
The Crying Book
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
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.24
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Elizabeth Cottle
-
By:
-
Heather Christle
About this listen
Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it.
Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen tear-shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear-collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence.
Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness.
©2019 Heather Christle (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
-
Body Work
- The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
- By: Melissa Febos
- Narrated by: Melissa Febos
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and master class, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the questions which run through it.
-
-
A must!!!
- By Karen S on 02-13-23
By: Melissa Febos
-
Little Weirds
- By: Jenny Slate
- Narrated by: Jenny Slate
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may "know" Jenny Slate from her Netflix special, Stage Fright, as the creator of Marcel the Shell, or as the star of Obvious Child. But you don't really know Jenny Slate until you get bonked on the head by her absolutely singular writing style. To see the world through Jenny's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility.
-
-
softness is earned and it is wonderful
- By Van on 12-09-19
By: Jenny Slate
-
Wintering
- The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
- By: Katherine May
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a breakup, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered. Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times.
-
-
I look forward to my next time of Wintering!
- By bgilmore on 01-12-21
By: Katherine May
-
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?
- By: Julie Smith
- Narrated by: Julie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Filled with secrets from a therapist's toolkit, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before teaches you how to fortify and maintain your mental health, even in the most trying of times. Dr Julie Smith’s expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself.
-
-
Monotonous
- By John Olson on 02-28-22
By: Julie Smith
-
Women Who Run with the Wolves
- Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
- By: Clarissa Pinkola Estés
- Narrated by: Clarissa Pinkola Estes
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing from her work as a psychoanalyst and cantadora (keeper of old stories), Dr. Estes uses myths and folktales to illustrate how societies systematically strip away the feminine spirit. Through an exploration into the nature of the wild woman archetype, Dr. Estes helps listeners rediscover and free their own wild nature.
-
-
Book is superb; Audible edition is a ripoff.
- By B on 06-03-15
-
Time Is a Mother
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of personal and social loss, embodying the paradox of sitting in grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with the meaning of family and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, these poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break.
-
-
solomn
- By Camille on 09-05-24
By: Ocean Vuong
-
Body Work
- The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
- By: Melissa Febos
- Narrated by: Melissa Febos
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and master class, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the questions which run through it.
-
-
A must!!!
- By Karen S on 02-13-23
By: Melissa Febos
-
Little Weirds
- By: Jenny Slate
- Narrated by: Jenny Slate
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may "know" Jenny Slate from her Netflix special, Stage Fright, as the creator of Marcel the Shell, or as the star of Obvious Child. But you don't really know Jenny Slate until you get bonked on the head by her absolutely singular writing style. To see the world through Jenny's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility.
-
-
softness is earned and it is wonderful
- By Van on 12-09-19
By: Jenny Slate
-
Wintering
- The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
- By: Katherine May
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a breakup, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered. Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times.
-
-
I look forward to my next time of Wintering!
- By bgilmore on 01-12-21
By: Katherine May
-
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?
- By: Julie Smith
- Narrated by: Julie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Filled with secrets from a therapist's toolkit, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before teaches you how to fortify and maintain your mental health, even in the most trying of times. Dr Julie Smith’s expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself.
-
-
Monotonous
- By John Olson on 02-28-22
By: Julie Smith
-
Women Who Run with the Wolves
- Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
- By: Clarissa Pinkola Estés
- Narrated by: Clarissa Pinkola Estes
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing from her work as a psychoanalyst and cantadora (keeper of old stories), Dr. Estes uses myths and folktales to illustrate how societies systematically strip away the feminine spirit. Through an exploration into the nature of the wild woman archetype, Dr. Estes helps listeners rediscover and free their own wild nature.
-
-
Book is superb; Audible edition is a ripoff.
- By B on 06-03-15
-
Time Is a Mother
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of personal and social loss, embodying the paradox of sitting in grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with the meaning of family and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, these poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break.
-
-
solomn
- By Camille on 09-05-24
By: Ocean Vuong
-
The Will to Change
- Men, Masculinity, and Love
- By: bell hooks, Ross Gay
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone needs to love and be loved - even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are - whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
-
-
A unique call to an ethic of creative love
- By Forrest Aldridge on 09-26-20
By: bell hooks, and others
-
The Art of Memoir
- By: Mary Karr
- Narrated by: Mary Karr
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process. (Plus all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and friends get told - and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in depth.)
-
-
Brilliant!
- By A. Potter on 01-18-16
By: Mary Karr
-
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim - translator
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being."
