-
Essays
- Narrated by: Wallace Shawn
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.20
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Whether writing about the genesis of his plays, such as Aunt Dan and Lemon; discussing how the privileged world of arts and letters takes for granted the work of the “unobtrusives", the people who serve our food and deliver our mail; or describing his upbringing in the sheltered world of Manhattan’s cultural elite, Shawn reveals a unique ability to step back from the appearance of things to explore their deeper social meanings. He grasps contradictions, even when unpleasant, and challenges us to look, as he does, at our own behavior in a more honest light. He also finds the pathos in the political and personal challenges of everyday life.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Night Thoughts
- By: Wallace Shawn
- Narrated by: Wallace Shawn
- Length: 1 hr and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although he is guided and inspired by the people he respects, and despite the insufficiency of his knowledge and experience - an insufficiency shared by most (or all) other humans, Wallace Shawn can’t see any real alternative to trying to figure out his own answers to the most essential questions about the world he lives in.
-
-
Humans are truly terrible.
- By Pam Jacobs on 08-14-18
By: Wallace Shawn
-
The Magician
- A Novel
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Magician opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the 20th century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice.
-
-
Terrific listening experience
- By M. Mead on 09-17-21
By: Colm Toibin
-
Big Magic
- Creative Living Beyond Fear
- By: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
People of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear.
-
-
Biggest Inspiration In a Long Time
- By Gillian on 09-23-15
-
12 Rules for Life
- An Antidote to Chaos
- By: Jordan B. Peterson, Norman Doidge MD
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.
-
-
Not Your Average 'Self Help' Book
- By The Bookie on 06-04-18
By: Jordan B. Peterson, and others
-
Hitch-22
- A Memoir
- By: Christopher Hitchens
- Narrated by: Christopher Hitchens
- Length: 17 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature.
-
-
Truth, the whole truth and nothing but.
- By Laura on 08-23-10
-
Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
-
-
Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Night Thoughts
- By: Wallace Shawn
- Narrated by: Wallace Shawn
- Length: 1 hr and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although he is guided and inspired by the people he respects, and despite the insufficiency of his knowledge and experience - an insufficiency shared by most (or all) other humans, Wallace Shawn can’t see any real alternative to trying to figure out his own answers to the most essential questions about the world he lives in.
-
-
Humans are truly terrible.
- By Pam Jacobs on 08-14-18
By: Wallace Shawn
-
The Magician
- A Novel
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Magician opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the 20th century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice.
-
-
Terrific listening experience
- By M. Mead on 09-17-21
By: Colm Toibin
-
Big Magic
- Creative Living Beyond Fear
- By: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
People of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear.
-
-
Biggest Inspiration In a Long Time
- By Gillian on 09-23-15
-
12 Rules for Life
- An Antidote to Chaos
- By: Jordan B. Peterson, Norman Doidge MD
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street.
-
-
Not Your Average 'Self Help' Book
- By The Bookie on 06-04-18
By: Jordan B. Peterson, and others
-
Hitch-22
- A Memoir
- By: Christopher Hitchens
- Narrated by: Christopher Hitchens
- Length: 17 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature.
-
-
Truth, the whole truth and nothing but.
- By Laura on 08-23-10
-
Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
-
-
Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
-
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
- A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
- By: Thomas C. Foster
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey? Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface - a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character - and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths.
-
-
Lives Up to Its Claims
- By Evelyn on 05-22-14
By: Thomas C. Foster
-
Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens
- By: Christopher Hitchens
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 28 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first new collection of essays by Christopher Hitchens since 2004, Arguably offers an indispensable key to understanding the passionate and skeptical spirit of one of our most dazzling writers, widely admired for the clarity of his style, a result of his disciplined and candid thinking. Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell.
