-
My Brilliant Friends
- Our Lives in Feminism
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
My Brilliant Friends
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- A Novel
- By: Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,074
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,455
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,446
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
This book sucked the life out of me
- By RMan on 08-08-22
By: Gabrielle Zevin
-
How to Know a Person
- The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
- By: David Brooks
- Narrated by: David Brooks
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,306
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,237
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,235
As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.” And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A book he was ready to write
- By Adam Shields on 11-17-23
By: David Brooks
-
Praying with Jane Eyre
- Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice
- By: Vanessa Zoltan
- Narrated by: Vanessa Zoltan, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 55
Our favorite books keep us company, give us hope, and help us find meaning in a chaotic world. In this fresh and relatable work, atheist chaplain Vanessa Zoltan blends memoir and personal growth as she grapples with the notions of family legacy and identity through the lens of her favorite novel, Jane Eyre.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A new appreciation for secular texts
- By Cassandra on 04-07-24
By: Vanessa Zoltan
-
They Called Us Exceptional
- And Other Lies That Raised Us
- By: Prachi Gupta
- Narrated by: Prachi Gupta
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 105
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 106
Prachi Gupta’s family embodied the American Dream: a doctor father and a nurturing mother who raised two high-achieving children with one foot in the Indian American community, the other in Pennsylvania’s white suburbia. But their belonging was predicated on a powerful myth: that Asian Americans have perfected the alchemy of middle-class life, raising tight-knit, ambitious families that are immune to hardship.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good good
- By Wild on 08-29-23
By: Prachi Gupta
-
Bittersweet
- How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
- By: Susan Cain
- Narrated by: Susan Cain
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,697
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,457
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,442
With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an untapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she employs the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, connection, and transcendence.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I REALLY wanted to love this book!
- By Leo B. on 05-02-22
By: Susan Cain
-
Sontag
- Her Life and Work
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Cloying voice
- By Suzanne on 11-02-19
By: Benjamin Moser
-
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
- A Novel
- By: Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,074
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,455
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,446
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
This book sucked the life out of me
- By RMan on 08-08-22
By: Gabrielle Zevin
-
How to Know a Person
- The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
- By: David Brooks
- Narrated by: David Brooks
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,306
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,237
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,235
As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.” And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A book he was ready to write
- By Adam Shields on 11-17-23
By: David Brooks
-
Praying with Jane Eyre
- Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice
- By: Vanessa Zoltan
- Narrated by: Vanessa Zoltan, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 55
Our favorite books keep us company, give us hope, and help us find meaning in a chaotic world. In this fresh and relatable work, atheist chaplain Vanessa Zoltan blends memoir and personal growth as she grapples with the notions of family legacy and identity through the lens of her favorite novel, Jane Eyre.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A new appreciation for secular texts
- By Cassandra on 04-07-24
By: Vanessa Zoltan
-
They Called Us Exceptional
- And Other Lies That Raised Us
- By: Prachi Gupta
- Narrated by: Prachi Gupta
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 105
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 106
Prachi Gupta’s family embodied the American Dream: a doctor father and a nurturing mother who raised two high-achieving children with one foot in the Indian American community, the other in Pennsylvania’s white suburbia. But their belonging was predicated on a powerful myth: that Asian Americans have perfected the alchemy of middle-class life, raising tight-knit, ambitious families that are immune to hardship.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good good
- By Wild on 08-29-23
By: Prachi Gupta
-
Bittersweet
- How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
- By: Susan Cain
- Narrated by: Susan Cain
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,697
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,457
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,442
With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an untapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she employs the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, connection, and transcendence.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I REALLY wanted to love this book!
- By Leo B. on 05-02-22
By: Susan Cain
-
Sontag
- Her Life and Work
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Cloying voice
- By Suzanne on 11-02-19
By: Benjamin Moser
-
The Art of Memoir
- By: Mary Karr
- Narrated by: Mary Karr
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 703
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 600
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 584
Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process. (Plus all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and friends get told - and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in depth.)
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Brilliant!
- By A. Potter on 01-18-16
By: Mary Karr
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,048
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 922
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 916
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
- A Memoir
- By: Jenn Shapland
- Narrated by: Jenn Shapland
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
How do you tell the real story of someone misremembered - an icon and idol - alongside your own? Jenn Shapland’s celebrated debut is both question and answer: an immersive, surprising exploration of one of America’s most beloved writers, alongside a genre-defying examination of identity, queerness, memory, obsession, and love.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Needed/Powerful
- By Amazon Customer on 06-01-23
By: Jenn Shapland
-
Philip Roth
- The Biography
- By: Blake Bailey
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 31 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
"I don't want you to rehabilitate me," Philip Roth said to his only authorized biographer, Blake Bailey. "Just make me interesting." Granted complete independence and access, Bailey spent almost 10 years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and listening to Roth's own breathtakingly candid confessions. Tracing Roth's path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth's engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
moved
- By Michael on 08-18-21
By: Blake Bailey
-
Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz
- The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton
- By: Gail Crowther
- Narrated by: Imani Jade Powers
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Introduced at a workshop in Boston University led by the acclaimed and famous poet Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton formed a friendship that would soon evolve into a fierce rivalry, colored by jealousy and respect in equal terms.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good Dual Bio
- By J. on 07-04-21
By: Gail Crowther
-
Red Comet
- The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
- By: Heather Clark
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 45 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 341
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 291
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 289
With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark brings to life the brilliant Sylvia Plath, who had precocious poetic ambition and was an accomplished published writer even before she became a star at Smith College. Refusing to read Plath’s work as if her every act was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark considers the sociopolitical context as she thoroughly explores Plath’s world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Amazing!