-
-
Love, Politics, and Strange Bedfellows
- By Mel on 07-01-12
By: Milan Kundera, and others
-
The Long Goodbye
- A Memoir
- By: Meghan O'Rourke
- Narrated by: Meghan O'Rourke
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to mourn today, in a culture that has largely set aside rituals that acknowledge grief? After her mother died of cancer at the age of 55, Meghan O'Rourke found that nothing had prepared her for the intensity of her sorrow. In the first anguished days, she began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief - an endeavor that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond.
-
-
Really great. Loved it.
- By Pamela Harvey on 04-18-11
By: Meghan O'Rourke
-
Broken Open
- How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
- By: Elizabeth Lesser
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the more than 25 years since she co-founded Omega Institute - now the world's largest center for spiritual retreat and personal growth - Elizabeth Lesser has been an intimate witness to the ways in which people weather change and transition. In a beautifully crafted blend of moving stories, humorous insights, practical guidance, and personal memoir, she offers tools to help us make the choice we all face in times of challenge: Will we be broken down and defeated, or broken open and transformed?
-
-
Fabulous Stories...Truly Deep and Moving
- By Mary on 01-13-09
By: Elizabeth Lesser
-
Memorial Drive
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Natasha Trethewey
- Narrated by: Natasha Trethewey
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At age 19, Natasha Trethewey had her world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma and now explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became. With penetrating insight and a searing voice that moves from the wrenching to the elegiac, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey explores this profound experience of pain, loss, and grief.
-
-
poetic
- By Amazon Customer on 08-03-20
-
Take Back the Magic
- Conversations with the Unseen World
- By: Perdita Finn
- Narrated by: Perdita Finn
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you could live in a world where the guidance of those who were gone was available, right at your very fingertips? It's possible, if we are open to it. Anyone can reclaim the forgotten guidance of the dead, and anyone can return to the realm of magic and miracles. In Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, author, spiritual teacher, and co-founder of The Way of the Rose Perdita Finn reveals that life is beginningless, love is endless, and those who have passed don’t truly go anywhere when they die.
-
-
Join the therapy session
- By Ingrid Kellas on 10-16-23
By: Perdita Finn
-
Barefoot Pilgrimage
- By: Andrea Corr
- Narrated by: Andrea Corr
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In part, an exercise in coming to terms with and making sense of life and mortality following the loss of a beloved father; in part, a reflection on an unlikely journey with her siblings through the music industry; in part, a meditation on family, on music and on creativity; and, in part, a shout-out for love and for hope. This is a very personal - at times very funny, at times deeply moving - book from an iconic figure in popular music.
-
-
One of the greatest books of all time
- By Pressie on 11-25-23
By: Andrea Corr
-
In the Dream House
- A Memoir
- By: Carmen Maria Machado
- Narrated by: Carmen Maria Machado
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it's that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope - the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman....
-
-
Devastatingly Beautiful
- By SeattleBookLover on 02-04-20
-
Half Empty
- Essays
- By: David Rakoff
- Narrated by: David Rakoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times best-selling author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you’ll never be disappointed. In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) audiobook, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny, gosh everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won’t come true.
-
-
A Good Friend I Never Met
- By Rodney on 08-14-12
By: David Rakoff
-
The Argonauts
- By: Maggie Nelson
- Narrated by: Maggie Nelson
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelson's account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family making.
-
-
A relaxing meditation on identity, gender and art
- By redhidari on 10-01-15
By: Maggie Nelson
-
A Circle of Quiet
- The Crosswicks Journals, Book 1
- By: Madeleine L'Engle
- Narrated by: Pamela Almand
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the lush backdrop of Crosswicks, her family's farmhouse in rural Connecticut, this deeply personal memoir details Madeleine L'Engle's journey to find balance between her career as a Newbery Medal-winning author and her responsibilities as a wife, mother, teacher, and Christian.
-
-
I Love Madeleine L'Engle!!!
- By Neyhart on 02-08-18
What listeners say about The Crying Book
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- laurnashleigh
- 01-11-22
great book!
I love this book! it jumped around a little and was a tiny bit hard to follow. all around great story and look I to this woman's relationship with crying, grief and tears. A great first book into my research behind crying.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- The Guts Family
- 01-17-23
Poignant and Captivating
The Crying Book is a captivating book that says a lot in a brief and poignant way. Christle explores grief, despair, and trauma while simultaneously examining crying from several perspectives (e.g., biological, cultural, social, relational, and psychological) through the use of research, literature, poetry, and academic works. Christle eloquently oscillates in and out of these psychic spaces revealing the edges of these experiences, along with her humanity. The narrator, Elizabeth Cottle, thoughtfully reads Christle’s work, pausing when necessary and keeping a decent rhythm and tone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!