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This Is Water: The Original David Foster Wallace Recording
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace
- Length: 24 mins
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This Is Water: The Original David Foster Wallace Recording
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In David Lipsky's view, David Foster Wallace was the best young writer in America. Wallace's pieces for Harper's magazine in the '90s were, according to Lipsky, like hearing for the first time the brain voice of everybody I knew: Here was how we all talked, experienced, thought. It was like smelling the damp in the air, seeing the first flash from a storm a mile away. You knew something gigantic was coming.
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Publisher's summary
Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. This is the audio recording of David Foster Wallace delivering that very address. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.
Writing with his one-of-a-kind blend of causal humor, exacting intellect, and practical philosophy, David Foster Wallace probes the challenges of daily living and offers advice that renews us with every listen.
What listeners say about This Is Water: The Original David Foster Wallace Recording
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- John Nosal
- 10-09-12
The best 20 minutes of my life.
I have listened to "This is Water" hundreds of times. At first, I would listen and laugh. Now, years later, I listen and cry. The text hasn't changed, I have. This is the best 20 minute synopsis of the purpose of life that I have ever heard.
(Also highly recommended - "Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace")
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16 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
- SHAWN
- 01-14-11
Cheap production quality
Why would the producers of this "audiobook" overlay loud music at the end so that you can barely make out what Wallace said but then lower the volume of the music when they read off the production credits? Maddening!!
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Stephen
- 05-20-15
Powerful
This quiet, unassuming speech packs a lot of Truth in its 20-minute delivery by the author, David Foster Wallace. It is a meditation that I have come back to many times.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Not You
- 05-31-15
Great narrative
This is a great commencement speech. Perhaps the greatest ever. I highly recommend this recording. Give it a listen.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Christopher Vogt
- 03-11-15
Life Changing
This speech quite literally changed my life when I heard it three years ago. I think it is the best articulation of mindfulness I have ever come across. I listened to this speech at a time in my life I was going through some difficult health problems and it really helped me a lot. I would recommend it to anyone.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- matt
- 05-29-15
taoism from the tortured modern American soul.
living with Conscientious awareness of our surroundings and the people in our daily lives and choosing how we respond to it all. The eternal capital T truth is that man must learn how to endure his own internal monolog if he ever wishes to find harmony.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sarah Fay
- 05-01-12
You must listen to this!
Would you listen to This Is Water: The Original David Foster Wallace Recording again? Why?
David Foster Wallace is known for his novels and short stories, but he shines most in his nonfiction work. He was an exceptional journalist (download Consider the Lobster, which he reads as well) and, in a way, philosopher. This is an opportunity to hear one of our finest writers speak, even though he's no longer with us.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Meghan
- 11-17-11
Very inspiring
I listen to this any time that I think that the world around me is so terrible and crashing down, or if I just need inspiration or motivation to do important things in my life. I love this speech. David Foster Wallace is missed, but he did wonderful things while he was here.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Max Pynchon
- 09-07-15
How To Graduate College And Not Be The Center Of The Universe
Great speech on getting out of yourself and not listening to the committee in your head. DFW's writing is funny and insightful and it is sad that he no longer walks among us.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- squeasel
- 08-25-15
no gills...
no gills, which would perhaps explain the lifetime struggle for anyone that feels this already and always has.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 07-27-13
Wallace's words are inspired and down to earth.
This speech is strikingly objective. What it is not is condescending repetitive or cliché. Wallace does not strive to give you good advise but to simple remind you to breathe, when it is all too simple to forget how to. If you're a David Foster Wallace fan, this is undoubtedly a gem to keep.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 09-13-18
shocking rubbish from a truly great writer
I love David Foster Wallace but this speech is utter balls. I guess no one can be brilliant all the time
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 11-16-23
Sound for all generations
Pointed, smart, funny yet serious… offers views to be considered and pondered on, a short listen packed with wisdom.
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How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? This audiobook version of a David Foster Wallace commencement speech, read by his sister, Amy Wallace-Havens, captures his electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 568
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 472
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 469
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
How this differs from the other version
- By Jonathan Penley on 12-26-17
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Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Highlights
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 493
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 388
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 384
David Foster Wallace made an art of taking readers into places no other writer even gets near. In his exuberantly acclaimed collection, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, he combines hilarity and an escalating disquiet in stories that astonish, entertain, and expand our ideas of the pleasures that fiction can afford.
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1 out of 5 stars
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This is ABRIDGED
- By Mark on 09-26-09
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The David Foster Wallace Reader
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff, David Foster Wallace, Sally Foster Wallace, and others
- Length: 48 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 210
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 183
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 177
Where do you begin with a writer as original and brilliant as David Foster Wallace? Here - with a carefully considered selection of his extraordinary body of work, chosen by a range of great writers, critics, and those who worked with him most closely. This volume presents his most dazzling, funniest, and most heartbreaking work.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Impossible to use without Chapter Names
- By Ethan Klitzke on 12-04-21
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This Is Water
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Amy Wallace-Havens
- Length: 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 147
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 84
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 85
How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? This audiobook version of a David Foster Wallace commencement speech, read by his sister, Amy Wallace-Havens, captures his electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too short for what you pay for!
- By Adryan on 05-14-09
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David Foster Wallace: In His Own Words
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 303
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 262
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 259
Collected here for the first time are the stories and speeches of David Foster Wallace as read by the author himself. Over the course of his career, David Foster Wallace recorded a variety of his work in diverse circumstances - from studio recordings to live performances - that are finally compiled in this unique collection.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The best book on Audible!
- By Karen Chance on 04-07-16
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Infinite Jest
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 56 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,658
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,210
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,216
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
Removing Endnotes Does NOT Equal Unabridged!
- By Darwin8u on 04-11-12
-
Consider the Lobster (A Story from Consider the Lobster)
- And Other Essays
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace, Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 568
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 472
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 469
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
How this differs from the other version
- By Jonathan Penley on 12-26-17
-
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Highlights
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 493
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 388
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 384
David Foster Wallace made an art of taking readers into places no other writer even gets near. In his exuberantly acclaimed collection, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, he combines hilarity and an escalating disquiet in stories that astonish, entertain, and expand our ideas of the pleasures that fiction can afford.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
This is ABRIDGED
- By Mark on 09-26-09
-
The David Foster Wallace Reader
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff, David Foster Wallace, Sally Foster Wallace, and others
- Length: 48 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 210
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 183
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 177
Where do you begin with a writer as original and brilliant as David Foster Wallace? Here - with a carefully considered selection of his extraordinary body of work, chosen by a range of great writers, critics, and those who worked with him most closely. This volume presents his most dazzling, funniest, and most heartbreaking work.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Impossible to use without Chapter Names
- By Ethan Klitzke on 12-04-21
-
The Pale King
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 649
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 546
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 549
The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
The King is dead, long live the King!
- By Darwin8u on 10-31-16
-
Girl with Curious Hair
- Stories
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 166
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 128
From the eerily "real", almost holographic evocations of historical figures like Lyndon Johnson and over-televised game-show hosts and late-night comedians to the title story, in which terminal punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism, David Foster Wallace renders the incredible comprehensible, the bizarre normal, the absurd hilarious, and the familiar strange.
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4 out of 5 stars
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This book is not NOT a Datsun!
- By Darwin8u on 04-15-12
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Oblivion
- Stories
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 299
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 260
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 260
In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness--a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his. These are worlds undreamt-of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown ("The Soul Is Not a Smithy"). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Just 2 Fast & Huge & ALL Interconnected 4 Words
- By Darwin8u on 08-22-12