
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
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Narrated by:
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Jeanette Winterson
About this listen
Jeanette Winterson’s bold and revelatory novels have established her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most acclaimed books of the last three decades, including her internationally bestselling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents that is considered one of the most important books in contemporary fiction. Jeanette’s adoptive mother loomed over her life until Jeanette finally moved out at sixteen because she was in love with a woman. As Jeanette left behind the strict confines of her youth, her mother asked, “Why be happy when you could be normal?”
This memoir is the chronicle of a life’s work to find happiness. It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser drawer; about growing up in a north England industrial town in the 1960s and 1970s; and about the universe as a cosmic dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past, which Winterson thought she had written over and repainted, rose to haunt her later in life, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. It is also a book about literature, one that shows how fiction and poetry can guide us when we are lost. Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging - for love, identity, and a home.
©2011 Jeanette Winterson (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- Unabridged
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Story
Jeanette is a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an evangelical household in the dour, industrial North of England and finds herself embroidering grim religious mottoes and shaking her little tambourine for Jesus. But as this budding missionary comes of age, and comes to terms with her unorthodox sexuality, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household dissolves. Jeanette’s insistence on listening to truths of her own heart and mind - and on reporting them with wit and passion - makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an eccentric, moving passage into adulthood.
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quirky and odd
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12 Bytes
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In 12 Bytes, the New York Times best-selling author of Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson draws on her years of thinking and reading about artificial intelligence in all its bewildering manifestations. In her brilliant, laser focused, uniquely pointed, and witty style of storytelling, Winterson looks to history, religion, myth, literature, the politics of race and gender, and computer science, to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now.
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Performance
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Story
Jeanette is a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an evangelical household in the dour, industrial North of England and finds herself embroidering grim religious mottoes and shaking her little tambourine for Jesus. But as this budding missionary comes of age, and comes to terms with her unorthodox sexuality, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household dissolves. Jeanette’s insistence on listening to truths of her own heart and mind - and on reporting them with wit and passion - makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an eccentric, moving passage into adulthood.
-
-
quirky and odd
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12 Bytes
- How We Got Here, Where We Might Go Next
- By: Jeanette Winterson
- Narrated by: Jeanette Winterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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Editorial review
By Madeline Anthony, Audible Editor
WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU COULD BE NORMAL? IS AN ENDURING MEMOIR ON THE LIFELONG SEARCH FOR BELONGING
Allow me to begin this review with a disclaimer: I am a massive fan of the legendary British author who penned this book, the truly iconic Jeanette Winterson. Reading and listening are a huge part of my life, and because of this, I have gotten to know many wickedly talented authors over the years. But like a first love, none of the new ones ever quite measure up.
I remember falling in love with Winterson the way a non-bibliophile might recall falling in love with another human being. The experience was visceral, bodily, and has forever implanted itself in my memory. I was 24 years old, and my Oma, who had raised me, had just died of lymphoma. I was beside myself in a way I had never known, and it was as though reading Winterson’s Written on the Body—a love story in which the main character’s lover suffers from a cancer similar to that which affected my Oma—forced out every emotion I had left. I stayed in bed for days, crying, relentlessly grieving, and, ultimately, finding solace in this profoundly timeless story of love and loss.
In the five years that have passed since that pivotal point, I endeavored to consume as much of Winterson’s work as I could get my hands on, and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, The Gap of Time, and Sexing the Cherry proved just as riveting as my first foray into her prose. I worked my way through her repertoire the way a person might approach higher education— proudly and with purpose. And as Winterson is such a prolific writer, I was never at a loss for material. What I had first heard about Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? is that it told a very similar story to Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, albeit without the fictional bits. Having read Oranges, I thought I knew the story already and opted instead for more of her passion-fueled fiction, leaving Why Be Happy as the last addition to my proverbial (and literal) Winterson shelf.
When I finally picked up Why Be Happy, I didn’t put it down until I had finished it a week later. It gave me that urgent feeling I sometimes get while reading, that everything else I do is just a distraction from the ultimate goal of Getting Back to The Book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that aside from the crucial, unchangeable facts of the story—that Winterson grew up in an ultra-religious household in a working-class town outside of Manchester— Oranges and Why Be Happy are distinct and not to be compared. While Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a fictionalized coming-of-age novel, Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? is a searingly honest portrait of a middle-aged woman reflecting on a hard-won life."
