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The Most Dangerous Book
- The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
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Publisher's summary
For more than a decade, the book that literary critics now consider the most important novel in the English language was illegal to own, sell, advertise or purchase in most of the English-speaking world. James Joyce's big blue book, Ulysses, ushered in the modernist era and changed the novel for all time. But the genius of Ulysses was also its danger: it omitted absolutely nothing. All of the minutiae of Leopold Bloom's day, including its unspeakable details, unfold with careful precision in its pages. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice immediately banned the novel as "obscene, lewd, and lascivious". Joyce, along with some of the most important publishers and writers of his era, had to fight for years to win the freedom to publish it. The Most Dangerous Book tells the remarkable story surrounding Ulysses, from the first stirrings of Joyce's inspiration in 1904 to its landmark federal obscenity trial in 1933.
Literary historian Kevin Birmingham follows Joyce's years as a young writer, his feverish work on his literary masterpiece, and his ardent love affair with Nora Barnacle, the model for Molly Bloom. Joyce and Nora socialized with literary greats like Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot and Sylvia Beach. Their support helped Joyce fight an array of anti-vice crusaders while his book was disguised and smuggled, pirated and burned in the United States and Britain. The long struggle for publication added to the growing pressures of Joyce's deteriorating eyesight, finances and home life.
Birmingham's archival work brings to light new information about both Joyce and the story surrounding Ulysses. Written for ardent Joyceans as well as novices who want to get to the heart of the greatest novel of the 20th century, The Most Dangerous Book is a gripping examination of how the world came to say yes to Ulysses.
Critic reviews
"Kevin Birmingham’s new book about the long censorship fight over James Joyce’s Ulysses braids eight or nine good stories into one mighty strand... The best story that’s told… may be that of the arrival of a significant young nonfiction writer. Mr. Birmingham, a lecturer in history and literature at Harvard, appears fully formed in this, his first book. The historian and the writer in him are utterly in sync. He marches through this material with authority and grace, an instinct for detail and smacking quotation and a fair amount of wit. It’s a measured yet bravura performance." (Dwight Garner, The New York Times)
"Birmingham has produced an excellent work of consolidation.... [A] lively history.... The Most Dangerous Book is impressively researched and especially useful for its meticulous accounts of various legal battles. It is meant to be fun to read and, setting aside my fogeyish cavils, it is." (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post)
"[G]ripping. Like the novel which it takes as its subject, it deserves to be read." (The Economist)
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Narration ruined it for me
- By Julia on 11-09-14
By: Jill Lepore
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The Story of America
- Essays on Origins
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Colleen Devine
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Story of America, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories - from John Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address - to show how American democracy is bound up with the history of print. Over the centuries, Americans have read and written their way into a political culture of ink and type. Part civics primer, part cultural history, The Story of America excavates the origins of everything from the paper ballot and the Constitution to the I.O.U. and the dictionary.
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A Fun Read on Historical Subjects
- By Jim on 08-31-13
By: Jill Lepore
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The Ambulance Drivers
- Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War
- By: James McGrath Morris
- Narrated by: Dean Temple
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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After meeting for the first time on the front lines of World War I, two aspiring writers forge an intense 20-year friendship and write some of America's greatest novels, giving voice to a "lost generation" shaken by war. Eager to find his way in life and words, John Dos Passos first witnessed the horror of trench warfare in France as a volunteer ambulance driver retrieving the dead and seriously wounded from the front line. Later in the war, he briefly met another young writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was just arriving for his service in the ambulance corps.
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Morris always delivers interesting biographies...
- By NMwritergal on 04-08-17
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Ayn Rand and the World She Made
- By: Anne C. Heller
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Ayn Rand is the author of two phenomenally best-selling ideological novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which have sold over 12 million copies in the United States alone. Through them, she built a right-wing cult following in the late 1950s and became the guiding light of Libertarianism and of White House economic policy in the 1960s and '70s. Her defenses of radical individualism and of selfishness as a "capitalist virtue" have permanently altered the American cultural landscape.
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Great history of both Rand and her era
- By Mark on 08-07-10
By: Anne C. Heller
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The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
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Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City, when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and cowrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction.
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Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
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And So It Goes
- Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
- By: Charles J. Shields
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
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New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut’s life, from his childhood to his death in 2007, and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
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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
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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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Nazi Literature in the Americas
- By: Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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A tour de force of black humor and imaginary erudition, Nazi Literature in the Americas presents itself as a biographical dictionary of writers who espoused extreme right-wing ideologies in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Eerie and fascinating
- By Jikai Zenshin on 03-19-21
By: Roberto Bolaño, and others
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Dreamers and Deceivers
- True and Untold Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Jeremy Lowell
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
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The new nonfiction from number-one best-selling author and popular radio and television host Glenn Beck.
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Astounding History stories gather life
- By Gil on 11-13-14
By: Glenn Beck
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Young Radicals
- In the War for American Ideals
- By: Jeremy McCarter
- Narrated by: Jeremy McCarter
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Where do we find our ideals? What does it mean to live for them - and to risk dying for them? For Americans during World War I, these weren't abstract questions. Young Radicals tells the story of five activists, intellectuals, and troublemakers who agitated for freedom and equality in the hopeful years before the war, then fought to defend those values in a country pitching into violence and chaos.