- By Blurryface on 10-28-20
By: Heather Clark
-
Square Haunting
- Five Writers in London Between the Wars
- By: Francesca Wade
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
Mecklenburgh Square has always been a radical address. Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, these townhouses have borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures - many of whom were extraordinary women. United by their desire to experiment with new ways of living - and, therefore, of being - these authors and thinkers were trailblazers in their commitment to creative independence.
By: Francesca Wade
-
I, Asimov
- A Memoir
- By: Isaac Asimov
- Narrated by: Jon Lindstrom
- Length: 24 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
Arguably the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, Isaac Asimov also possessed one of the most brilliant and original minds of our time. His accessible style and far-reaching interests in subjects ranging from science to humor to history earned him the nickname "the Great Explainer". I. Asimov is his personal story - vivid, open, and honest - as only Asimov himself could tell it.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This great book is now an unabridged release!
- By NM on 12-16-20
By: Isaac Asimov
-
Still Writing
- The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Dani Shapiro
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
From Dani Shapiro, best-selling author of Devotion and Slow Motion, comes a witty, heartfelt, and practical look at the exhilarating and challenging process of storytelling. At once a memoir, a meditation on the artistic process, and advice on craft, Still Writing is an intimate companion to living a creative life. Writers - and anyone with an artistic temperament - will find inspiration and comfort here.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Inspiring but dark, better to read than listen
- By Raquel on 10-22-21
By: Dani Shapiro
-
Write for Your Life
- By: Anna Quindlen
- Narrated by: Anna Quindlen
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fabulous speaker
- By Lifelong Reader on 04-29-24
By: Anna Quindlen
-
Updike
- By: Adam Begley
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 20 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
A masterful, much-anticipated biography of one of the most celebrated figures in American literature: Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike - a candid, intimate, and richly detailed look at his life and work. In this magisterial biography, Adam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike, the acclaimed novelist, poet, short-story writer, and critic who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Literary biography at its best
- By Laurene on 04-05-15
By: Adam Begley
-
Monsters
- A Fan's Dilemma
- By: Claire Dederer
- Narrated by: Claire Dederer
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 201
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 172
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 172
Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I needed this book.
- By Jennifer E. Glapion on 05-16-23
By: Claire Dederer
Publisher's summary
My Brilliant Friends is a group biography of three women’s friendships forged in second-wave feminism. Poignant and politically charged, the audiobook is a captivating personal account of the complexities of women’s bonds.
Nancy K. Miller describes her friendships with three well-known scholars and literary critics: Carolyn Heilbrun, Diane Middlebrook, and Naomi Schor. Their relationships were simultaneously intimate and professional, emotional and intellectual, animated by the ferment of the women’s movement. Friendships like these sustained the generation of women whose entrance into male-dominated professions is still reshaping American society. The stories of their intertwined lives and books embody feminism’s belief in the political importance of personal experience. Reflecting on aging and loss, ambition and rivalry, competition and collaboration, Miller shows why and how friendship’s ties matter in the worlds of work and love. Inspired in part by the portraits of the intensely enmeshed lives in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, My Brilliant Friends provides a passionate and timely vision of friendship between women.
More from the same
Author
Related to this topic
-
Sontag
- Her Life and Work
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Cloying voice
- By Suzanne on 11-02-19
By: Benjamin Moser
-
Philip Roth
- The Biography
- By: Blake Bailey
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 31 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
"I don't want you to rehabilitate me," Philip Roth said to his only authorized biographer, Blake Bailey. "Just make me interesting." Granted complete independence and access, Bailey spent almost 10 years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and listening to Roth's own breathtakingly candid confessions. Tracing Roth's path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth's engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
moved
- By Michael on 08-18-21
By: Blake Bailey
-
Square Haunting
- Five Writers in London Between the Wars
- By: Francesca Wade
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
Mecklenburgh Square has always been a radical address. Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, these townhouses have borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures - many of whom were extraordinary women. United by their desire to experiment with new ways of living - and, therefore, of being - these authors and thinkers were trailblazers in their commitment to creative independence.
