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I Just Keep Talking
- A Life in Essays
- Narrated by: Nell Irvin Painter
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
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Publisher's summary
From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it.
Throughout her prolific writing career, Nell Painter has published works on such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Malcolm X. Her unique vantage on American history pushes the boundaries of personal narrative and academic authorship. Led by an unbridled curiosity for her subjects, Painter asks listeners to reconsider ideas of race, politics, and identity. I Just Keep Talking assembles her writing for the first time into a single volume, displaying the breadth and depth of Painter’s decades-long historical inquiry and the evolution of Black political thought—and includes a dazzling introduction and coda being published for the first time in this collection. From her mining of figures like Carrie Buck and Martin Delaney for their resonance today, to a deep dive into the history of exclusion through the work of Toni Morrison, to a discussion of the American political landscape after the 2016 election, Painter nimbly portrays the trials of a country frequently at war with itself.
Along with Painter’s writing, this collection offers her original artwork, threaded throughout the book as counterpoint and emphasis. Her visual art shows a deft mind turning toward the tragedy and humor of her subjects; pulling from newspapers, personal records, and original sketches, Painter’s artwork testifies to the dialectic of tremendous change and stasis that continues to shape American history.
These essays resist easy answers in favor of complexity, the inescapable sense of our country’s potential thwarted by its failures. This collection will surely solidify Painter’s place among the finest critics and writers of the last half century.
This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains artwork and other visuals from the book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic reviews
One of Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2024 • One of Electric Lit's 75 Books by Women of Color To Read in 2024
“Nell Irvin Painter is one of the towering Black intellects of the last half century…[I Just Keep Talking] is more than an odyssey for the senses; it’s a revelation that will inspire courage in anyone seeking to express their truth.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
“Razor-sharp analysis lights up every page…[I Just Keep Talking] affirms Painter’s reputation as a historian and political commentator par excellence.”—Publisher’s Weekly *starred review*
“Painter. . . gathers more than 40 previously published essays, framed by a new introduction and coda, reflecting her shrewd analyses of issues including race, class, and gender; history and historiography; police brutality and poverty; art, education, and politics. . . A vibrant, insightful collection from an indispensable voice.”—Kirkus Reviews, *starred review*
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- By: Caroline Crampton
- Narrated by: Caroline Crampton
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Caroline Crampton’s life was upended at the age of seventeen, when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a relatively rare blood cancer. After years of invasive treatment, she was finally given the all clear. But being cured of the cancer didn’t mean she felt well. Instead, the fear lingered, and she found herself always on the alert, braced for signs that the illness had reemerged.
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Standing at Armageddon
- A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era
- By: Nell Irvin Painter
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Standing at Armageddon is a comprehensive and lively historical account of America's shift from a rural and agrarian society to an urban and industrial society.
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Great history of this era
- By Anonymous User on 12-18-23
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The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Brooks
- Narrated by: Katie Leung, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
There is only one way to travel across the Wastelands: on the Trans-Siberian Express, a train as famous for its luxury as for its danger. The train is never short of passengers, eager to catch sight of Wastelands creatures more miraculous and terrifying than anything they could imagine. But on the train's last journey, something went horribly wrong, though no one seems to remember what exactly happened. Not even Zhang Weiwei, who has spent her life onboard and thought she knew all of the train’s secrets.
By: Sarah Brooks
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A Walk in the Park
- By: Kevin Fedarko
- Narrated by: Kevin Fedarko
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.”
By: Kevin Fedarko
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Our Kindred Creatures
- How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals
- By: Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy
- Narrated by: Tanis Parenteau
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In Our Kindred Creatures, Bill Wasik, editorial director of The New York Times Magazine, and veterinarian Monica Murphy offer a fascinating history of this crusade and the battles it sparked in American life. On the side of reform were such leaders as George Angell, the inspirational head of Massachusetts’s animal-welfare society and the American publisher of the novel Black Beauty; Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Caroline White of Philadelphia, who fought against medical experiments that used live animals; and many more.
By: Bill Wasik, and others
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Minority Rule
- The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People - and the Fight to Resist It
- By: Ari Berman
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy today: a blatant disregard for the will of the majority. Through voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, dark money, the takeover of the courts, and the whitewashing of history, reactionary white conservatives have strategically entrenched power in the face of a massive demographic and political shift.
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SO much great information!
- By CharlieSeymourJr on 05-01-24
By: Ari Berman
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You Get What You Pay For
- Essays
- By: Morgan Parker
- Narrated by: Morgan Parker
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dubbed a voice of her generation, poet and writer Morgan Parker has spent much of her adulthood in therapy, trying to square the resonance of her writing with the alienation she feels in nearly every aspect of life, from her lifelong singleness to a battle with depression. She traces this loneliness to an inability to feel truly safe with others and a historic hyperawareness stemming from the effects of slavery.
By: Morgan Parker
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The Sheltering Sky
- A Novel
- By: Paul Bowles
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this classic work of psychological terror, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans apprehend an alien culture—and the ways in which their incomprehension destroys them. The story of three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky is at once merciless and heartbreaking in its compassion. It etches the limits of human reason and intelligence—perhaps even the limits of human life—when they touch the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert.
By: Paul Bowles
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The Last Word
- A Novel
- By: Elly Griffiths
- Narrated by: Nina Wadia
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Natalka and Edwin are perfect if improbable partners in a detective agency. At eighty-four, Edwin regularly claims that he’s the oldest detective in England. He is a master at surveillance, deploying his age as a cloak of invisibility. Natalka, Ukrainian-born and more than fifty years his junior, is a math whizz, who takes any cases concerning fraud or deception. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated. She loves a murder, as she’s fond of saying, and none have come the agency’s way. That is until local writer Melody Chambers dies.
By: Elly Griffiths
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Memory Piece
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Ko
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity. By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier.
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Memory vs Present
- By Jen Barlow on 05-02-24
By: Lisa Ko
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Ghosted
- An American Story
- By: Nancy French
- Narrated by: Nancy French
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A compelling, thought-provoking memoir about Nancy French's journey from her family's mountain roots to success as a ghostwriter, only to be rejected by her party, church, and community. Ghosted by New York Times bestselling author Nancy French is for all who were alienated by those closest to them and left spiritually and politically homeless.
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Amazing Story, Skillfully Told
- By David on 05-02-24
By: Nancy French
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Fire Weather
- A True Story from a Hotter World
- By: John Vaillant
- Narrated by: Alan Carlson
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.
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Fantastic
- By Barbara on 06-24-23
By: John Vaillant