Pure Act
The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pure Act
Buy for $19.60
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Joe Knezevich
About this listen
Pure Act tells the story of poet Robert Lax, whose quest to live a true life as both an artist and a spiritual seeker inspired Thomas Merton, Jack Kerouac, William Maxwell and a host of other writers, artists and ordinary people. Known in the U.S. primarily as Merton’s best friend and in Europe as a daringly original avant-garde poet, Lax left behind a promising New York writing career to travel with a circus, live among immigrants in post-war Marseilles and settle on a series of remote Greek islands where he learned and recorded the simple wisdom of the local people. Born a Jew, he became a Catholic and found the authentic community he sought in Greek Orthodox fishermen and sponge divers.
In his early life, as he alternated working at The New Yorker, writing screenplays in Hollywood and editing a Paris literary journal with studying philosophy, serving the poor in Harlem and living in a sanctuary high in the French Alps, Lax pursued an approach to life he called pure act ― a way of living in the moment that was both spontaneous and practiced, God-inspired and self-chosen. By devoting himself to simplicity, poverty and prayer, he expanded his capacity for peace, joy and love while producing distinctive poetry of such stark beauty critics called him “one of America’s greatest experimental poets” and “one of the new ‘saints’ of the avant-garde.”
Written by a writer who met Lax in Greece when he was a young seeker himself and visited him regularly over 15 years, Pure Act is an intimate look at an extraordinary but little-known life. Much more than just a biography, it’s a tale of adventure, an exploration of friendship, an anthology of wisdom, and a testament to the liberating power of living an uncommon life.
©2015 Michael N. McGregor (P)2021 Scribd AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Pessoa
- By: Richard Zenith
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 42 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 8
Nearly a century after his wrenching death, the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) remains one of our most enigmatic writers. Believing he could do "more in dreams than Napoleon," yet haunted by the specter of hereditary madness, Pessoa invented dozens of alter egos, or "heteronyms," under whose names he wrote in Portuguese, English, and French. Unsurprisingly, this "most multifarious of writers" (Guardian) has long eluded a definitive biographer—but in renowned translator and Pessoa scholar Richard Zenith, he has met his match.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Captivating
- By J. M. Batista on 03-09-24
By: Richard Zenith
-
The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, Volume I: The Making of a Psychologist
- By: Dick Russell
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 21 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 93
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
Considered to be the world’s foremost post-Jungian thinker, James Hillman is known as the founder of archetypal psychology and the author of more than 20 books, including the bestselling title The Soul’s Code. In The Making of a Psychologist, we follow Hillman from his youth in the heyday of Atlantic City, through post-war Paris and Dublin, travels in Africa and Kashmir, and onward to Zurich and the Jung Institute, which appointed him its first director of studies in 1960.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Every chapter of Hillman's life was a lesson
- By D. Raynal on 06-01-13
By: Dick Russell
-
The Life You Save May Be Your Own
- An American Pilgrimage
- By: Paul Elie
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 22 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
In the middle of the twentieth century, four American Catholics, working independently of one another, came to believe that the best way to explore the quandaries of religious faith was in writing. The four writers were Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
well worth the price and time
- By Richard D. Shewman on 04-28-06
By: Paul Elie
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
Looking East in Winter
- Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition
- By: Rowan Williams
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 14
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12
In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a noted scholar of Eastern Christianity, introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful and Rich Exemplification of Eastern Christian thought
- By Ushiwaka on 12-17-23
By: Rowan Williams
-
Joy
- Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis
- By: Abigail Santamaria
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
Joy Davidman is known, if she is known at all, as the wife of C. S. Lewis. Their marriage was immortalized in the film Shadowlands and Lewis' memoir, A Grief Observed. Now, through extraordinary new documents as well as years of research and interviews, Abigail Santamaria brings Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis to your ears in the fullness and depth she deserves. A poet and radical, Davidman was a frequent contributor to the communist vehicle New Masses and an active member of New York literary circles in the 1930s and '40s.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A tough life for a tough woman
- By MVP on 06-25-16
-
Pessoa
- By: Richard Zenith
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 42 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 10
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 8
Nearly a century after his wrenching death, the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) remains one of our most enigmatic writers. Believing he could do "more in dreams than Napoleon," yet haunted by the specter of hereditary madness, Pessoa invented dozens of alter egos, or "heteronyms," under whose names he wrote in Portuguese, English, and French. Unsurprisingly, this "most multifarious of writers" (Guardian) has long eluded a definitive biographer—but in renowned translator and Pessoa scholar Richard Zenith, he has met his match.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Captivating
- By J. M. Batista on 03-09-24
By: Richard Zenith
-
The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, Volume I: The Making of a Psychologist
- By: Dick Russell
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 21 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 93
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
Considered to be the world’s foremost post-Jungian thinker, James Hillman is known as the founder of archetypal psychology and the author of more than 20 books, including the bestselling title The Soul’s Code. In The Making of a Psychologist, we follow Hillman from his youth in the heyday of Atlantic City, through post-war Paris and Dublin, travels in Africa and Kashmir, and onward to Zurich and the Jung Institute, which appointed him its first director of studies in 1960.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Every chapter of Hillman's life was a lesson
- By D. Raynal on 06-01-13
By: Dick Russell
-
The Life You Save May Be Your Own
- An American Pilgrimage
- By: Paul Elie
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 22 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
In the middle of the twentieth century, four American Catholics, working independently of one another, came to believe that the best way to explore the quandaries of religious faith was in writing. The four writers were Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
well worth the price and time
- By Richard D. Shewman on 04-28-06
By: Paul Elie
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
Looking East in Winter
- Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition
- By: Rowan Williams
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 14
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 12
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12
In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a noted scholar of Eastern Christianity, introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful and Rich Exemplification of Eastern Christian thought
- By Ushiwaka on 12-17-23
By: Rowan Williams
-
Joy
- Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis
- By: Abigail Santamaria
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
Joy Davidman is known, if she is known at all, as the wife of C. S. Lewis. Their marriage was immortalized in the film Shadowlands and Lewis' memoir, A Grief Observed. Now, through extraordinary new documents as well as years of research and interviews, Abigail Santamaria brings Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis to your ears in the fullness and depth she deserves. A poet and radical, Davidman was a frequent contributor to the communist vehicle New Masses and an active member of New York literary circles in the 1930s and '40s.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A tough life for a tough woman
- By MVP on 06-25-16
-
Ninth Street Women
- Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
- By: Mary Gabriel
- Narrated by: Lisa Stathoplos
- Length: 40 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 488
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 401
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 401
Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times). Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of 20th-century abstract painting - not as muses but as artists.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Painful pronunciation issues!
- By Curious Artist Librarian on 05-20-19
By: Mary Gabriel
-
E. E. Cummings
- A Life
- By: Susan Cheever
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 134
E. E. Cummings' radical experimentation with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax resulted in his creation of a new, idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. And while there was critical disagreement about his work (Edmund Wilson called it "hideous", while Malcolm Cowley called him "unsurpassed in his field"), at the time of his death in 1962, at age 67, he was, after Robert Frost, the most widely read poet in the United States. Now, in this new biography, Susan Cheever traces the development of the poet and his work.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Very engaging story of the life of e.e.cummings!
- By Kathi on 02-14-14
By: Susan Cheever
-
Hemingway: The Paris Years
- By: Michael Reynolds
- Narrated by: Allen O'Reilly
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
The 1920s in Paris are the pivotal years in Hemingway's apprenticeship as a writer, whether sitting in cafés or at the feet of Gertrude Stein. These are the heady times of the Nick Adams short stories, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and the writing of The Sun Also Rises. These are also the years of Hemingway's first marriage to Hadley Richardson, the birth of his first son, and his discovery of the bullfights at Pamplona.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Slow down narrator, slow down.
