The Story of Charlotte's Web
E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic
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Narrated by:
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Nick Sullivan
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By:
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Michael Sims
About this listen
As he was composing what was to become his most enduring and popular book, E. B. White was obeying that oft-repeated maxim: "Write what you know." Helpless pigs, silly geese, clever spiders, greedy rats - White knew all of these characters in the barns and stables where he spent his favorite hours. Painfully shy his entire life, "this boy", White once wrote of himself, "felt for animals a kinship he never felt for people." It's all the more impressive, therefore, how many people have felt a kinship with E. B. White.
With Charlotte's Web, which has gone on to sell more than 45 million copies, the man William Shawn called "the most companionable of writers" lodged his own character, the avuncular author, into the hearts of generations of readers.
In The Story of Charlotte's Web, Michael Sims shows how White solved what critic Clifton Fadiman once called "the standing problem of the juvenile-fantasy writer: how to find, not another Alice, but another rabbit hole" by mining the raw ore of his childhood friendship with animals in Mount Vernon, New York. Translating his own passions and contradictions, delights and fears, into an all-time classic. Blending White's correspondence with the likes of Ursula Nordstrom, James Thurber, and Harold Ross, the E. B. White papers at Cornell, and the archives of HarperCollins and The New Yorker into his own elegant narrative, Sims brings to life the shy boy whose animal stories - real and imaginary - made him famous around the world.
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Story
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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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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Mark Twain
- A Life
- By: Ron Powers
- Narrated by: Ron Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Buy the Book
- By W.Denis on 10-22-05
By: Ron Powers
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The Possessed
- Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
- By: Elif Batuman
- Narrated by: Elif Batuman
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Possessed we watch Elif Batuman investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy's ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin's wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has 100 different words for crying; and see an 18th-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva. Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their places in The Possessed.
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Dear Russian Literary Diary...
- By Darwin8u on 08-29-17
By: Elif Batuman
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Rebel Souls
- Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians
- By: Justin Martin
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Rebel Souls is the first book ever written about the colorful group of artists - regulars at Pfaff's Saloon in Manhattan - rightly considered America's original Bohemians. Besides a young Whitman, the circle included actor Edwin Booth; trailblazing stand–up comic Artemus Ward; psychedelic drug pioneer and author Fitz Hugh Ludlow; and brazen performer Adah Menken, famous for her Naked Lady routine. Central to their times, the artists managed to forge connections with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, and even Abraham Lincoln.
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A Wonderful Read with Vibrant Characters
- By A on 11-11-15
By: Justin Martin
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Prairie Fires
- The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
- By: Caroline Fraser
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of fans of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls - the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true story of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography.
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Don’t read if you don’t want your fond memories...
- By NMwritergal on 11-24-17
By: Caroline Fraser
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Ex Libris
- Confessions of a Common Reader
- By: Anne Fadiman
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Anyone who has ever loved a book will relish this playful, yet deeply literate collection of essays celebrating the joy of reading. From building castles with books as a child, to the trauma of joining her library with her husband's, the author reveals, with much warmth and humor, the intimate details of her lifelong affair with books. For Anne Fadiman, books are not built for function, and certainly not for decoration. They are close personal friends who never fail to delight and amaze.
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Reading IS fun!
- By Diana on 04-14-05
By: Anne Fadiman
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Hemingway's Boat
- Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934 - 1961
- By: Paul Hendrickson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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An award-winning historian and author, Paul Hendrickson here turns his attention to one of America’s most cherished literary icons, Ernest Hemingway. Drawing on previously unpublished material, Hendrickson focuses on Hemingway’s life in its twilight, just prior to his suicide, and the seemingly singular constant in the man’s life: his boat, Pilar. On this vessel, Hemingway would entertain and travel, but it would also be the scene of some of his greatest tragedies.
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A Hemingway biography for the 21st Century
- By George on 09-16-14
By: Paul Hendrickson
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Draft No. 4
- On the Writing Process
- By: John McPhee
- Narrated by: John McPhee
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Draft No. 4 is an elucidation of the writer's craft by a master practitioner. In a series of playful but expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he's gathered over his career and refined during his long-running course at Princeton University, where he has launched some of the most esteemed writers of several generations. McPhee offers a definitive guide to the crucial decisions regarding structure, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces and presents extracts from some of his best-loved work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny.