By: Francesca Wade
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 382
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 341
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 340
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.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Max avoids hagiography or a sycophant's biography
- By Darwin8u on 06-11-13
By: D. T. Max
-
Parfit
- A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 32
Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Loved it
- By Anna Karenina on 07-05-23
By: David Edmonds
-
Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 52
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
-
Sontag
- Her Life and Work
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Cloying voice
- By Suzanne on 11-02-19
By: Benjamin Moser
-
Philip Roth
- The Biography
- By: Blake Bailey
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 31 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
"I don't want you to rehabilitate me," Philip Roth said to his only authorized biographer, Blake Bailey. "Just make me interesting." Granted complete independence and access, Bailey spent almost 10 years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and listening to Roth's own breathtakingly candid confessions. Tracing Roth's path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth's engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
moved
- By Michael on 08-18-21
By: Blake Bailey
-
Square Haunting
- Five Writers in London Between the Wars
- By: Francesca Wade
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
Mecklenburgh Square has always been a radical address. Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, these townhouses have borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures - many of whom were extraordinary women. United by their desire to experiment with new ways of living - and, therefore, of being - these authors and thinkers were trailblazers in their commitment to creative independence.
By: Francesca Wade
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 382
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 341
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 340
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.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Max avoids hagiography or a sycophant's biography
- By Darwin8u on 06-11-13
By: D. T. Max
-
Parfit
- A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality
- By: David Edmonds
- Narrated by: Zeb Soanes
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 32
Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Loved it
- By Anna Karenina on 07-05-23
By: David Edmonds
-
Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 52
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
-
Process
- The Writing Lives of Great Authors
- By: Sarah Stodola
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 154
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 125
Ernest Hemingway, Zadie Smith, Joan Didion, Franz Kafka, David Foster Wallace, and more. In Process, acclaimed journalist Sarah Stodola examines the creative methods of literature's most transformative figures. Each chapter contains a mini biography of one of the world's most lauded authors, focused solely on his or her writing process.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent!
- By Davina Rush on 04-10-15
By: Sarah Stodola
-
Love and Limerence
- The Experience of Being in Love
- By: Dorothy Tennov
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
First released more than 40 years ago, Love and Limerence has become a classic in the psychology of emotion. As relevent today as it was then, this book offers insight into love, infatuation, madness, and all flavors of emotion in between.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
rundown of surveys and stats
- By supermichelle on 12-28-22
By: Dorothy Tennov
-
This Close to Happy
- A Reckoning with Depression
- By: Daphne Merkin
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 58
This Close to Happy is the rare, vividly personal account of what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression, written from a woman's perspective and informed by an acute understanding of the implications of this disease over a lifetime. Taking off from essays on depression she has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, Daphne Merkin casts her eye back to her beginnings to try to sort out the root causes of her affliction.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I should be the last person to recommend this book
- By Mariaposa on 03-04-17
By: Daphne Merkin
-
To Show and to Tell
- The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
- By: Phillip Lopate
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 62
Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Not a guide on writing personal essays
- By A. Yoshida on 08-07-13
By: Phillip Lopate
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,048
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 922
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 916
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
Reading Like a Writer
- By: Francine Prose
- Narrated by: Nanette Savard
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 147
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 142
In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters and discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire listeners to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Practical, literate, generous
- By Gare on 04-13-08
By: Francine Prose
-
What Would Frida Do?
- A Guide to Living Boldly
- By: Arianna Davis
- Narrated by: Marisa Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 66
Revered as much for her fierce spirit as she is for her art, Frida Kahlo stands today as a brazen symbol of daring creativity. She was a woman ahead of her time whose paintings have earned her generations of admirers around the globe. But perhaps her greatest work of art was her own life. What Would Frida Do? explores the feminist icon's signature style, outspoken politics, and boldness in love and art, even in the face of pain and heartbreak.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I was excited
- By Edgar E Armendariz on 01-14-21
By: Arianna Davis
-
My Life with Bob
- Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
- By: Pamela Paul
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Pamela Paul
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 66
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 62
Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for 28 years - carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk - reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob. Bob is Paul's Book of Books, a journal that records every book she's ever read.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An uncanny mirror and a celebration of book love
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 07-28-19
By: Pamela Paul
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
-
The Memoir Project
- A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text For Writing & Life
- By: Marion Roach Smith
- Narrated by: Marion Roach Smith
- Length: 3 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 191
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 165
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 163
Whether or not one has lived an exceptional or dramatic life, we inherently understand that writing memoir—whether it’s a book, blog, or just a letter to a child - is the single greatest portal to self-examination. Stop treading water in writing exercises or hiding behind “writer’s block” and learn how to write with intent. Marion Roach Smith’s disarmingly frank but wildly fun tactics offer you simple and effective guidelines that work. Your legacy beings now.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
amazing what you can learn from brevity
- By Schwartz-Burrill on 09-15-11
-
Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 73
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 74
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.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silverthorne on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline