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Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
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An entertaining anthology & a superb narration
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This explosively entertaining memoir abounds in gossip, satire, historical apercus, and trenchant observations. Vidal’s compelling narrative weaves back and forth in time, providing a whole view of the author’s celebrated life, from his birth in 1925 to today, and features a cast of memorable characters - including the Kennedy family, Marlon Brando, Anais Nin, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
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Gore Vidal - novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist - is America’s premier man of letters. No other writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay.
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Exhausting snd enraging and disappointing
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Brilliant narration!
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An entertaining anthology & a superb narration
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By: Gore Vidal
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Do not listen to the introduction!!!!!
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In this extraordinary memoir, Vidal recalls his accomplishments and defeats, discusses the friends and enemies he has made, and contemplates the nature of mortality. In the Navy, Vidal was forced to use point to point navigation whenever compasses failed. It is an apt analogy for his life, which has been filled with triumphs as well as controversies. Vidal has had relationships with innumerable luminaries, including President Kennedy, Tennessee Williams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Orson Welles, and Greta Garbo.
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Well performed
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You need to know a bit about the players
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The author’s words deserve a better narrator
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Cloying voice
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Publisher's summary
An intimate, authorized, yet frank biography of Gore Vidal (1925-2012), one of the most accomplished, visible, and controversial American novelists and cultural figures of the past century.
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
The life of Gore Vidal was an amazingly full one - full of colorful incident, famous people, and lasting achievements - that calls out for careful evocation and examination. Jay Parini crafts Vidal's life into an accessible, entertaining story that puts the experience of one of the great American figures of the postwar era into context, introduces the author and his works to a generation who may not know him, and looks behind the scenes at the man and his work in ways never possible before his death. Provided with unique access to Vidal's life and his papers, he excavates many buried skeletons yet never loses sight of his deep respect for Vidal and his astounding gifts. This is the biography Gore Vidal has long needed.
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- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
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The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silverthorne on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
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A Torch Kept Lit
- Great Lives of the Twentieth Century
- By: William F. Buckley
- Narrated by: Tony Pasqualini
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In a half century on the national stage, William F. Buckley Jr. achieved unique stature as a polemicist and the undisputed godfather of modern American conservatism. He knew everybody, hosted everybody at his East 73rd Street maisonette, skewered everybody who needed skewering, and in general lived life on a scale, and in a swashbuckling manner, that captivated and inspired countless young conservatives across that half century.
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Excellent...inspiring imagery!
- By Lisa Hill on 10-14-16
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The Great Escape
- Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The stunning story of the breathtaking journey of nine extraordinary men from Budapest to the New World, what they experienced along their dangerous route, and how they changed America and the world. In a style both personal and historically groundbreaking, acclaimed author Kati Marton (born in Budapest) tells the tale of their youth in Budapest's Golden Age of the early 20th century, their flight, and their lives of extraordinary accomplishment, danger, glamour, and poignancy.
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very interesting, well-narrated
- By D. Littman on 12-17-06
By: Kati Marton
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Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
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Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
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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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Reading My Father
- A Memoir
- By: Alexandra Styron
- Narrated by: Alexandra Styron
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexandra Styron's parents—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sophie’s Choice and his political activist wife, Rose—were, for half a century, leading players on the world’s cultural stage. Alexandra was raised under both the halo of her father’s brilliance and the long shadow of his troubled mind. Reading My Father portrays the epic sweep of an American artist’s life. It is also a tale of filial love, beautifully written with humor, compassion, and grace.
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William Styron Ranks...
- By Douglas on 12-22-13
By: Alexandra Styron
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When Paris Sizzled
- The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, les Annees folles, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of war to find that a new world greeted them - one that reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior.
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Informative, but no sizzle
- By OzEnigma on 06-01-17
By: Mary McAuliffe
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Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story
- A Life of David Foster Wallace
- By: D. T. Max
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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David Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his generation, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace’s tormented, anguished, and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.
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Max avoids hagiography or a sycophant's biography
- By Darwin8u on 06-11-13
By: D. T. Max
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Inga
- Kennedy's Great Love, Hitler's Perfect Beauty, and J. Edgar Hoover's Prime Suspect
- By: Scott Farris
- Narrated by: Scott Farris
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In addition to her romance with Kennedy, Arvad married four times - including to an Egyptian prince, the brilliant filmmaker Paul Fejos, and the famed cowboy movie star Tim McCoy. She had affairs with Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch, the noted surgeon Dr. William Cahan, and Winston Churchill's right hand man, Baron Robert Boothby. But by all accounts her admirers among the European and American elite loved Inga not for her physical beauty, but for her joie de vivre.