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McPhee is the Craft
- By Darwin8u on 09-19-17
By: John McPhee
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City Boy
- My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In the New York of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult.
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Pretense upon pretense.
- By Shalin Desai on 06-01-15
By: Edmund White
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Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller, and Countrywoman
- By: Judy Taylor
- Narrated by: Patricia Routledge
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
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Starting with the publication of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, in 1902, Beatrix Potter went on to become one of the world’s most successful children’s authors. This biographical audiobook takes the reader through the whole of her life, from her Victorian childhood in London to her final years farming in the Lake District. Regarded as a standard work on Beatrix Potter’s life, this work has been updated regularly to include fresh material that has come to light as interest in Beatrix Potter continues to grow.
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Loved it!
- By Kimberly on 06-14-17
By: Judy Taylor
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The Ambulance Drivers
- Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War
- By: James McGrath Morris
- Narrated by: Dean Temple
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense 20-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war. Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps.
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Morris always delivers interesting biographies...
- By NMwritergal on 04-08-17
What listeners say about The Story of Charlotte's Web
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dog Lover
- 03-21-13
Hard to review
This book seemed to work hard to find a reason for existing.
IMO - it missed the entire nature of E B White. The actual part that followed the title about the writing of Charlotte's Web was mildly interesting but my reaction was "It's about time." Frankly, it reads almost like a celebrity profile - mildly interesting but not of much import. The writing style was overly verbose - attempting poetry as a means to hide adding wordcount was my impression. Mr. Sims also seems to love the word "metamorphose." When you start seeing the same word over and over in a book, it makes you wonder if the author had learned a new word that day and was looking for opportunities to use it.
The narrator was irritating. It may have been his copy but he replaced the word "biographical" with "biological" in every instance. His manner was that of an adult reading to children. His over emphasis on each syllable - especially his tendency to crisp every letter "T" he encountered - was wearisome. I won't be listening to any more books narrated by Sullivan.
Difficult to review the work because its purpose remains unclear to me. The title led me to believe that there was some real "story" behind the writing of this book. Not really true. Like most books, it was inspired by the experience of its author. No real "story" there. The book definitely was not a biography of E B White.
Not a "bad" book. Just extremely ordinary. I'll have to read more biographies of E B White to see if he was as ordinary as this book led me to believe.
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3 people found this helpful
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- A
- 04-29-24
Some book!
If you love Charlotte’s Web you will love learning about its gentle author and the story behind his, Charlotte’s and Wilbur’s lives.
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- F
- 12-12-11
'Story' weaves a web of its own.
Would you listen to The Story of Charlotte's Web again? Why?
I might not listen to it again any time soon, but I would definitely listen to it again on down the road. The story is well told, with respect for both its subject and veracity.
What did you like best about this story?
I very much appreciated the way that Sims was able to bring in the various elements that contributed to White's writing the book.
What does Nick Sullivan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Well, he's competent for the most part. How do you pronounce 'pianoforte' anyway?
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I think Story appeals to intellect and curiosity more than emotion, not that it is devoid of emotion.
Any additional comments?
I'll be looking for more of Sim's work in audible formats!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Chrissie
- 01-11-14
Read E.B. White's book instead!
This is a book about the author of a book I loved: "Charlotte's Web". It is about how that book I loved came to be. It is not written with the charm nor the humor of that original book. Sims' book is interesting. It tells not only of E.B. White's career; he worked for many years at The New Yorker. The story is filled out with information about prominent children's authors and illustrators during the first half of the 20th Century. If that is what you are looking for you may appreciate this book more than I did. Parts are flat, boring and stuffed with irrelevant details. Neither did I love the narration by Nick Sullivan. The book doesn't pull you in, doesn't engage you or make you care in the slightest for any of the characters. It reads like a dry text book....but sure there are interesting facts.
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5 people found this helpful