By: Jeremy McCarter
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Out of Mao's Shadow
- The Struggle for the Soul of a New China
- By: Philip P. Pan
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
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Prize-winning journalist Philip P. Pan offers an unprecedented inside look at the momentous battle underway for China's future. On one side is the entrenched party elite determined to preserve its authoritarian grip on power. On the other is a collection of lawyers, journalists, entrepreneurs, activists, hustlers, and dreamers striving to build a more tolerant, open, and democratic China.
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Great insight into changes in China
- By Paul on 04-14-09
By: Philip P. Pan
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Ida M. Tarbell
- The Woman Who Challenged Big Business - and Won!
- By: Emily Arnold McCully
- Narrated by: Emily Arnold McCully
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
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Born in 1857 and raised in oil country, Ida M. Tarbell was one of the first investigative journalists and probably the most influential in her time. Her series of articles on the Standard Oil Trust, a complicated business empire run by John D. Rockefeller, revealed to readers the underhanded, even illegal practices that had led to Rockefeller's success.
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Excellent!
- By AKA1 on 03-16-19
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Thomas Jefferson had three daughters: Martha and Maria by his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, and Harriet by his slave Sally Hemings. Although the three women shared a father, the similarities end there. Martha and Maria received a fine convent school education while they lived with their father during his diplomatic posting in Paris. Once they returned home, however, the sisters found their options limited by the laws and customs of early America. Harriet Hemings followed a different path. She escaped slavery — apparently with the assistance of Jefferson himself.
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What listeners say about The Most Dangerous Book
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ls groves
- 06-29-14
I now understand the origins of Modernism.
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. Incredibly researched, wonderful passages, terrific reading.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Most Dangerous Book?
The irony of learning that it was the pirated copy that was first legalized in the United States.
Which character – as performed by John Keating – was your favorite?
NA
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
There were a great many. I was particularly moved by Joyce's persistence-- and by the a-ha moment of understanding his focus on form.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Sandra Lorentzen
- 01-10-23
Best prelude to Ulysses
So glad I read this book before attempting Ulysses. Not only do I appreciate what it took to write the masterpiece, it gave me a context to help get me through the whole work without being defeated as I might otherwise have been.
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- RDB
- 07-22-14
Fascinating combination of literature and history
You cannot fully appreciate Ulysses without first understanding the times in which it was written and published. The Most Dangerous Book does both extremely well. I have a much deeper understanding of the immense task it was to bring Ulysses to the world and the impact it had on all of us to this day. A great read.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Theresa A.
- 03-28-23
Absolutely fantastic!
A wow! This is a must read book. Will this ever not be topical? I hope so, but that time is not now. The history around this novel is fascinating and worth the retell every few years, it's quite fresh.
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- Annette
- 08-01-14
a great book about a great book
What did you like best about this story?
this is about james joyce's struggle against censorship, being alone against a lot of troubles and enemies. he was in exile abroad, had few friends an no money at all most of the time. and the remarkable thing is: he did not give in. otherwise ulysses would never have seen the light of day.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Professor Nobody
- 01-27-18
Astonishing
Quite simply the best book about a book out there.
The narrator is beyond competent. His rhythm and enthusiasm carry you.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Chris Reich
- 06-23-14
Excellent and Informative
This book made my annual Bloomsday read of Ulysses even more meaningful. I gained new insight into Joyce and the struggle to get the greatest novel written published.
This book gives a lot more detail about the struggle with health that Joyce went through. Most biographies somewhat gloss over the health problems and especially the root cause of his eye problems: syphilis. The book makes me wonder about his daughter's madness. Certainly Joyce's wife contracted the disease and likely passed it to the children since both were born prior to the development of antibiotics. Was Lucia's madness a result of syphilis?
This is well presented though the pronunciation at times seems dicey. I swear the reader mispronounces the name of the very book, Ulysses, for the first 2/3rds of the book. Then, almost as though someone catches it, he starts pronouncing it correctly.
What do you think? Am I hearing it wrong?
Anyway, I highly recommend this book if you're a Joyce fan.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 02-17-19
wonderful and great
very good job
thanks those people who struggled for freedom on many occasions. so we can enjoy lots of fun
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- David Alan
- 05-08-15
More than just a biography of a book...
but, telling explanation of our progress and status as a civilization. Really, that's what I got from this book!
There.
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- Michael
- 07-08-14
Might just create some more Joyce fans
This very readable and bawdy biography of the bawdy book Ulysses is also enough of Joyce's own story that I finally feel I don't really need to open the Ellmann biography that's been sitting on my shelf for many years. There's so much great stuff here about Beach, Hemingway, Cerf, and of course Barnacle - and other important characters I'd never heard of. Birmingham's book is so entertaining that it might just persuade readers to finally tackle - and enjoy - Ulysses. Unlike another reader, I like Keating and his Quirkes (although where's Timothy Dalton? But, in the spirit of Mr. Joyce, I digress).
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