
The Shakespeare Requirement
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 $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Julie Schumacher
-
By:
-
Julie Schumacher
About this listen
One of The Washington Post's 50 most notable works of fiction in 2018.
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune keep hitting beleaguered English professor Jason Fitger right between the eyes in this hilarious and eagerly awaited sequel to the cult classic of anhedonic academe, the Thurber Prize-winning Dear Committee Members. Once more into the breach...
Now is the fall of his discontent, as Jason Fitger, newly appointed chair of the English Department of Payne University, takes arms against a sea of troubles, personal and institutional. His ex-wife is sleeping with the dean who must approve whatever modest initiatives he undertakes. The fearsome department secretary Fran clearly runs the show (when not taking in rescue parrots and dogs) and holds plenty of secrets she's not sharing. The lavishly funded Econ Department keeps siphoning off English's meager resources and has taken aim at its remaining office space. And Fitger's attempt to get a mossbacked and antediluvian Shakespeare scholar to retire backfires spectacularly when the press concludes that the Bard is being kicked to the curricular curb.
Lord, what fools these mortals be! Julie Schumacher proves the point and makes the most of it in this delicious romp of satire.
©2018 Julie Schumacher (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Dear Committee Members
- A Novel
- By: Julie Schumacher
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels.
-
-
Hysterically funny and poignant
- By Catherine on 12-15-14
By: Julie Schumacher
-
The Paris Bookseller
- By: Kerri Maher
- Narrated by: Lauryn Allman
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself. Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home.
-
-
a little much on the intimate details
- By LuckyL42 on 02-07-22
By: Kerri Maher
-
The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls
- By: Julie Schumacher
- Narrated by: Jessica Almasy
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I'm Adrienne Haus, survivor of a mother-daughter book club. Most of us didn't want to join. My mother signed me up because I was stuck at home all summer, with my knee in a brace. CeeCee's parents forced her to join after cancelling her Paris trip because she bashed up their car. The members of "The Unbearable Book Club", CeeCee, Jill, Wallis, and I, were all going into 11th grade A.P. English. But we weren't friends. We were literary prisoners,
-
-
OUTSTANDING
- By dena on 06-19-15
By: Julie Schumacher
-
The Cuckoo's Calling
- By: Robert Galbraith
- Narrated by: Robert Glenister
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, creditors are calling, and after a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, he’s living in his office. Then John Bristow walks through his door with a shocking story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry - known to her friends as the Cuckoo - famously fell to her death a few months earlier.
-
-
Unbelievable debut mystery set in London
- By Tracey on 05-26-13
By: Robert Galbraith
-
The Thursday Murder Club
- A Novel
- By: Richard Osman
- Narrated by: Lesley Manville
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together, they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
-
-
Loved the book but needed better audio production
- By Anne Rivers on 10-29-20
By: Richard Osman
-
The Vaster Wilds
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
-
-
Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
By: Lauren Groff
-
Dear Committee Members
- A Novel
- By: Julie Schumacher
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels.
-
-
Hysterically funny and poignant
- By Catherine on 12-15-14
By: Julie Schumacher
-
The Paris Bookseller
- By: Kerri Maher
- Narrated by: Lauryn Allman
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself. Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home.
-
-
a little much on the intimate details
- By LuckyL42 on 02-07-22
By: Kerri Maher
-
The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls
- By: Julie Schumacher
- Narrated by: Jessica Almasy
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I'm Adrienne Haus, survivor of a mother-daughter book club. Most of us didn't want to join. My mother signed me up because I was stuck at home all summer, with my knee in a brace. CeeCee's parents forced her to join after cancelling her Paris trip because she bashed up their car. The members of "The Unbearable Book Club", CeeCee, Jill, Wallis, and I, were all going into 11th grade A.P. English. But we weren't friends. We were literary prisoners,
-
-
OUTSTANDING
- By dena on 06-19-15
By: Julie Schumacher
-
The Cuckoo's Calling
- By: Robert Galbraith
- Narrated by: Robert Glenister
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, creditors are calling, and after a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, he’s living in his office. Then John Bristow walks through his door with a shocking story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry - known to her friends as the Cuckoo - famously fell to her death a few months earlier.
-
-
Unbelievable debut mystery set in London
- By Tracey on 05-26-13
By: Robert Galbraith
-
The Thursday Murder Club
- A Novel
- By: Richard Osman
- Narrated by: Lesley Manville
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together, they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
-
-
Loved the book but needed better audio production
- By Anne Rivers on 10-29-20
By: Richard Osman
-
The Vaster Wilds
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
-
-
Slow torture written too hastily
- By Jennifer on 09-23-23
By: Lauren Groff
-
Murder at Madingley Grange
- By: Caroline Graham
- Narrated by: John Hopkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a failed entrepreneur is temporarily left in charge of his aunt's huge gothic home, he knows he must be able to make a profit from it somehow. Murder, he decides, is the only way to do it. For Madingley Grange is the perfect venue for a 1930s murder-mystery weekend, and Simon Hannaford – with the reluctant help of his long-suffering sister – soon hatches a plan for money-spinning mayhem. From the conservatory to the claret cellar, the clues are carefully sprinkled. But when the guests arrive, it is obvious that the game won't be going as planned.
