Memoirs of a Happy Failure
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Narrated by:
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Winsome Brown
About this listen
Alice von Hildebrand is a household name to millions who know her from her countless appearances on EWTN, her many important books, and her voluminous articles and essays.
But little known is the story of her life, notably the 37 years she spent at Hunter College in New York City.
There, despite unceasing opposition that might have defeated even the strongest of souls, she endured with grace and devotion, leaving a mark on a generation of students through her defense of truth through persuasion, wit, and love. By showing her students how truth fulfills the deepest longings of the human heart, she helped to liberate countless students from the oppressive relativism of the day, enabling many of them to find their way to God.
Now, for the first time, discover Alice von Hildebrand’s story told memorably in her own words, including:
- Her thrilling escape from Europe that was nearly halted by a Nazi ship
- Her early days in America and her dedication to education and cultivating wisdom
- Her marriage to the great philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand
- Her victories and defeats at Hunter where she was surrounded by a culture of relativism
- And much more...
Memoirs of a Happy Failure is a fascinating glimpse - drawn from the caverns of memory - into the life of one of contemporary Catholicism’s most compelling minds. At once bold and vulnerable, it is the story of courage, faith, and the power of one person’s witness to transform the world.
©2014 Alice von Hildebrand (P)2022 Saint Benedict PressListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Poet, memoirist, labor organizer, and Episcopal priest, Pauli Murray helped transform the law of the land. Arrested in 1940 for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus, Murray propelled that life-defining event into a Howard law degree and a fight against "Jane Crow" sexism. Now Murray is finally getting long-deserved recognition: The first African American woman to receive a doctorate of law at Yale, her name graces one of the university's new colleges.
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great American shero
- By Coisge F Mccullough on 04-13-24
By: Pauli Murray, and others
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Eleanor Roosevelt
- Volume I, 1884-1933
- By: Blanche Wiesen Cook
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 22 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Eleanor Roosevelt was born into the privileges and prejudices of American aristocracy and into a family ravaged by alcoholism. She overcame debilitating roots: in her public life, fighting against racism and injustice and advancing the rights of women; and in her private life, forming lasting intimate friendships with some of the great men and women of her time.
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One of the Great Americans I knew too little about
- By Ray M on 07-19-20
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Metaphysical Animals
- How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life
- By: Clare Mac Cumhaill, Rachae Wiseman
- Narrated by: Alex Dunmore
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of European philosophy is usually constructed from the work of men. In Metaphysical Animals, a pioneering group biography, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman offer a compelling alternative. In the mid-twentieth century Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch were philosophy students at Oxford when most male undergraduates and many tutors were conscripted away to fight in the Second World War. Together, these young women, all friends, developed a philosophy that could respond to the war’s darkest revelations.
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Book about nothing
- By Gerardo Naranjo Gonzalez on 06-14-22
By: Clare Mac Cumhaill, and others
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A Torch Kept Lit
- Great Lives of the Twentieth Century
- By: William F. Buckley
- Narrated by: Tony Pasqualini
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In a half century on the national stage, William F. Buckley Jr. achieved unique stature as a polemicist and the undisputed godfather of modern American conservatism. He knew everybody, hosted everybody at his East 73rd Street maisonette, skewered everybody who needed skewering, and in general lived life on a scale, and in a swashbuckling manner, that captivated and inspired countless young conservatives across that half century.
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Excellent...inspiring imagery!
- By Lisa Hill on 10-14-16
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Ayn Rand and the World She Made
- By: Anne C. Heller
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Ayn Rand is the author of two phenomenally best-selling ideological novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which have sold over 12 million copies in the United States alone. Through them, she built a right-wing cult following in the late 1950s and became the guiding light of Libertarianism and of White House economic policy in the 1960s and '70s. Her defenses of radical individualism and of selfishness as a "capitalist virtue" have permanently altered the American cultural landscape.
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Great history of both Rand and her era
- By Mark on 08-07-10
By: Anne C. Heller
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The Firebrand and the First Lady
- Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice
- By: Patricia Bell-Scott
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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An important, groundbreaking book - two decades in work - that tells the story of the unlikely but history-changing 28-year bond forged between Pauli Murray (granddaughter of a mulatto slave who, against all odds, as a lesbian Black woman, became a lawyer, civil rights pioneer, Episcopal priest, poet, and activist) and Eleanor Roosevelt (first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1948 and human rights internationalist) that critically shaped Eleanor Roosevelt's, and therefore FDR's, view of race and racism in America.
