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Late Essays
- 2016-2017
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
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Late Essays
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Publisher's summary
A new collection of 22 literary essays from the Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee
J.M. Coetzee is not only one of the most acclaimed fiction writers in the world, he is also an accomplished and insightful literary critic. In Late Essays, a thought-provoking collection of 22 pieces, he examines the work of some of the world's greatest writers - from Daniel Defoe and Samuel Beckett to Irene Nemirovsky and Goethe.
Challenging yet accessible, literary master Coetzee writes these essays with great clarity and precision, offering listeners an illuminating and profound analysis of a remarkable list of writers and their works.
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At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,050
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 924
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 918
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
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4 out of 5 stars
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Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
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Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
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A Wicked Company
- The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach’s Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach’s house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Book on Radical Enlightenment
- By EJJ on 02-15-15
By: Philipp Blom
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Emerson
- The Mind on Fire
- By: Robert D. Richardson
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 279
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 248
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 249
Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
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To Show and to Tell
- The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
- By: Phillip Lopate
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 62
Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not a guide on writing personal essays
- By A. Yoshida on 08-07-13
By: Phillip Lopate
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I Am Dynamite!
- A Life of Nietzsche
- By: Sue Prideaux
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 333
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 290
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 288
Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating; tragic
- By Cineaste21 on 12-30-18
By: Sue Prideaux
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Kierkegaard
- A Single Life
- By: Stephen Backhouse
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of 19th century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great!
- By Will on 07-11-17
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Figuring
- By: Maria Popova
- Narrated by: Natascha McElhone
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 269
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 239
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Story5 out of 5 stars 235
Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries - beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the environmental movement.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stunning
- By Laura on 03-12-19
By: Maria Popova
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The Swerve
- How the World Became Modern
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,404
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,943
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,934
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis
- By A reader on 05-01-12
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Angels and Ages
- A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Written 200 years after Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln shared a birthday on February 12, 1809, this insightful account sheds new light on two men who changed the way we think about the meaning of life and death. Award-winning journalist Adam Gopnik's unique perspective, combined with previously unexplored stories and figures, reveals two men planted firmly at the roots of modern views and liberal values.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Connecting Darwin and Lincoln
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Adam Gopnik
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The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
By: Alan Jacobs
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Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 118
Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
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The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 174
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 152
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 152
Bolder even than the ambitious books for which Stephen Greenblatt is already renowned, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve explores the enduring story of humanity's first parents. Comprising only a few ancient verses, the story of Adam and Eve has served as a mirror in which we seem to glimpse the whole long history of our fears and desires, as both a hymn to human responsibility and a dark fable about human wretchedness.
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4 out of 5 stars
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For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return
- By Darwin8u on 02-11-18
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William Blake vs the World
- By: John Higgs
- Narrated by: John Higgs
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best book ever
- By idamae on 11-04-22
By: John Higgs
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The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
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