The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal
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The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal
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Narrated by:
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Jeff Cummings
About this listen
Gore Vidal - novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist - is America’s premier man of letters. No other writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay.
This long-needed volume comprises some twenty-four of his best-loved pieces of criticism, political commentary, memoir, portraiture, and, occasionally, unfettered score settling. It will stand as one of the most enjoyable and durable works from the hand and mind of this vastly accomplished and entertaining immortal of American literature.
©2008 Gore Vidal (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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United States: Essays 1952-1992
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- Length: 60 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).
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5 out of 5 stars
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An entertaining anthology & a superb narration
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By: Gore Vidal
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Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking
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- By: Gore Vidal, Donald Weise - editor
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking presents the author’s often provocative and always engaging thoughts on sexuality. Here, fourteen essays and three rare, vintage interviews published over the past four decades tackle hot-button topics such as gay American founding fathers, sex and the Catholic church, gay bashing and the U.S. Congress, and bedding Jack Kerouac.
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5 out of 5 stars
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If you won’t read his collected essays go for it.
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Burr
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 939
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 804
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 804
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Finally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
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Julian
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Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant narration!
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- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 15
In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story5 out of 5 stars 30
This explosively entertaining memoir abounds in gossip, satire, historical apercus, and trenchant observations. Vidal’s compelling narrative weaves back and forth in time, providing a whole view of the author’s celebrated life, from his birth in 1925 to today, and features a cast of memorable characters - including the Kennedy family, Marlon Brando, Anais Nin, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
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5 out of 5 stars
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- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 60 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).
-
5 out of 5 stars
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An entertaining anthology & a superb narration
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By: Gore Vidal
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Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking
- Collected Sex Writings
- By: Gore Vidal, Donald Weise - editor
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking presents the author’s often provocative and always engaging thoughts on sexuality. Here, fourteen essays and three rare, vintage interviews published over the past four decades tackle hot-button topics such as gay American founding fathers, sex and the Catholic church, gay bashing and the U.S. Congress, and bedding Jack Kerouac.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
If you won’t read his collected essays go for it.
- By Reckoning on 07-19-24
By: Gore Vidal, and others
-
Burr
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- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 939
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 804
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 804
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Finally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
- By John Norton on 06-12-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Julian
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- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, George Newbern, David de Vries, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
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-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Brilliant narration!
- By Abhishek Deepak on 10-23-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated
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- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 3 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20
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In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”
-
4 out of 5 stars
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Gore Vidal Shits on Everything
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By: Gore Vidal
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- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
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This explosively entertaining memoir abounds in gossip, satire, historical apercus, and trenchant observations. Vidal’s compelling narrative weaves back and forth in time, providing a whole view of the author’s celebrated life, from his birth in 1925 to today, and features a cast of memorable characters - including the Kennedy family, Marlon Brando, Anais Nin, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
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5 out of 5 stars
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By: Gore Vidal
-
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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.
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Well done!
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A Magnificent Tour de Force
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4 out of 5 stars
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SALMAN RUSHDIE
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Critic reviews
“Jeff Cummings, who narrates several of Vidal's other nonfiction works, frees these "occasional essays" from Vidal's voice, and his overriding personality, and highlights their prose excellence, grace and wit, and fine writing.” —AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award Winner
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- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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lifelong coverage of his life.
- By Michael Daly on 03-22-21
By: Andrew S. Curran
-
Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 149
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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
-
Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
-
Shakespeare in a Divided America
- What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future
- By: James Shapiro
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 325
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 281
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 278
The plays of William Shakespeare are rare common ground in the United States. For well over two centuries, Americans of all stripes—presidents and activists, soldiers and writers, conservatives and liberals alike—have turned to Shakespeare’s works to explore the nation’s fault lines. In a narrative arching from Revolutionary times to the present day, leading scholar James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s four-hundred-year-old tragedies and comedies in illuminating the many concerns on which American identity has turned.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
An Entertaining History Lesson
- By David on 08-17-20
By: James Shapiro
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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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
-
Genius & Anxiety
- How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947
- By: Norman Lebrecht
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 79
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 67
Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety, Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent volume, beautifully designed, is an urgent and necessary celebration of Jewish genius and contribution.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Post-anxiety
- By Amaze on 03-27-20
By: Norman Lebrecht
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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
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 76
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 46
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 Man in the Red Coat
- By: Julian Barnes
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 63
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 61
In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker, and man of science with a famously complicated private life....
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pathetic narration makes this title unbearable
- By Chris Quigg on 02-27-20
By: Julian Barnes
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Making History
- The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past
- By: Richard Cohen
- Narrated by: Richard Cohen
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 37
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
There are many stories we can spin about previous ages, but which accounts get told? And by whom? Is there even such a thing as “objective” history? In this “witty, wise, and elegant” (The Spectator), book, Richard Cohen reveals how professional historians and other equally significant witnesses, such as the writers of the Bible, novelists, and political propagandists, influence what becomes the accepted record. Cohen argues, for example, that some historians are practitioners of “Bad History” and twist reality to glorify themselves or their country.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Missing 20 pages from book
- By Rick, Austin on 04-23-22
By: Richard Cohen
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The Reason for the Darkness of the Night
- Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science
- By: John Tresch
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
John Tresch offers a bold new biography of a writer whose short, tortured life continues to fascinate. Shining a spotlight on an era when the lines separating entertainment, speculation, and scientific inquiry were blurred, Tresch reveals Poe's obsession with science and lifelong ambition to advance and question human knowledge. He remained an avid and often combative commentator on new discoveries, publishing and hustling in literary scenes that also hosted the era's most prominent scientists, semi-scientists, and pseudo-intellectual rogues.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Know the Real Poe
- By Elliott Wolfe, M.D. on 06-28-21
By: John Tresch
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Isak Dinesen
- The Life of a Storyteller
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 21 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 74
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 55
Isak Dinesen earned international fame for Seven Gothic Tales and Out of Africa, and other stories that skillfully combine elements of fable, social conflict, and psychological drama. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. Yet the story of her life - her travels, affairs, and friendships - remains the greatest story of all.
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3 out of 5 stars
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over-written
- By Jacqui Good on 10-19-18
By: Judith Thurman
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The Art of the Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Linda Asher - translator
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Musil. He is especially penetrating on Hermann Broch, and his exploration of the world of Kafka's novels vividly reveals the comic terror of Kafka's bureaucratized universe. Kundera's discussion of his own work includes his views on the role of historical events in fiction, the meaning of action, and the creation of character in the postpsychological novel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Informative and Inspiring
- By Mo on 11-27-21
By: Milan Kundera, and others
-
Frank Ramsey
- A Sheer Excess of Powers
- By: Cheryl Misak
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 19 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 29
When he died in 1930 aged 26, Frank Ramsey had already invented one branch of mathematics and two branches of economics, laying the foundations for decision theory and game theory. Keynes deferred to him; he was the only philosopher whom Wittgenstein treated as an equal. Had he lived he might have been recognized as the most brilliant thinker of the century. This amiable shambling bear of a man was an ardent socialist, a believer in free love, and an intimate of the Bloomsbury set. For the first time Cheryl Misak tells the full story of his extraordinary life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great biography, not appropriate as an audiobook
- By Scott on 06-18-24
By: Cheryl Misak
-
Square Haunting
- Five Writers in London Between the Wars
- By: Francesca Wade
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
Mecklenburgh Square has always been a radical address. Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, these townhouses have borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures - many of whom were extraordinary women. United by their desire to experiment with new ways of living - and, therefore, of being - these authors and thinkers were trailblazers in their commitment to creative independence.
