-
True Stories & Other Essays
- Narrated by: Francis Spufford
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
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 $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
An irresistible collection of favorite writings from an author celebrated for his bravura style and sheer unpredictability.
Francis Spufford’s welcome first volume of collected essays gathers an array of his compelling writings from the 1990s to the present. He makes use of a variety of encounters with particular places, writers, or books to address deeper questions relating to the complicated relationship between storytelling and truth-telling.
How must a nonfiction writer imagine facts, vivifying them to bring them to life? How must a novelist create a dependable world of story, within which facts are, in fact, imaginary? And how does a religious faith felt strongly to be true, but not provably so, draw on both kinds of writerly imagination?
Ranging freely across topics as diverse as the medieval legends of Cockaigne, the Christian apologetics of C. S. Lewis, and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini, Spufford provides both fresh observations and thought-provoking insights. No less does he inspire an irresistible urge to play this audiobook and listen on.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Golden Hill
- A Novel of Old New York
- By: Francis Spufford
- Narrated by: Sarah Borges
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The spectacular first novel from acclaimed nonfiction author Francis Spufford follows the adventures of a mysterious young man in mid-18th century Manhattan, 30 years before the American Revolution.
-
-
So Much Potential But A Failure Of Execution
- By Sara on 12-01-17
By: Francis Spufford
-
Unapologetic
- Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense
- By: Francis Spufford
- Narrated by: Francis Spufford
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Francis Spufford's Unapologetic is a wonderfully pugnacious defense of Christianity. Refuting critics such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the "new atheist" crowd, Spufford, a former atheist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, argues that Christianity is recognizable, drawing on the deep and deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling, satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the grown-up dignity of Christian experience.
-
-
Premise collapses on shaky theology
- By TsundokuSensei on 04-24-24
By: Francis Spufford
-
Daemon Voices
- On Stories and Storytelling
- By: Philip Pullman
- Narrated by: Philip Pullman, Simon Mason
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most highly acclaimed and best-selling authors of our time now gives us a book that charts the history of his own enchantment with story - from his own books to those of Blake, Milton, Dickens, and the Brothers Grimm, among others - and delves into the role of story in education, religion, and science. At once personal and wide-ranging, Daemon Voices is both a revelation of the writing mind and the methods of a great contemporary master and a fascinating exploration of storytelling itself.
-
-
Mixed views
- By Luna on 08-03-19
By: Philip Pullman
-
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
- A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
- By: Thomas C. Foster
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey? Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface - a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character - and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths.
-
-
Lives Up to Its Claims
- By Evelyn on 05-22-14
By: Thomas C. Foster
-
How to Live
- Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and winegrower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them essays, meaning “attempts” or “tries.” He put whatever was in his head into them: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog’s ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the religious wars....
-
-
Interesting and in parts Inspired.
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-12
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Becoming Wise
- An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
- By: Krista Tippett
- Narrated by: Krista Tippett
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind, into what it means to be human. The book is a master class in living, individually and collectively, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of a teaching faculty. Wisdom emerges through the raw materials of the everyday.
-
-
A bit of an interview clip show
- By Adam Shields on 08-26-16
By: Krista Tippett
-
Golden Hill
- A Novel of Old New York
- By: Francis Spufford
- Narrated by: Sarah Borges
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The spectacular first novel from acclaimed nonfiction author Francis Spufford follows the adventures of a mysterious young man in mid-18th century Manhattan, 30 years before the American Revolution.
-
-
So Much Potential But A Failure Of Execution
- By Sara on 12-01-17
By: Francis Spufford
-
Unapologetic
- Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense
- By: Francis Spufford
- Narrated by: Francis Spufford
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Francis Spufford's Unapologetic is a wonderfully pugnacious defense of Christianity. Refuting critics such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the "new atheist" crowd, Spufford, a former atheist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, argues that Christianity is recognizable, drawing on the deep and deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling, satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the grown-up dignity of Christian experience.
-
-
Premise collapses on shaky theology
- By TsundokuSensei on 04-24-24
By: Francis Spufford
-
Daemon Voices
- On Stories and Storytelling
- By: Philip Pullman
- Narrated by: Philip Pullman, Simon Mason
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most highly acclaimed and best-selling authors of our time now gives us a book that charts the history of his own enchantment with story - from his own books to those of Blake, Milton, Dickens, and the Brothers Grimm, among others - and delves into the role of story in education, religion, and science. At once personal and wide-ranging, Daemon Voices is both a revelation of the writing mind and the methods of a great contemporary master and a fascinating exploration of storytelling itself.