Continue reading Madeline's review >
Critic reviews
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Story
Lake Geneva, 1816. Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley is inspired to write a story about a scientist who creates a new life-form. In Brexit Britain, a young transgender doctor called Ry is falling in love with Victor Stein, a celebrated professor leading the public debate around AI and carrying out some experiments of his own in a vast underground network of tunnels. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with his mom again, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere.
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TW: SA, anti-trans bigotry, anti-gay bigotry
- By H. Myers on 11-19-19
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Rubyfruit Jungle
- A Novel
- By: Rita Mae Brown
- Narrated by: Anna Paquin
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In bawdy, moving prose, Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes - and she refuses to apologize for loving them back.
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Worth Every Moment
- By Kristena C on 01-02-23
By: Rita Mae Brown
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Wasted
- A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
- By: Marya Hornbacher
- Narrated by: Marya Hornbacher
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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Precociously intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and ambitious, Marya Hornbacher grew up in a comfortable middle-class American home. At the age of 5, she returned home from ballet class one day, put on an enormous sweater, curled up on her bed, and cried because she thought she was fat. By age 9, she was secretly bulimic, throwing up at home after school, while watching Brady Bunch reruns on television and munching Fritos. She added anorexia to her repertoire a few years later and took great pride in her ability to starve. Marya's story gathers intensity with each passing year. By the time she is in college and working for a wire news service in Washington D.C., she is in the grip of a bout of anorexia so horrifying that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. Down to 52 pounds and counting, Marya becomes a battlefield: her powerful death instinct at war with the will to live. Why would a talented young girl go through the looking glass and slip into a netherworld where up is down, food is greed, and death is honor? Why enter into a love affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Marya Hornbacher sustained both anorexia and bulimia through 5 lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, the loss of family, friends, jobs, and ultimately, any sense of what it means to be "normal." In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she recreates the experience and illuminates the tangle of personal, family, and cultural causes underlying eating disorders.
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Abridged=Horrible
- By Kelly on 05-05-13
By: Marya Hornbacher
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Writers & Lovers
- A Novel
- By: Lily King
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she has been writing for six years. At 31, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life.
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An absorbing listen
- By Barbara S on 03-08-20
By: Lily King
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Heavy
- By: Kiese Laymon
- Narrated by: Kiese Laymon
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion, and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been.
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Be prepared
- By Amy Eberle on 10-30-18
By: Kiese Laymon
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Bad Feminist
- Essays
- By: Roxane Gay
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman ( Sweet Valley High) of color ( The Help) while also taking listeners on a ride through culture of the last few years ( Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown).
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"I am a mess of contradictions" - RG
- By Cynthia on 12-27-15
By: Roxane Gay
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Know My Name
- A Memoir
- By: Chanel Miller
- Narrated by: Chanel Miller
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral. Now, she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words.
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Just, thank you.
- By Alysha DeShaé on 09-25-19
By: Chanel Miller
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Pageboy
- A Memoir
- By: Elliot Page
- Narrated by: Elliot Page
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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“Can I kiss you?” It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. A previously unfathomable experience. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression he’d carried for so long. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back.
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Ah, I wish this were better. I'm disappointed.
- By Jackson Theofore Keys on 06-07-23
By: Elliot Page
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Educated
- A Memoir
- By: Tara Westover
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University.
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The Other Side of Idaho's Mountains
- By Darwin8u on 03-28-18
By: Tara Westover
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Inside Out
- A Memoir
- By: Demi Moore
- Narrated by: Demi Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight - or the headlines. Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past. Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years - all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception.
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I loved this Memoir
- By mrsbee19 on 09-25-19
By: Demi Moore
What listeners say about Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
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- Pamela Harvey
- 03-20-12
The Title Says It All
I wanted to read this book from the moment I read a review in the New York Times. The title grabbed me by my inner truths and would not let me go, and I relate because my mother had the same philosophy, if she could even be said to have a "philosophy". It's the overall general sense of being "happy" vs being "normal" that got to me - not the specifics of Winterson's life. My mother, too, was big on being "normal" and also felt that being happy was an offshoot of arrogance - like "who are you to deserve happiness?" I am not attempting to define happiness here, just saying the idea was always presented as an unreachable ideal, only given to a privileged few, with the rest of us required to trudge along, suffering and miserable.
