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Happy-go-lucky
By David Sedaris. 2022
DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Anthologies, Family and relationships, Humour
Human-narrated audio
David Sedaris, the "champion storyteller," ( Los Angeles Times ) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since…
the bestselling Calypso. Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he's stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine. As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger's teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone's son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter. In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris
Miracle and wonder: conversations with paul simon
By Malcolm Gladwell. 2021
DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Music biography
Human-narrated audio
Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon is unlike any artistic portrait you've ever heard before. Recorded over a series…
of 30 hours of conversation between Simon, Malcolm Gladwell, and Broken Record podcast co-host Bruce Headlam, the conversation flows from Simon's music to his childhood in Queens, NY, his frequent collaborators including Art Garfunkel, and the nature of creativity itself. Gladwell and Headlam traveled from the mountains of Hawaii to Simon's own backyard studio to record an artist they've idolized since childhood. Archival audio tracks and never-before-heard live studio versions are woven throughout the audiobook alongside distinctive commentary about Simon's songwriting and beloved hits like "The Boxer," "The Sound of Silence," and "Graceland." Between conversations, Gladwell deploys his signature blend of historical research and social science in an attempt to understand how a boy from 1940s Queens conjured near-perfect songs over an incredible 65-year career. Along the way he gathers reflections on Simon's particular genius from the likes of Sting, Herbie Hancock, Renee Fleming, Jeff Tweedy, Aaron Lindsey, and Roseanne Cash. The result is an intimate audio biography of one of America's most popular songwriters. Brimming with music, and conversation, Miracle and Wonder is a window into Paul Simon's legendary career, what it means to be alive as an artist, and how to create work that endures
Undelivered: The never-heard speeches that would have rewritten history
By Jeff Nussbaum. 2022
DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Anthologies, History
Human-narrated audio
"There may be no more important listen regarding the fate of the nation's democracy than this historical record."- AudioFile. This…
program is read by the author and full cast, includes actual audio clips from historical and political figures, and has actors narrating the entire undelivered speeches throughout. A fascinating insight into notable speeches that were never delivered, showing what could have been if history had gone down a different path For almost every delivered speech, there exists an undelivered opposite. These "second speeches" provide alternative histories of what could have been if not for schedule changes, changes of heart, or momentous turns of events. In Undelivered , political speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum presents the most notable speeches the public never heard, from Dwight Eisenhower's apology for a D-Day failure to Richard Nixon's refusal to resign the presidency, and even Hillary Clinton's acceptance for a 2016 victory—the latter never seen until now. Examining the content of these speeches and the context of the historic moments that almost came to be, Nussbaum considers not only what they tell us about the past but also what they can inform us about our present.