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The Dead Beat
- Narrated by: Marilyn Johnson
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Marilyn Johnson was enthralled by the remarkable lives that were marching out of this world - so she sought out the best obits in the English language and the people who spent their lives writing about the dead. She surveyed the darkest corners of Internet chat rooms and made a pilgrimage to London to savor the most caustic and literate obits of all. Now she leads us on a compelling journey into the cult and culture behind the obituary page and the unusual lives we don't quite appreciate until they're gone.
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What listeners say about The Dead Beat
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-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
- anonEmous
- 07-19-11
A Thorough Pleasure
I've subscribed to the Economist for years and stumbled onto their obituaries column and it quickly became a section I would regularily read, a little guiltily though. But for those of us who love reading it makes sense why the obits would be so rewarding: They attempt to communicate something of the expanse of the stary skies of a lived life onto the circumscribed canvass of a few paragraphs. Marilyn Johnson does an admirable job of sharing this interest and her audiobook is peppered with lively examples of traditional biographies filled with the highlights of inspiring triumphs and the abject turpitude of personal failings of notable personages and the everyday greatness of simple and well-lived lives of ordinary people; the various trends in obits over the years; and Johnson's own personal wit and humor in sifting through it all. I found her abook an unqualified delight to listen to!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
- e.jean
- 10-05-10
MARILYN JOHNSON IS THE DEBRA WINGER OF AUDIO BOOKS
I read Marilyn Johnson's Dead Beat when it came out. And now I am enjoying listening to her reading it.
It is FASCINATING subject---and told brilliantly.
Death turns out to be highly comical and always, always has a scary, entertaining story to tell.
2 people found this helpful
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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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5 out of 5 stars
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Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
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The Accidental Life
- An Editor's Notes on Writing and Writers
- By: Terry McDonell
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4 out of 5 stars 36
You might not know Terry McDonell, but you certainly know his work. Among the magazines he has top-edited: Outside, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated. In this revealing memoir, McDonell talks about what really happens when editors and writers work with deadlines ticking (or drinks on the bar). His stories about the people and personalities he's known are both heartbreaking and bitingly funny.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great autobiography of a magazine editor
- By Anthony on 11-21-16
By: Terry McDonell
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But Enough About You
- Essays
- By: Christopher Buckley
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
Christopher Buckley at his best: an extraordinary, wide-ranging selection of essays both hilarious and poignant, irreverent and delightful. In his first book of essays since his 1997 best seller, Wry Martinis, Buckley delivers a rare combination of big ideas and truly fun writing. Listening to these essays is the equivalent of being in the company of a tremendously witty and enlightening companion.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Generally interesting
- By Chief of Staff, ChowChow on 03-23-15
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Cast of Characters
- Wolcott Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of the New Yorker
- By: Thomas Vinciguerra
- Narrated by: Tony Pasqualini
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4 out of 5 stars 54
From its birth in 1925 to the early days of the Cold War, The New Yorker slowly but surely took hold as the country's most prestigious, entertaining, and informative general-interest periodical. In Cast of Characters, Thomas Vinciguerra paints a portrait of the magazine's cadre of charming, wisecracking, driven, troubled, and brilliant writers and editors. He introduces us to Wolcott Gibbs, theater critic, all-around wit, and author of an infamous 1936 parody of Time magazine.
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3 out of 5 stars
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But...Where's Dorothy Parker
- By Constant Reader on 06-05-18
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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
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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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3 out of 5 stars
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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
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This Old Man
- All in Pieces
- By: Roger Angell
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Long known for his range and supple prose (he is the only writer elected to membership in both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters), Angell won the 2015 American Society of Magazine Editors' Best Essay award for "This Old Man", which forms a centerpiece for this audiobook.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Books change as we age.....
- By paintcan on 07-27-17
By: Roger Angell
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The Library Book
- By: Susan Orlean
- Narrated by: Susan Orlean
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,888
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 3,434
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,425
On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual false alarm. As one fireman recounted later, “Once that first stack got going, it was good-bye, Charlie.” The fire was disastrous: It reached 2,000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed 400,000 books and damaged 700,000 more.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Had To Turn It Off
- By Meg on 01-17-19
By: Susan Orlean
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Life Itself
- A Memoir
- By: Roger Ebert
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 565
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 498
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Story4 out of 5 stars 496
Roger Ebert is the best-known film critic of our time. He has been reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and was the first film critic ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. He has appeared on television for four decades, including twenty-three years as cohost of Siskel & Ebert at the Movies. In 2006, complications from thyroid cancer treatment resulted in the loss of his ability to eat, drink, or speak. But with the loss of his voice, Ebert has only become a more prolific and influential writer.