Anyway, the narration took some time getting used to - I initially found Ms. Winterson's voice to be a bit strident, with an accent I couldn't quite place, but I gradually acclimated and found a receptive space where I could listen with more peace. The accent and patterns of speech actually work to help create the ambience of mid-20th century Manchester, England.
I like that Winterson's description of the renaissance-like evolution and development of Manchester - from its dark days as Britain's foremost manufacturing town into a prosperous arcade of high-end consumer pleasures such as restaurants, art galleries, new housing created from vacated mill buildings - parallels her own journey of self-dicovery and reclamation.
The memoir proceeds chronologically, but sometimes it's not quite clear where we are in Winterson's life. Not a problem though, as things eventually do clear up, and the surface randomness of the story does not devolve into confusion for the reader; due to the beauty of the writing, sometimes it does not really matter. WInterson herself admits to not writing in a linear style, preferring a less structured way of selecting her scenes.
Although this is another story about growing up with a mother who is very odd in so many ways, unwilling and unable to show love, perhaps even to feel it, this narrative has its own animus, and I, as a reader, never tire of this subject nor of this genre. Winterson's rise from her very inauspicious and soul-destroying roots into triumph like the Phoenix from the ashes is a story that can be told again and again.
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63 people found this helpful
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- Martin A. Perea
- 11-09-12
So well-written I had to buy the actual paper book
Would you consider the audio edition of Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? to be better than the print version?
It's a toss-up. With the book I can better revel in the great prose about Manchester or libraries, while I also enjoyed hearing the author speaking her own words in her own voice about her own life.
What other book might you compare Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? to and why?
Memoirs by other writers, coming out stories, growing up in a fundamentalist family stories, self-help stories about overcoming the past.
Which scene was your favorite?
Especially loved Chapter 2 about the background of Manchester.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Realizations toward the end which I don't want to spoil.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mickenbacker
- 12-24-24
A book that connects
I could listen to this over and over, and indeed I do. Less of a case of I can't put it down, more that I will always pick it back up. I find the whole experience very comforting. That's not to say it's a comfortable subject matter but rather that it's handled in such a way that leaves you entertained, amused and empathetic. We are fortunate to be treated to narration by the author herself. Her voice, for me, is a wonderful reminder of home, which perhaps adds to the affinity I feel when listening. Although my life, trials and tribulations, are somewhat different than Jeanette's, I find so many parallels in our thoughts and feelings. I spent the first half of my life not even understanding what normal is, and a subsequent portion trying to achieve normal at the expense of true happiness. Consequently, this story and its telling, really connected with me. I have to believe there's something here for anyone who has wrestled with such perceptions, which I suspect is most of us.
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- Lydia
- 03-14-12
Beam Me Up
Jeanette's use of humor is her way of handling often difficult situations with grace and candor. I am enjoying her very interesting although sometimes painful story of growing up "odd" in a time when it was considered...uncool. Her autobiographical story of a an adopted girl who was deprived of books and ended up going to Oxford, brilliantly shining, the shine tarnishing, and somehow developing even now, a new patina. Love her conversational style of writing and bright wit.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Evelyn
- 01-19-13
Retelling, now with more truthiness
What did you love best about Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal??
The story of Winterson's adopted life and finding her birth mother. As the child of an adpotee, it gave me insight into my mother's personality quirks.
What does Jeanette Winterson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I loved listening to Jeanette's accent, she spends a good amount of time talking about where she is from in the UK, and had the narrator had a traditional BBC accent, I think some of the flavor would have been lost.
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- Coolrbreeze
- 02-24-22
Insightful
We are an adoptive family so I could identify with this author in many instances.
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- Natalie
- 02-04-24
Jeanette in her own words
Poignant story brimming with Jeanette’s heartbreaking observations and usual wit, made even better by her own lovely voice.
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- Robin Roberts
- 06-23-23
Excellent read
If you’re into depth writing that’s a little quirky and very English, you will love this book. Scrape the bone, honest, touching, thoughtful, and filled with references to literature that enhance all the bits that she brings out about a very tough life.
I found this book to be about healing. And love.
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- olivia glass
- 06-05-21
wonderful in every aspect
loved it . Touching. So expansive. endearing. It is also heart-wrenching
Truly a great read!
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- Anonymous User
- 11-17-18
YES.
I recommend listening to this while reading "Oranges." This is the best memoir I've read.
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