My Planet
Finding Humor in the Oddest Places
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Narrated by:
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Angela Dawe
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By:
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Mary Roach
About this listen
Follow New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach - but be careful not to trip - as she weaves through personal anecdotes and everyday musings riddled with her uncanny wit and amazingly analytical eye. These essays, which found a well-deserved home within the pages of Reader's Digest as the column "My Planet," detail the inner workings of hypochondriacs, hoarders, and compulsive cheapskates. (Did we mention neurotic interior designers and professional list makers?) For Roach, humor is hidden in the most unlikely places, which means that nothing is off limits. Whether she is dwelling on her age or talking about the pros and cons of a bedroom night light - "A married couple can best be defined as a unit of people whose sleep habits are carefully engineered to keep each other awake" - Roach finds a lesson, a slice of sarcasm, or a dash of something special that makes each day comical and absolutely priceless.
In keeping with our mission - curating the best listens in the land - Reader's Digest editors neatly packaged these timeless (and hilarious) Roach essays together for the first time.
©2013 The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- Unabridged
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This is the first in the popular series featuring California investigator Kinsey Millhone. She's 32, twice divorced, no kids, an ex-cop who likes her work...and who works strictly alone!
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No More for Me
- By Robin on 07-12-08
By: Sue Grafton
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Chasing Slow
- By: Erin Loechner
- Narrated by: Hayley Cresswell
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Chasing Slow models HGTV star Erin Loechner's journey to help you break out of the faster-better-stronger trap and make small changes to refresh your perspective, renew your priorities, and shift your focus to what matters most.
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Book is wonderful - narrator completely ruins it
- By Gail on 05-22-17
By: Erin Loechner
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I Regret Nothing
- A Memoir
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all - sometimes with disastrous results...Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another. After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is - yikes! - middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day.
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The Smug Is Strong With This One
- By T. Filowitz on 05-24-15
By: Jen Lancaster
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Housebroken
- Admissions of an Untidy Life
- By: Laurie Notaro
- Narrated by: Laurie Notaro
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Number-one New York Times best-selling author Laurie Notaro isn't exactly a domestic goddess - unless that means she fully embraces her genetic hoarding predisposition, sneaks peeks at her husband's daily journal, or has made a list of the people she wants on her Apocalypse Survival team (her husband's not on it). Notaro chronicles her chronic misfortune in the domestic arts, including cooking, cleaning, and putting on Spanx while sweaty (which should technically qualify as an Olympic sport).
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Wonderful
- By Carlie on 07-28-16
By: Laurie Notaro
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A Three Dog Life: A Memoir
- By: Abigail Thomas
- Narrated by: Abigail Thomas
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When Abigail Thomas’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institution. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life. How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude.
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Eloquent & Honest
- By Sara on 09-30-15
By: Abigail Thomas
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The Blossom Sisters
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Jeff Crawford
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Gus Hollister owes all his success to his feisty grandmother, Rose, and he knows it. It was Rose and her two sisters, Iris and Violet, who raised Gus, sent him to the best schools, and helped him start his own accounting business. Rose even bought the house Gus lives in with his wife, Elaine. But now, Gus stands to lose everything - his home, his car, and his business. Worse, he’s alienated his beloved grandma, who tried to warn him about Elaine’s greedy, gold-digging ways.
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Fun Read
- By Ally Boyd on 02-07-20
By: Fern Michaels
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No Safe Secret
- By: Fern Michaels
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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From her silver Mercedes to her designer kitchen, Molly's life is gleaming and beautiful - at least on the surface. Married to Tanner, a top cosmetic dentist, she has a wonderful daughter finishing high school and twin stepsons from Tanner's first marriage. No one in her exclusive neighborhood in Goldenhills, Massachusetts, knows what living with the demanding Tanner is really like. They know even less about the life she left behind in Florida almost two decades ago.
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All the stars I can give...
- By Courtney on 05-21-16
By: Fern Michaels
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Sweet Masterpiece
- Samantha Sweet Series, Book 1
- By: Connie Shelton
- Narrated by: Andrea Bates
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Samantha Sweet breaks into houses for a living - all perfectly legal as a caretaker for the USDA. But her real dream is to open her own pastry shop, 'Sweet's Sweets.' Life is a little crazy for Sam right now. At one of her break-in properties, a dying woman insists that she take a small wooden box. Sam doesn't realize that the old woman was known locally as a 'bruja,' a witch, until she begins to feel some strange effects from the box.
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Picky, I know I'm Picky.