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 02-20-16
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Notes on a Century
- Reflections of a Middle East Historian
- By: Bernard Lewis, Buntzie Ellis Churchill
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Few historians end up as historical actors in their own right, but Bernard Lewis has both witnessed and participated in some of the key events of the last century. When we think of the Middle East, we see it in terms that he defined and articulated.In this exceptional memoir he shares stories of his wartime service in London and Cairo, decrypting intercepts for MI6, with sometimes unexpected consequences. After the war, he was the first Western scholar ever invited into the Ottoman archives in Istanbul.
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Can't Get Enough of the Book
- By Sanford H. on 12-11-13
By: Bernard Lewis, and others
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A Life Observed
- A Spiritual Biography of C.S. Lewis
- By: Devin Brown
- Narrated by: Jon Gauger
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A Life Observed tells the inspiring story of Lewis' spiritual journey from cynical atheist to joyous Christian. Drawing on Lewis' autobiographical works, books by those who knew him personally, and his apologetic and fictional writing, this spiritual biography brings the beloved author’s story to life while shedding light on his best-known works.
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A beautifully written remembrance
- By Rob on 02-06-18
By: Devin Brown
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Stalin's Daughter
- The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
- By: Rosemary Sullivan
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy—the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.
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Insightful and thoroughly researched
- By Jean on 06-16-15
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Wait, What?
- And Life's Other Essential Questions
- By: James E. Ryan
- Narrated by: James E. Ryan
- Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In his commencement address to the graduating class of 2016, James E. Ryan, dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, offered remarkable advice to the crowd of hopeful men and women eager to make their marks on the world. The key to achieving emotional connections and social progress, he told them, can be found in five essential questions.
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Great For Our Jobs, Our Families, Our Lives!
- By Gillian on 05-18-18
By: James E. Ryan
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Rush
- Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father
- By: Stephen Fried
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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By the time he was 30, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé, and become John Adams’s confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general. And as with the greatest Revolutionary minds, Rush was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment.
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The narration problem can be corrected
- By Sandra L. on 09-27-18
By: Stephen Fried
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Fully Alive
- Discovering What Matters Most
- By: Timothy Shriver
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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At a time when we are all more rudderless than ever, we look for the very best teachers and mentors to guide us. In Fully Alive, an unusual and gripping memoir, Timothy Shriver shows how his teachers have been the world's most forgotten minority: people with intellectual disabilities. In these pages we meet the individuals who helped him come of age and find a deeper and more meaningful way to see the world.
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Eye opening book
- By Robert J. Herman on 06-05-15
By: Timothy Shriver
What listeners say about Memoirs of a Happy Failure
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mary A. Ward
- 09-15-23
Inspiring
I attended Hunter College when the riots were staged by the Communist professors. I had already fulfilled my philosophy requirements, so I did not need to take the professor's courses. Her story about teaching truth upsetting faculty members who undermine her is true and sad. She is an inspiration for those who are seeking the truth about reality.
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- Kate a.
- 11-14-22
Wonderfull All Around
I was looking for an Alice or Dietrich Von Hildebrand book to listen to and chose this one because the narrator was easy to listen to. The book was so engaging, and somehow timeless.. we appear to deal with the same issues and enemies today as she dealt with 50 years ago. I finished it in one day. Great read!
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- Dimattia
- 02-07-23
A true delight.
I loved this book. I would recommend this to all who have an interest in seeking truth in their lives. It is an inspirational story of courage and integrity. Five stars.
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- Jeanette Ghioto
- 05-30-22
Could not stop listening…
This was a most exciting listen! I highly recommend it as proof that evangelization happens when it’s not supposed to in an environment hostile to truth. God wins. He always does.
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- BC
- 06-20-23
Inspirational and Enlightening Life
A peek at a life well lived during very interesting times... thank you Mrs vonHildebrand
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- SH
- 07-07-23
Excellent!
Captivating memoir of a life devoted to truth and education. Worthwhile read, motivating, and uplifting.
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- smariehenry
- 01-05-23
Illuminating
I am going to read more of this author! I had a mini Philosophy Course, an history snapshot, a lift of my spirit all in one book.
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- Scott
- 06-04-23
The objectivity of truth
Great story about an academic slogging it out at a university, taking a stand for teaching philosophy with intellectual honesty and taking seriously the objectivity of truth in the sea of 20th century relativism.
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