-
-
Grab it
- By Davol2449 on 09-02-11
-
Dear Reader
- The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il
- By: Michael Malice
- Narrated by: Marcus Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No country is as misunderstood as North Korea, and no modern tyrant has remained more mysterious than the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. Now, celebrity ghostwriter Michael Malice pulls back the curtain to expose the life story of the "Incarnation of Love and Morality". Taken directly from books spirited out of Pyongyang, Dear Reader is a carefully reconstructed first-person account of the man behind the mythology.
-
-
Great book
- By Rodney on 05-24-17
By: Michael Malice
-
Addicted to Outrage
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Glenn Beck
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Addicted to Outrage, New York Times best-selling author Glenn Beck addresses how America has become more and more divided - both politically and socially. Americans are now less accepting, less forgiving, and have lost faith in many of the country's signature ideals. They are quick to point a judgmental finger at the opposing party, are unwilling to doubt their own ideologies, and refuse to have any self-awareness whatsoever. Beck states that this current downward spiral will ultimately lead to the destruction of everything America has fought so hard to preserve.
-
-
Best Audible book ever!
- By Cheryl on 09-21-18
By: Glenn Beck
-
Being Wrong
- Adventures in the Margin of Error
- By: Kathryn Schulz
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To err is human. Yet most of us go through life assuming (and sometimes insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origins of the universe to how to load the dishwasher. If being wrong is so natural, why are we all so bad at imagining that our beliefs could be mistaken, and why do we react to our errors with surprise, denial, defensiveness, and shame?
-
-
A good read
- By Mike Kircher on 10-06-10
By: Kathryn Schulz
-
The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
-
-
Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
-
Feel Free
- Essays
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Nikki Amuka-Bird
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.
-
-
great material, thoroughly brilliant narration
- By Mary E. Magin on 03-09-18
By: Zadie Smith
-
No Time to Spare
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin, and with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler, a collection of thoughts - always adroit, often acerbic - on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation. Ursula K. Le Guin has taken listeners to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she's in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where her voice - sharp, witty, as compassionate as it is critical - shines. No Time to Spare collects the best of Ursula's blog, presenting perfectly crystallized dispatches on what matters.
-
-
What a delight!
- By Linda on 02-13-18
-
Escape into Meaning
- Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and Other Obsessions
- By: Evan Puschak
- Narrated by: Evan Puschak
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Producer, editor, and writer behind the highly addictive, informative, and popular YouTube channel The Nerdwriter, Evan Puschak presents “a brilliant, wide-ranging essay collection that explores meaning and how we make it with the thoughtfulness and open-hearted generosity that have long been hallmarks of Puschak’s writing” (John Green, New York Times bestselling author).
-
-
A Series of Longer Nerdwriter Essays
- By Amazon Customer on 09-18-22
By: Evan Puschak
-
What W. H. Auden Can Do for You
- Alexander McCall Smith
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: William Neenan
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When facing a moral dilemma, Isabel Dalhousie--Edinburgh philosopher, amateur detective, and title character of a series of novels by best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith - often refers to the great twentieth-century poet W. H. Auden. This is no accident: McCall Smith has long been fascinated by Auden. Indeed, the novelist, best known for his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, calls the poet not only the greatest literary discovery of his life but also the best of guides on how to live.
-
-
On the Power of Poetry, Mostly Auden's
- By Rich S. on 12-09-13
-
Changing My Mind
- Occasional Essays
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Split into five sections - Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering - Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both personal and cultural. This engaging collection of essays, some published here for the first time, reveals Smith as a passionate and precise essayist, equally at home in the world of great books and bad movies, family and philosophy, British comedians, and Italian divas. Changing My Mind is journalism at its most expansive, intelligent, and funny - a gift to readers and writers both.
-
-
There may be truths on the side of life
- By Darwin8u on 02-18-20
By: Zadie Smith
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
-
-
Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
-
-
Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
-
The News
- A User's Manual
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The news is everywhere. We can’t stop constantly checking it on our computer screens, but what is this doing to our minds? We are never really taught how to make sense of the torrent of news we face every day, writes Alain de Botton (author of the best-selling The Architecture of Happiness), but this has a huge impact on our sense of what matters and of how we should lead our lives.