- By Joan on 10-03-13
By: Michael Reynolds
-
A Life of My Own
- A Memoir
- By: Claire Tomalin
- Narrated by: Penelope Wilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Marked by honesty, humility, and grace, rendered in the most elegant of prose, A Life of My Own is a portrait of a life, replete with joy and heartbreak. With quiet insight and unsparing clarity, Claire Tomalin writes autobiography at its most luminous, delivering an astonishing and emotionally taut masterpiece.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Flat, name dropping with no insight
- By Mary on 01-01-19
By: Claire Tomalin
-
Shirley Jackson
- A Rather Haunted Life
- By: Ruth Franklin
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 19 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 266
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 232
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 232
Known to millions mainly as the author of the "The Lottery", Shirley Jackson has been curiously absent from the mainstream American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense and psychological horror, Jackson plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America more deeply than anyone. Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An incredible writer; a courageous woman
- By Lesley on 10-08-16
By: Ruth Franklin
-
Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
-
Secret Historian
- The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade
- By: Justin Spring
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 127
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
Drawn from the secret, never-before-seen diaries, journals, and sexual records of the novelist, poet, and university professor Samuel M. Steward, Secret Historian is a sensational reconstruction of one of the more extraordinary hidden lives of the 20th century. An intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder, Steward maintained a secret sex life from childhood on and documented these experiences in brilliantly vivid and often very funny detail.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Stark, Revealing, Honest, Sad
- By Jeffrey on 12-17-14
By: Justin Spring
-
I'm Your Man
- The Life of Leonard Cohen
- By: Sylvie Simmons
- Narrated by: Joshua Pollock
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 252
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 217
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 210
The legend behind such songs as "Suzanne," "Bird on the Wire," and "Hallelujah" and the poet and novelist behind such groundbreaking literary works as Beautiful Losers and Book of Mercy, Leonard Cohen is one of the most important and influential artists of our era, a man of powerful emotion and intelligence whose work has explored the definitive issues of human life - sex, religion, power, meaning, love. I'm Your Man is the definitive account of Cohen's extraordinary life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Biography from a room
- By john e reynolds on 08-21-16
By: Sylvie Simmons
-
Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
-
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
- Essays
- By: Alexander Chee
- Narrated by: Daniel K. Isaac
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 300
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 271
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 268
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The unexpected how-to
- By Mark A. on 07-03-19
By: Alexander Chee
-
The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
-
The Unknown Henry Miller
- A Seeker in Big Sur
- By: Arthur Hoyle
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Henry Miller was one of the most distinctive voices in twentieth-century literature. Better known in Europe than in his native America for most of this career, he achieved international success and celebrity during the 1960s when his banned "Paris" books - beginning with Tropic of Cancer - were published here and judged by the Supreme Court not to be obscene. Until then he had toiled in relative obscurity and poverty.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
In-depth on the 2nd major phase of Miller's career
- By Jeremy Hatch on 12-12-17
By: Arthur Hoyle
Related to this topic
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
-
Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
-
The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
-
Gathering Blossoms Under Fire
- The Journals of Alice Walker
- By: Alice Walker, Valerie Boyd - editor
- Narrated by: Aunjanue Ellis, Alice Walker, Janina Edwards
- Length: 22 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 101
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 92
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
From National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Alice Walker and edited by critic and writer Valerie Boyd, comes an unprecedented compilation of Walker’s fifty years of journals drawing an intimate portrait of her development over five decades as an artist, human rights and women’s activist, and intellectual.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A must-read for any creative artist!!
- By amazonluver on 04-30-22
By: Alice Walker, and others
-
Tales of Wonder
- By: Huston Smith
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
Huston Smith, the man who brought the world's religions to the West, was born almost a century ago to missionary parents in China during the perilous rise of the Communist Party. Smith's lifelong spiritual journey brought him face-to-face with many of the people who shaped the 20th century. His extraordinary travels around the globe have taken him to the world's holiest places, where he has practiced religion with many of the great spiritual leaders of our time.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Takes of wonder for sure, by a wonderful man.
- By Dr. D. Brian Austin on 04-03-19
By: Huston Smith
-
The Voice is All
- The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
- By: Joyce Johnson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson - coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac - brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, she tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Kerouac's Voice
- By Robert L. Stofel on 09-26-12
By: Joyce Johnson
-
Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
-
Butterfly in the Typewriter
- The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces
- By: Cory MacLauchlin
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The saga of John Kennedy Toole is one of the greatest stories of American literary history. In Butterfly in the Typewriter, Cory MacLauchlin draws on scores of new interviews with friends, family, and colleagues as well as full access to the extensive Toole archive at Tulane University, capturing his upbringing in New Orleans, his years in New York City, his frenzy of writing in Puerto Rico, his return to his beloved city, and his descent into paranoia and depression.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Worth it! Good biography. Informative.
- By French Quarter on 07-09-13
By: Cory MacLauchlin
-
The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
-
Gathering Blossoms Under Fire
- The Journals of Alice Walker
- By: Alice Walker, Valerie Boyd - editor
- Narrated by: Aunjanue Ellis, Alice Walker, Janina Edwards
- Length: 22 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 101
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 92
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
From National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Alice Walker and edited by critic and writer Valerie Boyd, comes an unprecedented compilation of Walker’s fifty years of journals drawing an intimate portrait of her development over five decades as an artist, human rights and women’s activist, and intellectual.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A must-read for any creative artist!!
- By amazonluver on 04-30-22
By: Alice Walker, and others
-
Tales of Wonder
- By: Huston Smith
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
Huston Smith, the man who brought the world's religions to the West, was born almost a century ago to missionary parents in China during the perilous rise of the Communist Party. Smith's lifelong spiritual journey brought him face-to-face with many of the people who shaped the 20th century. His extraordinary travels around the globe have taken him to the world's holiest places, where he has practiced religion with many of the great spiritual leaders of our time.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Takes of wonder for sure, by a wonderful man.
- By Dr. D. Brian Austin on 04-03-19
By: Huston Smith
-
In the Great Green Room
- The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown
- By: Amy Gary
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 79
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 65
The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children's classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret's books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children's book publishing revolution.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Excruciatingly boring
- By Melissa S. on 01-31-19
By: Amy Gary
-
And So It Goes
- Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
- By: Charles J. Shields
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 83
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 77
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
-
So We Read On
- How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures
- By: Maureen Corrigan
- Narrated by: Maureen Corrigan
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 240
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 201
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 200
Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Reading Gatsby as an adult reveals its greatness!
- By Mark on 10-06-14
By: Maureen Corrigan
-
Ted Hughes
- The Unauthorized Life
- By: Jonathan Bate
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Phenomenal thanks to narrator!
- By equinox14 on 06-26-16
By: Jonathan Bate
-
My Life With the Saints
- By: James Martin SJ
- Narrated by: James Martin SJ
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 440
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 363
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 364
Be inspired by saints like never before in My Life with the Saints by James Martin, SJ. This best-selling memoir of spiritual self-discovery is an homage to the saints who have accompanied Fr. Martin throughout his life. From a lukewarm childhood Catholicism, to the Wharton School of Business, to the executive fast track at General Electric, to the Jesuits, to a media career in Manhattan, Martin has relied on the saints to intervene in and guide his life.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The title describes the book
- By Richard K. on 12-09-10
By: James Martin SJ
-
The Zahir
- By: Paulo Coelho
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi, Emilia Fox
- Length: 5 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 301
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 240
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 240
It begins with a glimpse or a passing thought. It ends in obsession. One day a renowned author discovers that his wife, a war correspondent, has disappeared leaving no trace. Though time brings more success and new love, he remains mystified - and increasingly fascinated - by her absence. Was she kidnapped, blackmailed, or simply bored with their marriage? The unrest she causes is as strong as the attraction she exerts.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful and deep read!
- By Top 1% Buyer on 09-13-15
By: Paulo Coelho
-
Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story
- A Life of David Foster Wallace
- By: D. T. Max
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 384
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 342
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 341
David Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his generation, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace’s tormented, anguished, and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Max avoids hagiography or a sycophant's biography
- By Darwin8u on 06-11-13
By: D. T. Max
-
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life
- By: Gerald Martin
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
In his novels and short stories, Gabriel García Márquez has transformed the particulars of his own life and the lives of his fellow Colombians into wondrous fiction. While telling the story of the sloppily dressed, skinny young man who rose from obscurity as a provincial journalist to international fame as the progenitor of a new literature, Gerald Martin also considers the tensions in García Márquez's life between celebrity and the personal quest for literary quality, between politics and writing, and between the seductions of power, solitude, and love.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Great content, somewhat disappointing narrator.
- By Paola Herrington on 01-08-13
By: Gerald Martin
-
A Life Observed
- A Spiritual Biography of C.S. Lewis
- By: Devin Brown
- Narrated by: Jon Gauger
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
A Life Observed tells the inspiring story of Lewis' spiritual journey from cynical atheist to joyous Christian. Drawing on Lewis' autobiographical works, books by those who knew him personally, and his apologetic and fictional writing, this spiritual biography brings the beloved author’s story to life while shedding light on his best-known works.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
A beautifully written remembrance
- By Rob on 02-06-18
By: Devin Brown
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,067
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 941
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 935
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!"
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
City Boy
- My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 69
In the New York of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Pretense upon pretense.
- By Shalin Desai on 06-01-15
By: Edmund White
-
Vincent & Theo
- The Van Gogh Brothers
- By: Deborah Heiligman
- Narrated by: Phil Fox
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 499
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 439
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 439
The deep and enduring friendship between Vincent and Theo Van Gogh defined both brothers' lives. As a confidant, champion, sympathizer, and friend, Theo financially and emotionally supported his older brother as the artistic but troubled Vincent struggled to find his path in life as both a painter and a man. Throughout that struggle, the brothers shared everything - swapping stories of lovers and friends, successes and disappointments, dreams and ambitions.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
I could hardly hit the pause button.
- By Zachary on 08-12-17
What listeners say about Pure Act
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- robertc
- 12-07-22
amazing insights to life...
author, narrator and subject the best. Robert Lax was quite a unique man/artist and the author did such nice job in helping the reader feel like they knew Lax and his experience of the world intimately.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!