Welcome to Dunder Mifflin

The Ultimate Oral History of The Office

By: Brian Baumgartner, Ben Silverman

Narrated by: Brian Baumgartner, Ben Silverman, Greg Daniels, Bronson Pinchot, Marin Ireland

Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Join the entire Dunder Mifflin gang on a journey back to Scranton: Here's the hilarious inside story of how a little show that barely survived its first season became the most watched series in the universe.

Based on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with the cast and creators of The Office - the actors, writers, producers, directors, network execs, and crew, and read by Brian Baumgartner, Ben Silverman, Greg Daniels, Bronson Pinchot, Marin Ireland, MacLeod Andrews, Brittany Pressley, Prentice Onayemi, Gabra Zackman, James Meunier, Alister Austin, Michael Crouch, Bryson Carr, James Fouhey, Graham Halstead, Gary Tiedemann, Curt Bonnem, Oliver Wyman, James Patrick Cronin, Joel Froomkin, Rainn Valdez, Patricia Santomasso, Laruen Fortgang, Stacey Glemboski, Andi Arndt, Amy Landon, Lisa Flanagan, and Robin Miles.

“This book is full of the memories and stories of the cast and crew and how we all found our way to each other, from everyone’s point of view.... It’s pretty great.” (Greg Daniels)

In this definitive oral history - including the voices of the actors, writers, producers, directors, network execs, and crew - Welcome to Dunder Mifflin pulls back the curtain as never before on all the absurdity, genius, love, passion, and dumb luck that went into creating the beloved show.

Featuring a foreword by Greg Daniels, who adapted the series for the US and was its guiding creative force, and narrated by star Brian Baumgartner (a.k.a. “Kevin Malone”) and executive producer Ben Silverman, here at last is the indispensable Office book.

Includes original interviews with Steve Carell, John Krasinkski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, Angela Kinsey, Craig Robinson, Phyllis Smith, Kate Flannery, Ed Helms, Oscar Nunez, Amy Ryan, Ellie Kemper, Creed Bratton, Paul Lieberstein, Greg Daniels, Ben Silverman, Mike Schur, Ricky Gervais, and many more. 

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook. 

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

©2021 Brian Baumgartner and Ben Silverman (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Brilliant

This is a success story that changed lives around the world. Love the making of The Office.

Great Story

If you have listened to Brian's podcast you may want to skip this. It is a collection of those interviews read by other people, which can get a little confusing to listen to.

I am a huge office fan so I really just wanted to get all the information in a cohesive order. This book held its own in that aspect.

If you have never listened to The Office Deep Dive with Brian Baumgartner podcast you should!

loved it

Makes me want to watch The Office all over again.
Great listen. I highly recommend it

More than you’d expect…but one drawback

The bad: Brian actually does a great job narrating. But the book used A LOT of interviews and used voice actors instead of the real interviewees which caused a lot of confusion. They’d introduce a person (eg “John Doe reading for John KraSinski”). Then they wouldn’t reintroduce neither the person nor the voice actor later. And because it’s a voice actor that we’re not familiar with, you weren’t quite sure who was speaking. And the later you get into the book, the more interviewees that get quoted , and then you hop from one unfamiliar voice to another with no reference. Maybe others can distinguish voice better than me but the Ed Helms voice actor sounded the same as the voice actor for Krasinski, Toby, BJ, Mike Judge etc., and the other off screen producers/writers.

The good: I actually was not aware of his podcast and only learned about it from The Office Ladies podcast. I wrongly assumed that his book would cover the same things discussed on TOL podcast. Lotsa stories and details and interviews that make the book full of differing and new perspectives.

Great! Not Much Unique If You Have Exhausted All Other Sources.

This book is very good. I like that it uses Brian's real voice, and the other voice actors are fairly well matched to their character's voice. I definitely think that it is easier to understand than Andy Greene's book, due to better voice casting. Keeping track of who is talking here is much easier, since the voices are similar to the voices we know from the show. It's actually pretty remarkable.

I have seen all of the DVD extras, listen to The Office Ladies podcast, and listened to Andy Greene's book. There haven't been any big surprises in reading this.

I would still recommend that anyone read this, though. If you like the history of TV in general or adore Greg Daniels, there are fantastic insights. If you are a regular fan, you may learn a ton. If you have already exhausted all other resources and are dying to get something new and juicy, that is probably an unrealistic expectation, but you will probably still want to read it and get a bit of your fix.

Maybe I am trying to squeeze water from a stone at this point. I definitely still give it 5 stars. If you haven't been sucking the bones and chewing the fat of The Office trivia for many years, this will be completely amazing! And everything about the writing and the voice acting is absolutely top-notch. It actually may be the best audiobook that I have ever listened to, if I'm being objective.

The overall sensory experience has been pleasant. I could do with fewer swear words, but that's a matter of taste. The casting and production really is phenomenal.

I'm just evaluating where I want to go from here. What am I doing with my life? Maybe Rainn Wilson was right and I do need to watch other things.

Good book and worth the read.

I enjoyed this book it did provide a lot of nice background and behind the scenes information. The different actors for the actual actors kind of threw me off a little bit but not enough to make me not listen to what they were saying. That was my only small issue but I definitely enjoyed this book very much.

a trip down memory lane

if you're a fan of THE OFFICE this is a must. while only Brian Baumgartner (Kevin Malone) is the only returning voice, the majority of the interviews are read by voice sound a likes...for the most part.

There is one, unfortunate, reader who sounds like Mr Howell from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND and is totally distracting and uneasy to listen to. That is my one and only complaint/criticism

Great listen

Like the show you wish it would never end. If you teared up for those great moments in the show you will again hearing the stores behind the scenes. Brian Baumgarter awesome narration.

Great Info, Terrible Narration

I watched The Office from the very first episode when it first aired through the finale, and have watched it countless times, all the way through, since (skipping Scott's Tots.... which I thought was funny in the book, where I learned about how most people seem to feel this way). The info was stellar.... even though I listen to Brian's podcast, the Office Ladies podcast, have read Jenna and Angela's book and have watched virtually everything on YouTube there is to know about The Office, there were some insightful parts (like deducing from the interviews, clearly everyone thought working with James Spader was tedious at best).

The narration, however, was terrible. Only Angela and Craig sounded like they could pass for their real voices. This made it hard to distinguish who was talking, when. It's done similarly in Andy Greene's book, but it works there because they state their name each time, then make their comment. Here it's difficult to tell one voice from the next. Occasionally I could tell by vocal mannerisms, cadence and context when it was Steve, Rainn, Oscar, Creed, Meredith or Jenna (truly horrible Jenna voice), but overall it was a struggle. Probably better as a written book, which is sad because I love the voices of the actors - I'm used to hearing them for almost 2 decades in my home. Great book, Brian; needs better narration to stick the landing.

Great story, confusing narration

I’m a huge fan of The Office, so naturally this book intrigued me. I loved the story, but the narration was hard to follow. I’m sure if I had actually read the book instead of listening to it, I wouldn’t have had any question about who was saying what, but since different people were reading for the actors, it was hard to know who the person was that was speaking. Overall though, loved the story and loved hearing interesting facts about my favorite show!