-
-
Quit the news
- By Bett Bollhoefer on 05-16-15
By: Alain de Botton
-
The Story Paradox
- How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down
- By: Jonathan Gottschall
- Narrated by: Joshua Kane
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an expert on the science of stories, argues that there is a dark side to storytelling we can no longer ignore. Storytelling, the very tradition that built human civilization, may be the thing that destroys it.
-
-
A bit of a mixed bag with some amazing discussion
- By Justin on 04-27-22
-
Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
-
-
Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
-
The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
-
-
Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
-
-
Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
-
The News
- A User's Manual
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Nicholas Bell
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The news is everywhere. We can’t stop constantly checking it on our computer screens, but what is this doing to our minds? We are never really taught how to make sense of the torrent of news we face every day, writes Alain de Botton (author of the best-selling The Architecture of Happiness), but this has a huge impact on our sense of what matters and of how we should lead our lives.
-
-
Quit the news
- By Bett Bollhoefer on 05-16-15
By: Alain de Botton
-
The Story Paradox
- How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down
- By: Jonathan Gottschall
- Narrated by: Joshua Kane
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an expert on the science of stories, argues that there is a dark side to storytelling we can no longer ignore. Storytelling, the very tradition that built human civilization, may be the thing that destroys it.
-
-
A bit of a mixed bag with some amazing discussion
- By Justin on 04-27-22
-
Notes of a Native Son
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
-
-
Masterful Essayist
- By Andre on 09-30-16
By: James Baldwin
-
Rules for Radical Conservatives
- Beating the Left at Its Own Game to Take Back America
- By: David Kahane
- Narrated by: John Allen Nelson
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The vast right wing conspiracy has found its General Patton, and his name is David Kahane. Kahane's pseudonymous, satiric column for National Review Online, lampooning the Left via his Hollywood-radical persona - Stephen Colbert's liberal doppelganger - is must-listening for political aficionados of all stripes. Now, from the inside, Kahane proudly exposes the secret and not-so-secret winning strategies (and vulnerabilities) of the Left.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Henry W. Baker on 05-30-16
By: David Kahane
-
Big Magic
- Creative Living Beyond Fear
- By: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
People of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear.
-
-
Biggest Inspiration In a Long Time
- By Gillian on 09-23-15
-
Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness
- What It Means to Be Black Now
- By: Touré, Michael Eric Dyson
- Narrated by: Touré
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A provocative look at what it means to be Black today. This audiobook includes excerpts from over 100 interviews with Rev. Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Skip Gates, Melissa Harris-Perry, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Malcolm Gladwell, Paul Mooney, NY Gov. David Paterson, Harold Ford, Jr., Soledad O'Brien, Kamala Harris, Chuck D, Questlove, and others.
-
-
Food for Thought
- By Sara on 12-22-11
By: Touré, and others
-
How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life
- An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness
- By: Russ Roberts
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, Roberts examines Smith’s forgotten masterpiece, and finds a treasure trove of timeless, practical wisdom. Smith’s insights into human nature are just as relevant today as they were 300 years ago. What does it take to be truly happy? Should we pursue fame and fortune or the respect of our friends and family? How can we make the world a better place?
-
-
Hard to distinguish Roberts from Smith in reading
- By Amazing Customer on 03-31-15
By: Russ Roberts
-
Looking for Lorraine
- The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: LisaGay Hamilton
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated to one work—until now.
-
-
Radiant
- By Rose Brookins on 03-20-19
By: Imani Perry
-
Angels and Ages
- A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written 200 years after Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln shared a birthday on February 12, 1809, this insightful account sheds new light on two men who changed the way we think about the meaning of life and death. Award-winning journalist Adam Gopnik's unique perspective, combined with previously unexplored stories and figures, reveals two men planted firmly at the roots of modern views and liberal values.
-
-
Connecting Darwin and Lincoln
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Adam Gopnik
-
Cracking the Code
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
According to Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy.
Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging; they learned these techniques.
-
-
User-friendly course on political communication
- By Danee McFarr on 02-06-09
By: Thom Hartmann
-
Notes on a Foreign Country
- An American Abroad in a Post-American World
- By: Suzy Hansen
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the US-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul.
-
-
A MUST-READ for all Truth-Seeking American wh
- By Parveen Mehdi-Newton on 12-08-17
By: Suzy Hansen
-
The Way of the Heathen
- Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life
- By: Greta Christina
- Narrated by: Greta Christina
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
So you're an atheist. Now what? The way we deal with life - with love and sex, pleasure and death, reality and making stuff up - can change dramatically when we stop believing in gods, souls, and afterlives. When we leave religion - or if we never had it in the first place - where do we go? With her unique blend of compassion and humor, thoughtfulness and snark, Greta Christina most emphatically does not propose a single path to a good atheist life. She offers questions to think about, ideas that may be useful, and encouragement to choose your own way.
-
-
Navigating the world outside of church
- By Scott Bresinger on 01-21-17
By: Greta Christina
-
Uncommon Gratitude
- Alleluia for All That Is
- By: Joan Chittister, Rowan Williams
- Narrated by: Joan Chittister O.S.B., Dan Havron O.F.M.
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This series of reflections reveals the importance of gratitude in helping us see beyond the immediate to a broader and deeper reality. The discovery of this perpetual alleluia will help you discover what you are, become who you are, and grow with gratitude into the unknown.
-
-
Spiritual platform for left-wing ideology
- By John Glemby on 06-29-19
By: Joan Chittister, and others
-
Men Explain Things to Me
- By: Rebecca Solnit
- Narrated by: Luci Christian Bell
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit takes on the conversations between men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't. The ultimate problem, she shows in her comic, scathing essay, is female self-doubt and the silencing of women. Rebecca Solnit is the author of fourteen books about civil society, popular power, uprisings, art, environment, place, pleasure, politics, hope, and memory, most recently The Faraway Nearby, a book on empathy and storytelling.
-
-
Great read - horrible performance
- By Denise Johnson on 03-26-15
By: Rebecca Solnit
-
To Show and to Tell
- The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
- By: Phillip Lopate
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.
-
-
Not a guide on writing personal essays
- By A. Yoshida on 08-07-13
By: Phillip Lopate
What listeners say about Essays
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anne McGrath
- 02-13-18
Marvelous Essays, Terrible Sound Quality
What happened? These essays were great but we had to strain to hear them. Sometimes it was like Shawn dropped the mic. Come on. Production seems the easy part of this equation.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- David
- 12-18-10
A disappointment on two counts.
Like probably a lot of people, I know Wallace Shawn best from his roles in "My Dinner with André" and "Princess Bride". I've never seen one of his plays, and although I suppose I must have read one or more of the essays that originally appeared in "The Nation" I don't remember them. That should have tipped me off that the essays are, in fact, pretty unmemorable. I was hoping for more wit and play of intellect, but Wallace Shawn is basically a semi-intellectual: he knows his way around the neighborhood of ideas but hasn't built many original ones. This is abundantly clear in the interview with a genuine intellectual, Noam Chomsky, that is included here, the best thing in the book I'd say: even if you loathe Chomsky's politics you have to concede his brilliance in marshalling evidence and putting together an argument. Shawn, in contrast, stays at the level of generalities in most of these pieces.
—Second, even if you're a huge fan of Shawn you might be better off with the printed version of the book. Unless you have excellent hearing, this is not an audiobook for the car or anyplace with much background noise: Shawn's dynamic range goes way up and down, and if you set a volume that won't hurt your ears during his forceful passages you're likely to miss half of a sentence when he drops back to near a whisper.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- NAT CU
- 07-07-19
Poor recording quality - echo
I like the essays, and Wallace Shawn is a pretty good reader. However, the quality of the recording made it difficult to listen to.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful