Parisian Lives
Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me: A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Suzanne Toren
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By:
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Deirdre Bair
About this listen
A Pulitzer Prize Finalist
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
National Book Award-winning biographer Deirdre Bair explores her 15 remarkable years in Paris with Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir, painting intimate new portraits of two literary giants and revealing secrets of the biographical art.
In 1971, Deirdre Bair was a journalist and a recently minted PhD who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. He agreed that she could be his biographer despite her never having written a biography before. The next seven years of probing conversations, intercontinental research, singular encounters with Beckett's friends, and peculiar cat-and-mouse games resulted in Samuel Beckett: A Biography, which went on to win the National Book Award and propel Bair to her next subject: Simone de Beauvoir.
Where Beckett had been retiring and elusive, Beauvoir was domineering and all encompassing. Plus, there was a catch: Beauvoir and Beckett despised each other - and lived in the same neighborhood. Bair, who resorted to dodging one subject or the other by hiding out in the great cafés of Paris, learned that what works in terms of process for one biography rarely applies to the next. Her seven-year relationship with the forceful and difficult Beauvoir required a radical change in approach and yielded another groundbreaking literary profile while also awakening Bair to an era of burgeoning feminist consciousness.
Drawing on Bair's extensive notes from the period, including never-before-told anecdotes and details considered impossible to publish at the time, Parisian Lives gives us an entirely new perspective on the all-too-human side of these legendary thinkers. It is also a warmly personal reflection on the writing life - its compromises, its joys, and its rewards.
©2019 Deirdre Bair (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Sparkling... Bair spent seven years on Beckett and ten on Beauvoir, and her dedication to her subjects is apparent. Into her accounts of working with these eminent, often exasperating writers she weaves recollections of malfunctioning tape recorders, grandstanding sources, and her travails as a professional and a mother commuting across the Atlantic, working in a field dominated by men." (The New Yorker)
"Gripping... In Parisian Lives, which reads much like a ‘making of...’ documentary, Bair gives us her off-camera take on her first two biographies. And, to our delight, we become voyeurs. Can this inexperienced young American tame these two monstres sacrés? Will she be hoodwinked by two larger-than-life writers who want to influence, manipulate, control, even censor her - even as, all the while, they appear to cooperate?... A story well told." (Alan Riding, The New York Times Book Review)
"This juicy book, which [Bair] dubs a ‘bio-memoir,’ is at once a record of triumph over the skepticism and sexism she encountered on her path from journalist to academic and biographer and a valuable lesson in the art of biography.... Parisian Lives is an unqualified success." (Heller McAlpin, The Wall Street Journal)
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David Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his generation, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace’s tormented, anguished, and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.
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Max avoids hagiography or a sycophant's biography
- By Darwin8u on 06-11-13
By: D. T. Max
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And So It Goes
- Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
- By: Charles J. Shields
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut’s life, from his childhood to his death in 2007, and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
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Reading My Father
- A Memoir
- By: Alexandra Styron
- Narrated by: Alexandra Styron
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexandra Styron's parents—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sophie’s Choice and his political activist wife, Rose—were, for half a century, leading players on the world’s cultural stage. Alexandra was raised under both the halo of her father’s brilliance and the long shadow of his troubled mind. Reading My Father portrays the epic sweep of an American artist’s life. It is also a tale of filial love, beautifully written with humor, compassion, and grace.
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William Styron Ranks...
- By Douglas on 12-22-13
By: Alexandra Styron
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My Life with Bob
- Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
- By: Pamela Paul
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Pamela Paul
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for 28 years - carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk - reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob. Bob is Paul's Book of Books, a journal that records every book she's ever read.
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An uncanny mirror and a celebration of book love
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 07-28-19
By: Pamela Paul
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Parfit
- A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.
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Loved it
- By Anna Karenina on 07-05-23
By: David Edmonds
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Fall
- The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron
- By: John Preston
- Narrated by: Simon Bubb
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In February 1991, Robert Maxwell triumphantly sailed into Manhattan harbor on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, to buy the ailing New York Daily News. Taxi drivers stopped their cabs to shake his hand, children asked for his autograph, and patrons of the hottest restaurant in Manhattan gave him a standing ovation while he dined. Ten months later, Maxwell disappeared off that same yacht in the middle of the night and was later found dead in the water. As John Preston reveals in this revealing biography, Maxwell’s death was as mysterious as his remarkable life.
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Don't make men like this anymore
- By Sylvia on 04-06-21
By: John Preston
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My Grandfather's Son
- A Memoir
- By: Clarence Thomas
- Narrated by: Clarence Thomas
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Provocative, inspiring, and unflinchingly honest, My Grandfather's Son is the story of one of America's most remarkable and controversial leaders, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, told in his own words.
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Wonderful read
- By Amazon Customer on 10-17-21
By: Clarence Thomas
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The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City, when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and cowrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction.
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Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
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Nino and Me
- My Unusual Friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia
- By: Bryan A. Garner
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Author Bryan Garner's friendship with Justice Scalia was instigated by celebrated writer David Foster Wallace and strengthened over their shared love of language. Despite their differing viewpoints on everything from gun control to the use of contractions, their literary and personal relationship flourished. Justice Scalia even officiated at Garner's wedding. In this humorous, touching, and surprisingly action-packed memoir, Garner gives a firsthand insight into the mind, habits, and faith of one of the most famous and misunderstood judges in the world.
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Captivating
- By Jean on 02-20-19
By: Bryan A. Garner
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Salinger
- By: David Shields, Shane Salerno
- Narrated by: Peter Friedman, January LaVoy, Robert Petkoff, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Shields and Salerno illuminate most brightly the last 56 years of Salinger’s life: a period that, until now, had remained completely dark to biographers. Provided unprecedented access to diaries, letters, legal records, and secret documents, listeners will feel they have, for the first time, gotten beyond Salinger’s meticulously built-up wall. The result is the definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century.
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Ingenious novel or biography? Hard to tell....
- By Melinda on 09-05-13
By: David Shields, and others
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A Wild and Precious Life
- A Memoir
- By: Edie Windsor, Joshua Lyon
- Narrated by: Donna Postel, Joshua Lyon
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In this memoir, which she began before passing away in 2017 and completed by her co-writer, Edie recounts her childhood in Philadelphia, her realization that she was a lesbian, and her active social life in Greenwich Village's electrifying underground gay scene during the 1950s. Edie was also one of a select group of trailblazing women in computing, working her way up the ladder at IBM and achieving their highest technical ranking while developing software.
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🏳️🌈 Wow! 🏳️🌈
- By Natalia Zimnoch on 10-15-19
By: Edie Windsor, 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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The Good Girls Revolt
- How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace
- By: Lynn Povich
- Narrated by: Susan Larkin
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the 1960s - a time of economic boom and social strife. Young women poured into the workplace, but the “Help Wanted” ads were segregated by gender and the “Mad Men” office culture was rife with sexual stereotyping and discrimination. Lynn Povich was one of the lucky ones, landing a job at Newsweek, renowned for its cutting-edge coverage of civil rights and the “Swinging Sixties.” Nora Ephron, Jane Bryant Quinn, Ellen Goodman, and Susan Brownmiller all started there as well. It was a top-notch job - for a girl - at an exciting place. But it was a dead end.
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Good book read by Ms Robot.
- By careuther on 09-17-16
By: Lynn Povich
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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
What listeners say about Parisian Lives
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- a reader
- 04-18-20
A beautiful & thrilling book!
I found this book charming, insightful, surprising, & wise! What a life! Filled with such fascinating encounters!
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- Jay Quintana
- 02-16-24
An American's Memoir Featuring Two Parisians
Is the more fitting title. This is much more about Bair's life, writing career, and adventures in academia than it is about Beckett and de Beavouir. I doubt we learn more about them then we would by reading their Wikipedia pages. It's written well enough and it breezes along, but read this only if you want to learn more about Bair than the other two.
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- Pennypie
- 03-21-20
A puzzle
I’ve enjoyed other books by the author, and other narrations by the voice actor, but somehow the combination of them here makes this text insufferable - self-pitying, arrogant, self-important, and difficult to enjoy . As noted, a puzzle with some fascinating content.
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2 people found this helpful
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- AS st
- 03-03-22
exquisite
This was a moving story of wills, egos, talents and circumstances which, as the story unfolded, beckoned the reader to follow. Initially, I had no idea the sort of book this is. A “bio-memoir,” I later find out, is a very curious term indeed. Had I known the book’s self-proclaimed identity at the start, I’m not sure I’d even understand what that meant.
Yet, it is exactly that, a memoir of biography, and as a new experience for me, I jumped in wholly after wading in at my knees being first uncertain of the book’s point.
Anyone who does not finish this book will never know how truly moving it is.
The narration is the best I’ve heard.
The entire experience, text and narration are absolutely exquisite in every way.
Even the more formal prose style, which for me required some warming up to, suited the story to a “T.”
The author’s critics, as she describes them, may find her scholarly credentials lacking. But she sounded every bit the fully capable scholar and academic to me: intelligent & insightful, well-read & knowledgeable and able to maintain a keen eye on posterity.
Aware of Ms. Bair’s awards and high praise, her success is no secret.
Well done “Deaaayrdh!”
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kevin O'Brien
- 06-03-24
excellent reader for engaging book
It was a great relief to find that the reader has an excellent command of French pronunciation—something essential for a book which continually references French names and places.
The most interesting aspect of the book is, naturally, Bair’s encounters with the two writers, Beckett and de Beauvoir. I learned a lot about the personalities of each. The other subject of the book is Bair’s own journey and development as a biographer, scholar, mother, wife…and particularly, her struggles to be heard and have agency as a professional in often hostile and sexist worlds and times. A fascinating book beautifully read.
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- Jordan
- 11-22-19
Portrait of the artist as a portraitist
A fascinating look at a life as the author looks at the lives of others she has portrayed. A must for anyone interested in modernism, feminism or french culture.
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4 people found this helpful
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- J. L. Andrist
- 10-01-22
Don't Normally make it my business to review
But this book was exceptionally disappointing. Not only does Bair lack any true depth of self reflection, she often is so entitled she somehow becomes convinced that the listener (reader) is going to be fascinated with petty academic squabbles. There is so little of the portraiture of either SBs, what most of us came for, that I would literally qualify the title as a lie.
She casually brings up her subjects for the biographies but only of their existence as props in her harried frenetic life where people are always trying to keep her down. This was nominated for a Pulitzer - my trust in accolades for anyone coming out of academia continues to drop exponentially.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Talb
- 06-26-20
Disappointing
This book is more about the author’s writing process than about the two subjects. Do not bother. The narrator is abrupt.
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4 people found this helpful