By: Francesca Wade
-
The Long March
- How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America
- By: Roger Kimball
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
The architects of America's cultural revolution of the 1960s were Beat authors like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, and celebrated figures like Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, Eldridge Cleaver, and Susan Sontag. In examining the lives and works of those who spoke for the 1960s, Roger Kimball conceives a series of cautionary tales, an annotated guidebook of wrong turns, dead-ends, and blind alleys.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
The Long March
- By Suzanne on 05-16-06
By: Roger Kimball
-
Oliver Wendell Holmes
- A Life in War, Law, and Ideas
- By: Stephen Budiansky
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 428
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 360
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 357
Holmes twice escaped death as a young Union officer in the Civil War when musket balls barely missed his heart and spinal cord. He lived ever after with unwavering moral courage, scorn for dogma, and an insatiable intellectual curiosity. Named to the Supreme Court by Theodore Roosevelt at age 61, he served for nearly three decades, writing a series of famous, eloquent, and often dissenting opinions that would prove prophetic in securing freedom of speech, protecting the rights of criminal defendants, and ending the Court's reactionary resistance to social and economic reforms.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Top-Notch Biography
- By Jean on 08-01-19
-
Emerson
- The Mind on Fire
- By: Robert D. Richardson
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 284
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 253
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 254
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
-
Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
People who viewed this also viewed...
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United States: Essays 1952-1992
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 60 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An entertaining anthology & a superb narration
- By S&DH on 11-13-21
By: Gore Vidal
-
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated
- American Imperialism, Book 1
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 3 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 15
In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Gore Vidal Shits on Everything
- By Jeremy Hager on 01-17-20
By: Gore Vidal
-
Burr
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 939
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 804
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 804
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Finally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
- By John Norton on 06-12-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Julian
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, George Newbern, David de Vries, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 287
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 242
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 240
Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Brilliant narration!
- By Abhishek Deepak on 10-23-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Creation
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 217
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 177
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 177
Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens - the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates - Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Magnificent Tour de Force
- By Harry Haller on 01-31-20
By: Gore Vidal
-
Point to Point Navigation
- A Memoir
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Gore Vidal
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 241
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 179
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 176
In this extraordinary memoir, Vidal recalls his accomplishments and defeats, discusses the friends and enemies he has made, and contemplates the nature of mortality. In the Navy, Vidal was forced to use point to point navigation whenever compasses failed. It is an apt analogy for his life, which has been filled with triumphs as well as controversies. Vidal has had relationships with innumerable luminaries, including President Kennedy, Tennessee Williams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Orson Welles, and Greta Garbo.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Digressive, like an old man's reveries
- By margot on 08-01-13
By: Gore Vidal
-
United States: Essays 1952-1992
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 60 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An entertaining anthology & a superb narration
- By S&DH on 11-13-21
By: Gore Vidal
-
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated
- American Imperialism, Book 1
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 3 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 15
In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Gore Vidal Shits on Everything
- By Jeremy Hager on 01-17-20
By: Gore Vidal
-
Burr
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 939
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 804
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 804
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Finally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
- By John Norton on 06-12-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Julian
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, George Newbern, David de Vries, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 287
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 242
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 240
Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Brilliant narration!
- By Abhishek Deepak on 10-23-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Creation
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 217
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 177
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 177
Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens - the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates - Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Magnificent Tour de Force
- By Harry Haller on 01-31-20
By: Gore Vidal
-
Point to Point Navigation
- A Memoir
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Gore Vidal
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 241
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 179
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 176
In this extraordinary memoir, Vidal recalls his accomplishments and defeats, discusses the friends and enemies he has made, and contemplates the nature of mortality. In the Navy, Vidal was forced to use point to point navigation whenever compasses failed. It is an apt analogy for his life, which has been filled with triumphs as well as controversies. Vidal has had relationships with innumerable luminaries, including President Kennedy, Tennessee Williams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Orson Welles, and Greta Garbo.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Digressive, like an old man's reveries
- By margot on 08-01-13
By: Gore Vidal