Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook (abridged)5 hours
A Writer's Life
Published by Penguin Random House Audio
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
The inner workings of a writer's life, the interplay between experience and writing, are brilliantly recounted by a master of the art. Gay Talese now focuses on his own life-the zeal for the truth, the narrative edge, the sometimes startling precision, that won accolades for his journalism and best-sellerdom and acclaim for his revelatory books about The New York Times (The Kingdom and the Power), the Mafia (Honor Thy Father), the sex industry (Thy Neighbor's Wife), and, focusing on his own family, the American immigrant experience (Unto the Sons).
How has Talese found his subjects? What has stimulated, blocked, or inspired his writing? Here are his amateur beginnings on his college newspaper; his professional climb at The New York Times; his desire to write on a larger canvas, which led him to magazine writing at Esquire and then to books. We see his involvement with issues of race from his student days in the Deep South to a recent interracial wedding in Selma, Alabama, where he once covered the fierce struggle for civil rights. Here are his reflections on the changing American sexual mores he has written about over the last fifty years, and a striking look at the lives-and their meaning-of Lorena and John Bobbitt. He takes us behind the scenes of his legendary profile of Frank Sinatra, his writings about Joe DiMaggio and heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, and his interview with the head of a Mafia family.
But he is at his most poignant in talking about the ordinary men and women whose stories led to his most memorable work. In remarkable fashion, he traces the history of a single restaurant location in New York, creating an ethnic mosaic of one restaurateur after the other whose dreams were dashed while a successor's were born. And as he delves into the life of a young female Chinese soccer player, we see his consuming interest in the world in its latest manifestation.
In these and other recollections and stories, Talese gives us a fascinating picture of both the serendipity and meticulousness involved in getting a story. He makes clear that every one of us represents a good one, if a writer has the curiosity to know it, the diligence to pursue it, and the desire to get it right.
Candid, humorous, deeply impassioned-a dazzling book about the nature of writing in one man's life, and of writing itself.
From the Hardcover edition.
How has Talese found his subjects? What has stimulated, blocked, or inspired his writing? Here are his amateur beginnings on his college newspaper; his professional climb at The New York Times; his desire to write on a larger canvas, which led him to magazine writing at Esquire and then to books. We see his involvement with issues of race from his student days in the Deep South to a recent interracial wedding in Selma, Alabama, where he once covered the fierce struggle for civil rights. Here are his reflections on the changing American sexual mores he has written about over the last fifty years, and a striking look at the lives-and their meaning-of Lorena and John Bobbitt. He takes us behind the scenes of his legendary profile of Frank Sinatra, his writings about Joe DiMaggio and heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, and his interview with the head of a Mafia family.
But he is at his most poignant in talking about the ordinary men and women whose stories led to his most memorable work. In remarkable fashion, he traces the history of a single restaurant location in New York, creating an ethnic mosaic of one restaurateur after the other whose dreams were dashed while a successor's were born. And as he delves into the life of a young female Chinese soccer player, we see his consuming interest in the world in its latest manifestation.
In these and other recollections and stories, Talese gives us a fascinating picture of both the serendipity and meticulousness involved in getting a story. He makes clear that every one of us represents a good one, if a writer has the curiosity to know it, the diligence to pursue it, and the desire to get it right.
Candid, humorous, deeply impassioned-a dazzling book about the nature of writing in one man's life, and of writing itself.
From the Hardcover edition.
Unavailable
Related to A Writer's Life
Related audiobooks
On Writing and Failure: Or, the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride & Prejudice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Narrative Of The Life David Crockett Of The State Of Tennessee Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Myself and Strangers: A Memoir of Apprenticeship Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Up from Nothing: The Untold Story of How We (All) Succeed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Up From Slavery An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Compleat Glass Teat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSense & Sensibility Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jane Austen & Her Times Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hostage's Daughter: A Story of Family, Madness, and the Middle East Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memoir Of Jane Austen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Collection Of Letters: A Dramatic Readings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoison Pen: The True Confessions of Two Tabloid Reporters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWeaving The Fabric Of The World With Our Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Icon Black Lives Matter Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCaptured by Love: Inspiring True Romance Stories from Vietnam POWs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBanking on Death: The Emma Lathen Booktrack Edition Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Mob: Stories of Death and Betrayal From Organized Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Free Radical: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNPR American Chronicles: First Ladies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Truth Has a Power of Its Own: Conversations About A People's History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exit Right: The People Who Left the Left and Reshaped the American Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune: How Younger Sons Made Their Way in Jane Austen's England Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSUMMARY - Between The World And Me By Ta-Nehisi Coates Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKiller Year: Stories to Die For... Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Personal Memoirs For You
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman in Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night: New translation by Marion Wiesel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wishful Drinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Stay Married Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: Built for This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Many Lives of Mama Love (Oprah's Book Club): A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pageboy: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Counting the Cost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See You on the Way Down: Catch You on the Way Back Up! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Lucy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making It So: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for A Writer's Life
Rating: 3.9642900000000005 out of 5 stars
4/5
14 ratings0 reviews