-
-
Charming criminal caper
- By Avalon on 10-01-23
By: Caroline Graham
-
Emily's House
- By: Amy Belding Brown
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Massachusetts, 1869. Margaret Maher has never been one to settle down. At 27, she's never met a man who has tempted her enough to relinquish her independence to a matrimonial fate, and she hasn't stayed in one place for long since her family fled the potato famine a decade ago. When Maggie accepts a temporary position at the illustrious Dickinson family home in Amherst, it's only to save money for her upcoming trip West to join her brothers in California. Maggie never imagines she will form a life-altering friendship with the eccentric, brilliant Miss Emily.
-
-
Emily’s Poems
- By Elliott Wolfe, M.D. on 10-30-21
-
The Secret Hours
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service “to investigate historical over-reaching.” Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so. But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn.
-
-
Just about perfect
- By June Lapidow on 09-28-23
By: Mick Herron
-
The Lonely Hearts Book Club
- By: Lucy Gilmore
- Narrated by: Angie Kane
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sloane Parker lives a small, contained life as a librarian in her small, contained town. She never thinks of herself as lonely...but still she looks forward to that time every day when old curmudgeon Arthur McLachlan comes to browse the shelves and cheerfully insult her. Their sparring is such a highlight of Sloane's day that when Arthur doesn't show up one morning, she's instantly concerned. And then another day passes, and another.
-
-
Enjoyed every minute
- By Laura on 06-04-23
By: Lucy Gilmore
-
Mr. Texas
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Steven Weber, Lawrence Wright
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sonny Lamb is an affable, if floundering, rancher with the unfortunate habit of becoming a punchline in his Texas hometown. Most recently, to everyone’s headshaking amusement, he bought his own bull at an auction. But when a fire breaks out at a neighbor’s farm, Sonny makes headlines in another way: not waiting for help, he bolts to the farm where his heroic actions make the evening news.
-
-
I really wanted to like it
- By Enzo G. on 09-28-23
By: Lawrence Wright
-
Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
-
-
Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
-
The House in the Cerulean Sea
- By: TJ Klune
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.
-
-
Good Story Line
- By John on 04-06-20
By: TJ Klune
-
Caucasia
- A Novel
- By: Danzy Senna
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston. The sisters are so close that they speak their own language, yet Birdie, with her light skin and straight hair, is often mistaken for white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at school. Despite their differences, Cole is Birdie's confidant, her protector, the mirror by which she understands herself. Then their parents' marriage collapses.
-
-
Wanted it to be better
- By AmyP33 on 05-27-25
By: Danzy Senna
-
My Oxford Year
- A Novel
- By: Julia Whelan
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American Ella Durran has had the same plan for her life since she was 13: study at Oxford. At 24, she’s finally made it to England on a Rhodes Scholarship when she’s offered an unbelievable position in a rising political star’s presidential campaign. With the promise that she’ll work remotely and return to DC at the end of her Oxford year, she’s free to enjoy her Once in a Lifetime Experience. That is until a smart-mouthed local who is too quick with his tongue and his car ruins her shirt and her first day.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Clare on 05-03-18
By: Julia Whelan
-
The Namesake
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Sarita Choudhury
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Namesake follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.
-
-
My favorite book - in print and audio
- By Diana - Audible on 04-16-12
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
Our Hideous Progeny
- A Novel
- By: C.E. McGill
- Narrated by: Florence Howard
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 1850s are a time of discovery, and London is ablaze with the latest scientific theories and debates, especially when a spectacular new exhibition of dinosaur sculptures opens at the Crystal Palace. Mary is keen to make her name in this world of science alongside her geologist husband, Henry—but despite her sharp mind and sharper tongue, without wealth and connections their options are limited.
-
-
Incredible
- By M on 07-19-23
By: C.E. McGill
-
Disorientation
- A Novel
- By: Elaine Hsieh Chou
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-nine-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang is desperate to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and never read about “Chinese-y” things again. But after years of grueling research, all she has to show for her efforts are a junk food addiction and stomach pain. When she accidentally stumbles upon a curious note in the Chou archives one afternoon, it looks like her ticket out of academic hell.
-
-
Exceptional
- By Zach Chitwood on 05-12-22
Critic reviews
"Schumacher satirizes the pitfalls of academia with searing wit, skewing everything from the abominable faculty offices to the eccentric personalities throughout the university. Beneath the comedy lies a tragic commentary on the state of higher education, when money counts for more than scholarship, and power is directly tied to fundraising ability. The Shakespeare Requirement offers a desperately funny take on campus foibles, as Schumacher stretches reality to the boundaries of absurdity in this raucous underdog tale." (Booklist)
"A straight narrative delivered with acrid wit.... Fitger is delightfully acerbic and self-destructive in these pages.... Anyone who's taught will recognize these characters, tightly bound in their arcane knowledge and rancid grievances.... A wry commentary on the plight of the arts in our mercantile era.... Enrollment is now open. Don’t skip this class." (The Washington Post)
"Schumacher abandons the epistolary style of her previous novel for a straight narrative but retains all of its acid satire in a sequel that is far more substantive and just as funny... A witty but kindhearted academic satire that oscillates between genuine compassion and scathing mockery with admirable dexterity." (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
"Kingsley Amis...Richard Russo...Francine Prose.... The latest in this line of wits is Julie Schumacher. [Her] satire turns out to be a sneaky apology for her and Fitger’s profession. And she’s right. No matter how exasperating life on campus becomes, for those who want to live within books and through them, it’s still the place to be." (Los Angeles Times)
I loved it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Made me laugh out loud
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Riotous Academic Satire
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Hilarious. I loved it
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Enjoyable, poignant and very funny
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Hilarious
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I want a hard copy of this.......
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Good story. Annoying narration.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very enjoyable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Hilarious and accurate
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.