Word Freak
Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players
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Narrated by:
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Tom Pile
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By:
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Stefan Fatsis
About this listen
Stefan Fatsis, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and National Public Radio regular, recounts his remarkable rise through the ranks of elite Scrabble players while exploring the game's strange, potent hold over them - and him. Scrabble might truly be called America's game. More than two million sets are sold every year and at least thirty million American homes have one. But the game's most talented competitors inhabit a sphere far removed from the masses of "living room players." Theirs is a surprisingly diverse subculture whose stars include a vitamin-popping standup comic; a former bank teller whose intestinal troubles earn him the nickname "G.I. Joel"; a burly, unemployed African American from Baltimore's inner city; the three-time national champion who plays according to Zen principles; and Fatsis himself, who we see transformed from a curious reporter to a confirmed Scrabble nut.
He begins by haunting the gritty corner of a Greenwich Village park where pickup Scrabble games can be found whenever weather permits. His curiosity soon morphs into compulsion, as he sets about memorizing thousands of obscure words and fills his evenings with solo Scrabble played on his living room floor. Before long he finds himself at tournaments socializing - and competing - with Scrabble's elite. But this book is about more than hardcore Scrabblers, for the game yields insights into realms as disparate as linguistics, psychology, and mathematics. Word Freak extends its reach even further, pondering the light Scrabble throws on such notions as brilliance, memory, competition, failure, and hope. It is a geography of obsession that celebrates the uncanny powers locked in all of us. This edition includes a new 2013 afterword by the author.
©2001 Stefan Fatsis (P)2015 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Best Audiobook I Ever Listened To
- By Sam Clear on 07-13-17
By: Neil Strauss - contributor, and others
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The Perfect Find
- By: Tia Williams
- Narrated by: Wesleigh Siobhan
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Jenna Jones, former It-girl fashion editor, is broke and desperate for a second chance. When she’s dumped by her longtime fiancé and fired from Darling magazine, she begs for a job from her old arch nemesis, Darcy Vale. The beyond-bitchy publisher of StyleZine.com, Darcy agrees to hire her rival - only because her fashion site needs a jolt from Jenna’s old school cred. But Jenna soon realizes she’s in over her head.
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A-FREAKING-MAZING!!!
- By Bernadette on 05-30-21
By: Tia Williams
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American Psycho
- By: Bret Easton Ellis
- Narrated by: Pablo Schreiber
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
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Fanntastic book but maybe not for everyone....
- By So Fain on 03-27-11
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CRAY
- By: Darrell Hammond, Elizabeth Stein
- Narrated by: Darrell Hammond
- Length: 1 hr and 10 mins
- Original Recording
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He is one of the longest-running cast members on Saturday Night Live, an American comedy genius renowned for his spot-on sendups of politicians and celebrities. But off-stage, Darrell Hammond’s life was anything but a joke. In CRAY, a special audio performance captured live onstage at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre, Hammond brings to life his acclaimed memoir, God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked: Tales of Stand-Up, Saturday Night Live and Other Mind-Altering Mayhem.
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Thanks for sharing
- By Nickisnotgary on 09-06-24
By: Darrell Hammond, and others
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Breakfast of Champions
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: John Malkovich
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.
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Kurt Was Right to Grade This a C
- By Dubi on 01-10-16
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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Heads Will Roll
- By: Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne
- Narrated by: Kate McKinnon, Emily Lynne, Tim Gunn, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Original Recording
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Heads Will Roll is an Audible Original from Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon and her cocreator/costar (and real-life sister) Emily Lynne. Produced by Broadway Video, this is not an audiobook - it’s a 10-episode, star-studded audio comedy that features performances from Meryl Streep, Tim Gunn, Peter Dinklage, Queer Eye’s Fab Five, and so many more. Please note: This content is not for kids.
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More like this please
- By Anon893 on 05-03-19
By: Kate McKinnon, and others
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Napoleon's Hemorrhoids…And Other Small Events That Changed History
- By: Phil Mason
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Hilarious, fascinating, and a roller coaster of dizzying, historical what-ifs, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids is a potpourri for serious historians and casual history buffs. In one of Phil Mason's many revelations, you'll learn that Communist jets were two minutes away from opening fire on American planes during the Cuban missile crisis, when they had to turn back as they were running out of fuel. You'll discover that before the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's painful hemorrhoids prevented him from mounting his horse to survey the battlefield.
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They just throw the facts too fast
- By Concerned_llama on 12-11-20
By: Phil Mason
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- Elizabeth G. Lui
- 11-13-23
Playing to Win.
Tedious at times, but great story. Not being competitive myself I was amazed by the testosterone driven players (including the author) who were so affected by losses. But amazing to journey into that world. Called to mind MOONWALKING WITH EINSTEIN.
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- Matthew Beyer
- 12-31-21
Well put together but a little dated
I thought the author spent too long justifying the legitimacy of scrabble as a serious game, which in the age of twitch obsessives didn't really seem necessary. Maybe an unfair critique given the time it was written but it does date the book a little. I suppose the other thing I found a little annoying was that it was oddly braggadocios about the authors climbing scrabble rating. It didn't work for me as an eye-of-the-tiger tale of triumph.
I thought the book worked best when it was just about the nature of obsessiveness, in a way it was successful in this but I just thought it could have gone a little farther in that. I think it would have worked better if they focused on fewer people as more of a character study. But it seemed a little scattershot the way it was put together, maybe in a "meta" way that expresses the obsessiveness the author feels, but as a reader it just doesn't totally work for me.
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1 person found this helpful