-
-
Mixed views
- By Luna on 08-03-19
By: Philip Pullman
-
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
- A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
- By: Thomas C. Foster
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey? Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface - a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character - and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths.
-
-
Lives Up to Its Claims
- By Evelyn on 05-22-14
By: Thomas C. Foster
-
How to Live
- Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and winegrower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them essays, meaning “attempts” or “tries.” He put whatever was in his head into them: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog’s ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the religious wars....
-
-
Interesting and in parts Inspired.
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-12
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Becoming Wise
- An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living
- By: Krista Tippett
- Narrated by: Krista Tippett
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind, into what it means to be human. The book is a master class in living, individually and collectively, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of a teaching faculty. Wisdom emerges through the raw materials of the everyday.
-
-
A bit of an interview clip show
- By Adam Shields on 08-26-16
By: Krista Tippett
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis
- How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind
- By: Jason M Baxter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?
-
-
Excellent
- By andrew wilson smith on 03-08-22
By: Jason M Baxter
-
The Cave and the Light
- Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 25 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Cave and the Light reveals how two Greek philosophers became the twin fountainheads of Western culture, and how their rivalry gave Western civilization its unique dynamism down to the present.
-
-
All of Western Philosphy Leads to Ayn Rand?!?
- By Leslie on 06-22-15
By: Arthur Herman
-
Changing My Mind
- Occasional Essays
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Split into five sections - Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering - Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both personal and cultural. This engaging collection of essays, some published here for the first time, reveals Smith as a passionate and precise essayist, equally at home in the world of great books and bad movies, family and philosophy, British comedians, and Italian divas. Changing My Mind is journalism at its most expansive, intelligent, and funny - a gift to readers and writers both.
-
-
There may be truths on the side of life
- By Darwin8u on 02-18-20
By: Zadie Smith
-
The Everlasting Man
- By: G. K. Chesterton
- Narrated by: John Franklyn-Robbins
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few people had a more profound effect on Christianity in the 20th century than G. K. Chesterton. The Everlasting Man, written in response to an anti-Christian history of humans penned by H.G. Wells, is considered Chesterton’s masterpiece. In it, he explains Christ’s place in history, asserting that the Christian myth carries more weight than other mythologies for one simple reason—it is the truth.
-
-
well narrated audio of a masterpiece.
- By John Glemby on 10-15-11
By: G. K. Chesterton
-
The Super Natural
- A New Vision of the Unexplained
- By: Whitley Strieber, Jeffrey J. Kripal
- Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J. Kripal team up on this unprecedented and intellectually vibrant new framing of inexplicable events and experiences. Rather than merely document the anomalous, these authors - one the man who popularized alien abduction and the other a renowned scholar - deliver a fast-paced and exhilarating study of why the supernatural is neither fantasy nor fiction but a vital and authentic aspect of life.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Bill on 07-15-17
By: Whitley Strieber, and others
-
Defiant Joy
- The Remarkable Life & Impact of G. K. Chesterton
- By: Kevin Belmonte
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may be aware that G. K. Chesterton authored influential Christian biographies and apologetics. But you may not know the larger-than-life Gilbert Keith Chesterton himself - not yet. Equally versed in poetry, novels, literary criticism, and journalism, he addressed politics, culture, and religion with a towering intellect and a soaring wit. Chesterton carried on lively, public discussions with the social commentators of his day, continually challenging them with civility, humility, erudition, and his ever-sharp sense of humor.
-
-
I Liked It
- By Gene Hamill on 11-20-20
By: Kevin Belmonte
-
Being Wrong
- Adventures in the Margin of Error
- By: Kathryn Schulz
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To err is human. Yet most of us go through life assuming (and sometimes insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origins of the universe to how to load the dishwasher. If being wrong is so natural, why are we all so bad at imagining that our beliefs could be mistaken, and why do we react to our errors with surprise, denial, defensiveness, and shame?
-
-
A good read
- By Mike Kircher on 10-06-10
By: Kathryn Schulz
-
Science in the Soul
- Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward, Gillian Somerscales
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades Richard Dawkins has been the world's most brilliant scientific communicator, consistently illuminating the wonders of nature and attacking faulty logic. Science in the Soul brings together 42 essays, polemics, and paeans - culled from personal papers, newspapers, lectures, and online salons - all written with Dawkins' characteristic erudition, remorseless wit, and unjaded awe of the natural world.