- By Judy King on 03-02-16
By: Connie Shelton
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Please Don't Eat the Daisies
- By: Jean Kerr
- Narrated by: Marni Webb
- Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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This collection of essays observes the perils of motherhood, wifehood, selfhood, and other assorted challenges. Since its publication in 1957, it has sold millions of copies and has been adapted into a Broadway play, a film, a TV series, and now an audiobook. Jean Kerr's parodies of the clichéd 1950s prescription for glamorous or maternal feminine behavior still resonate today as we enter the 21st century.
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Poor narration of smart, dry, funny essays
- By Buyseverythingonline on 04-30-16
By: Jean Kerr
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The Opposite of Loneliness
- Essays and Stories
- By: Marina Keegan
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina Keegan's star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash. Even though she was just 22 when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation.
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Probably buy the book too.
- By Soupergirl on 09-14-15
By: Marina Keegan
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The Broken Road
- By: Richard Paul Evans
- Narrated by: Richard Paul Evans
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Celebrity Charles James can't shake the nightmare that wakes him each night. He sees himself walking down a long, broken highway, the sides of which are lit in flames. Where is he going? Why is he walking? What is the wailing he hears around him? By day he wonders why he's so haunted and unhappy when he has all he ever wanted - fame, fans, and fortune and the lavish lifestyle it affords him. Coming from a childhood of poverty and pain, this is what he's dreamed of. But now, at the pinnacle of his career, he's started to wonder if he's wanted the wrong things.
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Unresolved.
- By Ann Owen on 05-14-17
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Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? Have sex? Smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour?
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I worked with cadavers for years, but....
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Great, Simply Great
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Feels like old school Discovery channel
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I wanted a science book about forensics. I got a mostly-memoir instead.
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Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics.
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is there nothing really interesting to talk about in higher-dimensional physics?
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The Poisoner's Handbook
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In The Poisoner's Handbook, Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.
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Fascinating book marred by production errors
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The Disappearing Spoon
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Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
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Great Book, Great Narration, But...
- By Henny Button on 09-18-10
By: Sam Kean
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A Short History of Nearly Everything
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Bill Bryson has been an enormously popular author both for his travel books and for his books on the English language. Now, this beloved comic genius turns his attention to science. Although he doesn't know anything about the subject (at first), he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world's leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant.
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The Only Book I reread imediatley after reading
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What listeners say about My Planet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Holly
- 08-11-15
Short & Witty
The book is a collection of columns originally printed in Reader's Digest. The subjects vary but are mostly a reflection on daily activities, family relationships, and observations of human interaction. Her wording is clever and phrasing often has a twist or three.
Unfortunately, the narrator's performance doesn't meet the same standard sounding too immature for the material and not conveying the obvious humour in the text.
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- M. Van Buijtene
- 08-02-16
Laughed out loud!
I did have to get used to the voice but the material is so sharp and funny!
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- Ann
- 11-30-13
Bad narrator
How did the narrator detract from the book?
Felt the need to emphasize the last word of every SENTENCE. No matter what word it WAS. Couldn't bear it for more than 45 min. Love Mary Roach, but I think I'll get this one in print.
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33 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Victoria Russell
- 03-24-18
My planet
The book had some humorous moments. I did not like the voice and tone of the reader for this book. It was a little on the annoying side for me. Others may not feel that way. I really loved the author's book "Gulp". It was quite funny, material I could use for teaching science.😜
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- AB
- 08-11-15
GLAD I IGNORED THE BAD REVIEW FOR THE NARRATOR.
If you could sum up My Planet in three words, what would they be?
Loved this book Sooooooo much. The narrator was just fine as (IMHO) she captured the scrappy 'stand up comic' type of delivery that helped relate the story. This is one of my favorite books... I love irreverent first and foremost.
What about Angela Dawe’s performance did you like?
She gave it a wise cracking scrappy appeal. I loved it.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes
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- Micky Robinson
- 02-13-20
Mary Roach's world is so funny.
I loved this. was listening in my car and almost had to pull several times because I was laughing so hard
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- Shanna
- 09-19-18
greatly enjoyed this book
I greatly enjoyed this book. Roach is funny and imaginative.abd it's fast going. I was surprised when bbq it was done.
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- HBKreger
- 07-31-15
Read the print version
I love Mary Roach. She is so funny and clever. The stories are great often with laugh out loud bits.
Unfortunately Angela Dawe's narration is, for the most part, just too much. I feel like she is yelling at me. There is a overly emphatic tone to each and every word--with the exception of Chapter 4 where she does a great job mimicking the voice style of an automated call.
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- cmac
- 05-06-15
Amusing and good
Mary Roach continues to impress, while the narrator seemed to be yelling the words at me. Overall really quite good!
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7 people found this helpful
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- Debi
- 07-31-15
Laugh out loud funny!
Short stories that are a bit dated but so funny. Even if you haven't experienced all of them - you'll get it.
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