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Excellent Kennedy Read
- By James P. Barraza on 04-14-17
By: Scott Farris
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America's Queen
- The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
- By: Sarah Bradford
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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Using remarkable new sources, Sarah Bradford has written a timely celebration of a life that was more private than commonly supposed. Revealing new testimony from many of the couple's friends shows the complexities of this apparently very public relationship and of her controversial marriage to Aristotle Onassis. Here is the private Jackie - neglected wife, vigilant mother, and working widow - whose contradictory and fascinating nature is illuminated by all that Bradford has discovered.
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American Royalty
- By Kindle Customer on 06-10-16
By: Sarah Bradford
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Georgette Heyer
- Biography of a Bestseller
- By: Jennifer Kloester
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international best seller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today's best-selling authors. Despite her enormous popularity, she never gave an interview or appeared in public. Georgette Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17 in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success, and 90 years later it has never been out of print.
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Heyer as a person
- By Jerri C on 06-15-15
What listeners say about Empire of Self
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Gregory Frye
- 02-07-23
Great biography of a literary lion
Jay Parini does it again. I highly recommend this audiobook to anyone interested in Gore Vidal or 20th Century US literature.
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- George Wood
- 01-11-16
Interesting but longwinded
I gained a lot of onsite into the life of Vidal but the writing was almost to detailed at times. It might be that Vidal's life had that much going on. It was like he never stopped doing interesting things.
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3 people found this helpful
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- EarWaxDissertation
- 02-02-16
Shaping a Monument
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I am from the Generation X period of Americanisms. Most of my fellow Gen-Xers are unfamiliar with Vidal's essays, books, plays, or even his epic life in the world of power players and Hollywood icons. There is a lot to learn and consider coming from Gore's insights, even when they are sometimes unpopular. The book is a semi descent introduction to Vidal, but I would mostly hope Gore's books of essays on America's political climate be their first stop in digesting the literary icon.Gore's prediction of the dismantling of America's Empire and the loss of the Republic is now coming to reality.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Vidal and his brilliant jester self.
What do you think the narrator could have done better?
The author does an almost cut and paste job of recanting Vidal's childhood, almost word for word from both of Gore's memoirs "Palimpsest" and "Point to Point Navigation" which I read prior to Parini's work. I am not sure if this is laziness on the author's part, failing to dig deeper into new stories of Gore's early upbringing. But it also may be that most of Gore's family and friends from his childhood years are deceased making it difficult to uncover new avenues to explore. Thankfully, that only accounts for 10% of the books content. What I did appreciate is Parini's critique and brief summary of most of Gore's novels and books. That feat in itself was a mountain to climb considering Vidal's long list of publications. Also, I appreciated Parnini's sharing of his own platonic relationship with Vidal, exposing a softer and more emotionally vulnerable side of Gore in his later years.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
NO, but mostly I felt engaged enough to listen for long periods of an hour or so.
Any additional comments?
The United States of Amnesia...wake up!!
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6 people found this helpful
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- Christopher
- 03-22-16
Well done!
Even as a child, I enjoyed watching Gore Vidal whenever he was on TV. His impatience with idiots mirrored my own. His dialog taught me a great lesson: Just because someone holds a lofty position, does not mean they earned it, nor your respect. I am glad that he lived long enough to put into words my own dismay for Bush and Cheney. Jay Parini has masterfully captured Vidal's personality and his squinty-eyed attitude toward the growing number idiots in the world. John Lescault's sensitive reading, with appropriate pauses, tones and inflection, made this book a joy to "read" while commuting to and from work. Best of all, I am looking forward to locating old video clips and copies of Vidal's essays.
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7 people found this helpful
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- margot
- 10-30-22
Maybe the best GV bio
I stumbled across Jay Parini's book a couple of years ago, reading it at the Internet Archive, having no notion of either his prominence or his longstanding friendship with Mr Vidal. Figured he was just this diamond in the rough, an academic who latched onto Gore's last decades.
No, actually he's one of the few honest agents in the Vidalosphere. If you like Gore's memoirs, or especially if you've never read or heard them—then please! This is the place to start. Parini is both sympathetic and critical, that rare critic whom the subject truly deserves.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jonathan Hurst
- 02-02-21
Great read
I enjoyed this! It told the story of a man who broke ground for the LQBTQ community, even if he didn't want to!
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