-
-
Great writing; distracting reading
- By Chris DeMuth Jr on 08-09-17
By: Richard Dawkins
-
Six Memos for the Next Millennium
- By: Italo Calvino, Geoffrey Brock - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the time of his death, Italo Calvino was at work on six lectures setting forth the qualities in writing he most valued and which he believed would define literature in the century to come. Here, in Six Memos for the Next Millennium, are the five lectures he completed, forming not only a stirring defense of literature but also an indispensable guide to the writings of Calvino himself. He devotes one "memo" each to the concepts of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
Come of Age
- The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble
- By: Stephen Jenkinson, Charles Eisenstein - foreword
- Narrated by: Stephen Jenkinson
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stephen Jenkinson explores the great paradox of elderhood in North America: how we are awash in the aged and yet somehow lacking in wisdom; how we relegate senior citizens to the corner of the house while simultaneously heralding them as sage elders simply by virtue of their age. Our own unreconciled relationship with what it means to be an elder has yielded a culture nearly bereft of them. Taking on the sacred cow of the family, Jenkinson argues that elderhood is a function rather than an identity.
-
-
The Elder I’ve been seeking.
- By dina crosta on 05-18-19
By: Stephen Jenkinson, and others
-
The Wave in the Mind
- Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Join Ursula K. Le Guin as she explores a broad array of subjects, ranging from Tolstoy, Twain, and Tolkien to women's shoes, beauty, and family life. With her customary wit, intelligence, and literary craftsmanship, she offers a diverse and highly engaging set of stories. The Wave in the Mind includes some of Le Guin's finest literary criticism, rare autobiographical writings, performance-art pieces, and most centrally, her reflections on the arts of writing and reading.
-
-
Honest and deeply beautiful
- By Lex on 07-13-19
Related to this topic
-
William Blake vs the World
- By: John Higgs
- Narrated by: John Higgs
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.
-
-
Best book ever
- By idamae on 11-04-22
By: John Higgs
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Angels and Ages
- A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written 200 years after Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln shared a birthday on February 12, 1809, this insightful account sheds new light on two men who changed the way we think about the meaning of life and death. Award-winning journalist Adam Gopnik's unique perspective, combined with previously unexplored stories and figures, reveals two men planted firmly at the roots of modern views and liberal values.
-
-
Connecting Darwin and Lincoln
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Adam Gopnik
-
Time Travel
- A History
- By: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Gleick's story begins at the turn of the 20th century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation: The Time Machine. A host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological - the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks.
-
-
Fiction gives us Truth by connecting the dots
- By Gary on 04-21-17
By: James Gleick
-
The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis
- How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind
- By: Jason M Baxter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?
-
-
Excellent
- By andrew wilson smith on 03-08-22
By: Jason M Baxter
-
Six Memos for the Next Millennium
- By: Italo Calvino, Geoffrey Brock - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the time of his death, Italo Calvino was at work on six lectures setting forth the qualities in writing he most valued and which he believed would define literature in the century to come. Here, in Six Memos for the Next Millennium, are the five lectures he completed, forming not only a stirring defense of literature but also an indispensable guide to the writings of Calvino himself. He devotes one "memo" each to the concepts of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
William Blake vs the World
- By: John Higgs
- Narrated by: John Higgs
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.
-
-
Best book ever
- By idamae on 11-04-22
By: John Higgs
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Angels and Ages
- A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written 200 years after Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln shared a birthday on February 12, 1809, this insightful account sheds new light on two men who changed the way we think about the meaning of life and death. Award-winning journalist Adam Gopnik's unique perspective, combined with previously unexplored stories and figures, reveals two men planted firmly at the roots of modern views and liberal values.
-
-
Connecting Darwin and Lincoln
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Adam Gopnik
-
Time Travel
- A History
- By: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Gleick's story begins at the turn of the 20th century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation: The Time Machine. A host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological - the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks.
-
-
Fiction gives us Truth by connecting the dots
- By Gary on 04-21-17
By: James Gleick
-
The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis
- How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind
- By: Jason M Baxter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?
-
-
Excellent
- By andrew wilson smith on 03-08-22
By: Jason M Baxter
-
Six Memos for the Next Millennium
- By: Italo Calvino, Geoffrey Brock - translator
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the time of his death, Italo Calvino was at work on six lectures setting forth the qualities in writing he most valued and which he believed would define literature in the century to come. Here, in Six Memos for the Next Millennium, are the five lectures he completed, forming not only a stirring defense of literature but also an indispensable guide to the writings of Calvino himself. He devotes one "memo" each to the concepts of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity.
