The Peanuts Papers

Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life

By: Andrew Blauner - editor

Narrated by: Mark Boyett, JD Jackson, Khristine Hvam, Allyson Johnson, Dina Pearlman, Bill Andrew Quinn, Richard Ferrone, Jonathan Davis, Elizabeth Evans, Steve Rimpici, Kevin T. Collins, Mack Sanderson, Josh Hurley

Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

A one-of-a-kind celebration of America's greatest comic strip - and the life lessons it can teach us - from a stellar array of writers and artists

Over the span of 50 years, Charles M. Schulz created a comic strip that is one of the indisputable glories of American popular culture - hilarious, poignant, inimitable. Some 20 years after the last strip appeared, the characters Schulz brought to life in Peanuts continue to resonate with millions of fans, their beguiling four-panel adventures and television escapades offering lessons about happiness, friendship, disappointment, childhood, and life itself. 

In The Peanuts Papers, 33 writers and artists reflect on the deeper truths of Schulz’s deceptively simple comic, its impact on their lives and art and on the broader culture. These enchanting, affecting, and often quite personal essays show just how much Peanuts means to its many admirers - and the ways it invites us to ponder, in the words of Sarah Boxer, “how to survive and still be a decent human being” in an often bewildering world. Featuring essays, memoirs, poems, and two original comic strips, here is the ultimate listener's companion for every Peanuts fan.

Featuring:

Jill Bialosky 

Lisa Birnbach 

Sarah Boxer

Jennifer Finney Boylan 

Ivan Brunetti 

Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell 

Rich Cohen 

Gerald Early 

Umberto Eco

Jonathan Franzen 

Ira Glass

Adam Gopnik 

David Hajdu 

Bruce Handy 

David Kamp 

Maxine Hong Kingston

Chuck Klosterman 

Peter D. Kramer 

Jonathan Lethem 

Rick Moody 

Ann Patchett 

Kevin Powell

Joe Queenan

Nicole Rudick 

George Saunders 

Elissa Schappell 

Janice Shapiro 

Mona Simpson 

Leslie Stein 

Clifford Thompson 

David L. Ulin 

Chris Ware

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. 

©2019 Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

Insightful essays

A great collection of essays celebrating the work of Charles Schulz. The contributors generally agree (as I do) that the prime of the Peanuts strip was its first 20-25 years, before it became largely cutesy and repetitive. In the early years it was hugely innovative, gently humorous and endlessly wise and philosophical.
The essayists in this collection share their memories of the way Peanuts cartoons affected them and influenced their lives and/or careers, and of the man who created them. Some illustrate their talks with descriptions and analysis of their favourite strips or characters. The essays are beautifully narrated by a variety of different voices and are generally a joy to listen to. However, there is a single swear word (I think it was in the Poems section) which strikes a jarring note as it seems inappropriate in this context.

I grew up reading the Peanuts cartoons and still return to them often to renew my acquaintance with the unique characters who populate them.