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4 out of 5 stars
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mixed feelings
- By loix on 09-18-11
By: Roger Ebert
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She Made Me Laugh
- My Friend Nora Ephron
- By: Richard Cohen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
Award-winning journalist Richard Cohen, wrote this about his "third-person memoir": "I call this book a third-person memoir. It is about my closest friend, Nora Ephron, and the lives we lived together and how her life got to be bigger until, finally, she wrote her last work, the play, Lucky Guy, about a newspaper columnist dying of cancer while she herself was dying of cancer. I have interviewed many of her other friends - Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Arianna Huffington.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it!
- By Leigh Lerro on 10-27-17
By: Richard Cohen
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Salinger
- By: David Shields, Shane Salerno
- Narrated by: Peter Friedman, January LaVoy, Robert Petkoff, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 132
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4 out of 5 stars 118
Shields and Salerno illuminate most brightly the last 56 years of Salinger’s life: a period that, until now, had remained completely dark to biographers. Provided unprecedented access to diaries, letters, legal records, and secret documents, listeners will feel they have, for the first time, gotten beyond Salinger’s meticulously built-up wall. The result is the definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Ingenious novel or biography? Hard to tell....
- By Melinda on 09-05-13
By: David Shields, and others
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Outlaw Journalist
- The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson
- By: Professor William McKeen
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Esteemed author and journalism professor William McKeen chronicles the mesmerizing life of legendary Gonzo journalist and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas author Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson’s childhood is detailed, along with his explosive relationship with his editors at Playboy and Rolling Stone, his drug use, his controversial persona, and life at his secluded Colorado home.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very enlightening and well written
- By D. Lichtenstein on 05-27-17
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Also a Poet
- A Memoir
- By: Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Ada Calhoun, Lili Taylor, Josephine Brill
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O’Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started 40 years earlier. As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s and her own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Left me in tears
- By Anonymous User on 06-25-22
By: Ada Calhoun
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Browsings
- A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books
- By: Michael Dirda
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 76
From Pulitzer Prize - winning book critic Michael Dirda comes a collection of his most personal and engaging essays on the literary life - the perfect companion for any lover of books. Dirda's latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on literary journalism, book collecting, and the writers he loves. Reaching from the classics to the postmoderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Bag of Csshews
- By Dennis J Gallagher on 03-06-21
By: Michael Dirda
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Logical Family
- A Memoir
- By: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Armistead Maupin
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 208
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 194
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 194
In this long-awaited memoir, the beloved author of the best-selling Tales of the City series chronicles his odyssey from the old South to freewheeling San Francisco and his evolution from curious youth to groundbreaking writer and gay rights pioneer. Also included is an exclusive conversation between Maupin and best-selling author Neil Gaiman.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Ends Abruptly
- By Robert R. on 10-13-17
By: Armistead Maupin
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The Partly Cloudy Patriot
- By: Sarah Vowell
- Narrated by: Sarah Vowell, Conan O'Brien, Seth Green, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,449
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,166
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,165
Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German Filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration. The result is an engrossing audiobook, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the best surprises on AUDIBLE.COM!!
- By Doggy Bird on 04-14-04
By: Sarah Vowell
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Charles Bukowski
- Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life
- By: Howard Sounes
- Narrated by: Howard Sounes
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The American writer Charles Bukowski (1920-94) developed a cult following for his simple and vivid poems, stories and novels based on his experiences as a hard-drinking postal worker in Los Angeles. His classic books include Post Office, Women and Love Is a Dog from Hell. In this engrossing biography, studded with excerpts from Bukowski's writing, Howard Sounes tells the true story of Bukowski's life in the same punchy style as his subject.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great biography
- By Nazariy Telyuk on 01-29-20
By: Howard Sounes
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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
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 185
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 161
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 159
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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amazing what you can learn from brevity
- By Schwartz-Burrill on 09-15-11