
Writing the Big Book
The Creation of A.A.
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Narrated by:
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Natasha Soudek
About this listen
In Writing the Big Book, William H. Schaberg presents an exciting, research-driven narrative of the history of the book, Alcoholic Anonymous, and the formative years of A.A. Granted extensive access to the group's archives along with several other sources, the author reveals the early Fellowship's conflicts and personalities, successes and failures, and dispels many of the myths found in such canonical texts as Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, and A Brief History of the Big Book.
The result of 11 years of in-depth research, Schaberg's history relies whenever possible on primary, real-time documents. He thoroughly investigates the book's authorship, illuminating the lesser-known contributions of figures like Hank Parkhurst and Frank Amos, and reveals how the spiritual side of the A.A. program evolved and was vigorously debated.
The book focuses primarily on the eighteen months between October of 1937, when a book was first proposed, and April of 1939, when Alcoholics Anonymous was published. During the span of those 18 months, the wealth of available archival materials provides for an almost week-by-week accounting of events, including an amazing amount of previously unreported details, resulting in a comprehensive and compelling story.
©2019 William H. Schaberg (P)2019 TantorPeople who viewed this also viewed...
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Perfect
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Annoying voice
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As far as the text is concerned it is a nice contribution to the lexicon of AA histories and like several of the works produced in the last couple of decades goes a good way to correcting much of the received view. There are times when Schaberg goes a bit far in making his point. That being said, this account is the most comprehensive as the existing dissertations, conference presentations, articles, online resources, and books produced to this point were each more economical in scope.
There are points where Schaberg falls short of previous work and these are mostly in the area of not addressing source material Wilson used in constructing the text. Instead we get regurgitation of the text. Nowhere is this more evident than his discussion of "We Agnostics." Looking forward to how he would show how certain parts were lifted from other spiritual texts, we get nothing but the "received view." This is particularly disheartening when one considers the extent to which he goes on to try to explain the identity of the typists for the myriad of letters he discusses.
I would suggest this text to AA members and all interested in learning about the fellowship. However, I would suggest that both the written and Audio copies be bought, because the parts that bring really new insights will be fitting to cite to others.
Just read please
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Splitting Hairs
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An amazing historical literary book.
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terrific research
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That said, I am blown away by the care and effort and time the author put into researching and putting together this incredibly meaningful and relevant history, and for that reason I did not give up and listened to this audiobook all the way through. I am very grateful for his effort and care. Thank you. I learned some amazing new things about AA’s history and my perspective will never be the same, in a great way.
And again, thank you for the excellent narration, as well.
This is a TEXT BOOK. Be aware!
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too much about fundraising
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Exciting for readers of big book
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Deeply informative!
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Comprehensive history
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