By: Italo Calvino, and others
-
The Story Paradox
- How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down
- By: Jonathan Gottschall
- Narrated by: Joshua Kane
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an expert on the science of stories, argues that there is a dark side to storytelling we can no longer ignore. Storytelling, the very tradition that built human civilization, may be the thing that destroys it.
-
-
A bit of a mixed bag with some amazing discussion
- By Justin on 04-27-22
-
All Things Shining
- Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular World
- By: Hubert Dreyfus, Sean Dorrance Kelly
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The religious turn to their faith to find meaning. But what about the many people who lead secular lives and are also hungry for meaning? What guides, what approaches are available to them? Distinguished philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly explain that a secular life charged with meaning is indeed within reach.
-
-
Excellent Book that refreshes the classics
- By Tod on 06-14-11
By: Hubert Dreyfus, and others
-
Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
- By: Umberto Eco
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exhilarating book, we accompany Umberto Eco as he explores the intricacies of fictional form and method. Using examples ranging from fairy tales and Flaubert, Poe and Mickey Spillane, Eco draws us in by means of a novelist's techniques, making us his collaborators in the creation of his text and in the investigation of some of fiction's most basic mechanisms.
-
-
big ideas presented simply
- By Ashton on 01-31-14
By: Umberto Eco
-
Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
-
-
Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
-
If I Had Lunch with C. S. Lewis
- Exploring the Ideas of C. S. Lewis on the Meaning of Life
- By: Alister McGrath
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Have you ever wondered…whether God exists? whether life has meaning? Whether pain and suffering have a purpose? This audiobook is my invitation to sit down with C. S. Lewis and me to think about some of the persistent questions and dilemmas every person faces in life. We’ll explore Lewis’s thoughts on everything from friendships to heaven, from the reasons for faith to the power of stories.
-
-
A great overview
- By Kevin on 12-31-14
By: Alister McGrath
-
How Fiction Works
- By: James Wood
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ranging widely from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings, Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step. He sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision, resulting in nothing less than a philosophy of the novel, which has won critical acclaim nationwide, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times Book Review.
-
-
Educational!
- By Don on 05-04-09
By: James Wood
-
Stories We Tell Ourselves
- Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe
- By: Richard Holloway
- Narrated by: Richard Holloway
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout history we have told ourselves stories to try and make sense of what it all means: our place in a small corner of one of billions of galaxies, at the end of billions of years of existence. In this new book Richard Holloway takes us on a personal, scientific and philosophical journey to explore what he believes the answers to the biggest of questions are.
-
-
Effortlessly profound
- By Consi on 09-28-21
By: Richard Holloway
-
To Show and to Tell
- The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
- By: Phillip Lopate
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.
-
-
Not a guide on writing personal essays
- By A. Yoshida on 08-07-13
By: Phillip Lopate
-
The Cave and the Light
- Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 25 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Cave and the Light reveals how two Greek philosophers became the twin fountainheads of Western culture, and how their rivalry gave Western civilization its unique dynamism down to the present.
-
-
All of Western Philosphy Leads to Ayn Rand?!?
- By Leslie on 06-22-15
By: Arthur Herman
-
The Heretic's Handbook
- By: Jonathan Black
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Heretic’s Handbook, the internationally bestselling author of The Secret History of the World has collected and codified ancient, secret wisdom from around the world, formulating a complete philosophy on how to live a happy and successful life. An acclaimed author and public speaker, Black shows how this body of knowledge has been declared ‘heretical’ both by the established church and by today’s atheistic intellectual elite.
-
-
great
- By Amazon Customer on 08-01-23
By: Jonathan Black
-
The Courage to Create
- By: Rollo May
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if imagination and art are not, as many of us might think, the frosting on life but the fountainhead of human experience? What if our logic and science derive from art forms rather than the other way around? In this trenchant volume, Rollo May helps all of us find those creative impulses that, once liberated, offer new possibilities for achievement. A renowned therapist and inspiring guide, Dr. May draws on his experience to show how we can break out of old patterns in our lives.
-
-
May takes on the Creative Act
- By Lowball on 01-16-19
By: Rollo May
-
Miracles
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares the way for this, or results from this." This is the key statement of Miracles, in which C. S. Lewis shows that a Christian must not only accept but rejoice in miracles as a testimony of the unique personal involvement of God in his creation.
-
-
sound, shrewd, well articulated, and well read.
- By Andrew on 09-17-15
By: C. S. Lewis