a Baby Bjorn all over New York City and takes his infant to the playground at 4:30 every morning. After a horrific chain of events, Apollo loses his wife and son, and—wrecked with grief—sets out across the 5 boroughs on an epic quest to rescue and redeem them. The path is strewn with witches, monsters, and trolls (both the fairy tale kind and the internet kind), and Kagwa’s New York is both recognizable and completely fantastical. Victor LaValle is one of those unicorn novelists who happens to be a fabulous narrator of his own work, and as he reads you this story, his voice is like magic and butter. Above all, The Changeling is one black man’s ode to fatherhood and the lengths to which he will go to protect his family.
The Book of Unknown Americans

A Novel

By: Cristina Henríquez

Narrated by: Various

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Release date: 06-03-14

Language: English

4.5 out of 5 stars 1,223 ratings

Sweeping Up the Broken Pieces of My Heart

Please excuse me while I sweep the broken pieces of my heart up off the floor. This was the most amazing audiobook, and I listened to it by total accident. You know when you finish one audiobook but you haven’t queued up the next one yet? (Gasp, the horror.) Well, that just happened to me! I had no choice but to pray for an old forgotten audiobook on my phone.

I asked, and the universe answered.

The Book of Unknown Americans has already gotten heaps of love and praise. But what we still need to talk about is how fantastic it is on audio. Performed by six actors, we meet a striking teenager whose family has left behind their comfortable life in Mexico in hopes of getting treatment for her traumatic brain injury in the US. Some of their new neighbors are great (like the boy from Panama who’s got a little crush), and some are… not great. Ultimately, their new life sets in motion a chain of events that is at turns beautiful, at turns tragic.

I especially loved the cool little vignettes between the main chapters that tell the stories of immigrants from all over the Americas. The narrators breathe so much texture into these stories, and the simple, beautiful language works perfectly on audio.
See You in the Cosmos

By: Jack Cheng

Narrated by: Kivlighan de Montebello, Brittany Pressley, Graham Halstead, Michael Crouch, Jason Culp, Thérèse Plummer, Susan Bennett, Dan Bittner, Pete Larkin, Courtney Shaw

Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins

Release date: 02-28-17

Language: English

4.5 out of 5 stars 392 ratings

Inspired by Voyager II's Golden Record

This middle grade novel just begs to be listened to on audio. Inspired by the true story of Carl Sagan and Voyager II’s Golden Record (which I've been obsessed with for years), 11-year-old Alex creates his own golden iPod to show aliens what life on Earth is like. Each chapter is presented as one of Alex's “recordings,” and the audiobook team ran with this opportunity to create a very original audio production complete with a full cast, sound effects, and the whole shebang.

I especially love that they cast a young boy to read the main part — Kivlighan de Montebello gives a hugely heartwarming and hilarious performance as Alex. From what I understand, it's very rare to cast such a young person as an audiobook narrator just because of the skill and sheer endurance it requires.

This had enough crossover appeal for me to enjoy listening to it on my own as an adult, but it would be fun to listen to with a kiddo, too. Don't miss this one if you want to experience the cutting edge of audiobook production!
If You Could Be Mine

By: Sara Farizan

Narrated by: Negin Farsad

Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins

Release date: 08-20-13

Language: English

4.5 out of 5 stars 129 ratings

Angsty and Unexpectedly Hilarious

If You Could Be Mine is about two young women who’ve been in love since childhood. But they live in Iran, where being a woman who loves another woman is punishable by death. Sex reassignment surgery is perfectly legal, though. Could this be the answer to their predicament? This story has all the ingredients of a great YA book: angst, secret smooching, forbidden love, heartache. But it’s also unexpectedly hilarious! Sara Farizan has the BEST deadpan humor in person, and Negin Farsad brings this out in spades in her narration of the book. Farsad is an Iranian-American comedian, and she just gets Farizan in a way that allows her to wring every last drop of humor from an otherwise heartbreaking story. One of my fave listens of the year!
Assassination Vacation

By: Sarah Vowell

Narrated by: Conan O'Brien, Stephen King, Dave Eggers, Jon Stewart

Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins

Release date: 04-05-05

Language: English

4 out of 5 stars 3,632 ratings

Adorably Nerdy History With Pop-Culture References

For the brainy set, I can't think of a better first audiobook experience than Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. I go weak in the knees for non-fiction, humor, and first-person narrative, making Sarah a triple threat and me the cheapest audiobook date ever. How adorably nerdy is she for planning a road trip vacation to sites of presidential assassinations? Interspersed are smart-alecky anecdotes about the free-love, cultish origins of the Oneida silverware company, and Important Observations about Stephen Sondheim's Assassins musical. And you can always count on Sarah for a well-placed Brady Bunch reference. But no matter how hard she tries, her deadpan voice and glib humor will never mask Sarah Vowell's enduring love of country and civic pride.