Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
I Used to Be Charming  By  cover art

I Used to Be Charming

By: Eve Babitz, Sara Kramer - Editor, Molly Lambert - introduction
Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.00

Buy for $25.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Previously uncollected nonfiction pieces by Hollywood's ultimate It Girl about everything from fashion to tango to Jim Morrison and Nicholas Cage.

Eve Babitz knew everyone, tried everything (at least once), and was never shy about sharing her thoughts on any subject, be it sex, weight loss, drug use, or her ambivalence toward New York City. From the 1970s through the 1990s, Babitz wrote on a wild variety of topics for some of the biggest publications around, from Esquire to Vogue to The New York Times Book Review. I Used to Be Charming brings together this nonfiction work.

All previously uncollected, these pieces range from sharp personal essays on body image and the male gaze to playful meditations on everything from ballroom dancing to kissing to perfume. There are breathtaking celebrity profiles, too. In one, Nicholas Cage takes her for a ride in his ’67 Stingray and in another she dishes about dragging Jim Morrison to bed before the Doors had even settled on a band name (“Jim was embarrassing because he wasn’t cool, but I still loved him,” she writes). In another essay, the author ponders her earliest days in the spotlight, posing nude with Marcel Duchamp, and in another, the never-before-published title essay, she writes about the tragic accident that compelled her to leave that spotlight behind forever.

©2019 Eve Babitz (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Introduction © 2019 by Molly Lambert.

What listeners say about I Used to Be Charming

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narrator Destroys Narrative

The self-congratulatory, wry tone of this performer’s voice is unnecessary and wrecks the writer’s writing voice. This narrator also knows nothing of the place or the time and thus makes mistakes when speaking the names of areas and products. If I could see, I would have read the book but I can’t and I wanted to know the content of these Babitz pieces so I endured.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Only Thing Wrong - the Narrator

Some of the most popular narrators on Audible.com can really blow it when reading personal essays. The author, Eve Babitz, has a wry wit and off-hand way of describing perverse events in her life. The narrator here reads along, punching up dialogue with stunning tone-deafness. Tolerable at best. I gave up and bought the book to read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful