AUDIOBOOKS

These are the audiobooks I listened to and then probably talked to you about in conversation and you might have wanted to go to another part of the party with a fast forward button but now I don’t ever go to parties so don’t even worry.

Tremendous: The Life of a Comedy Savage, Joey Diaz
Read by Joey himself, a chronicle of stories about growing up in New York City and New Jersey in the 1970s and turning to a life of crime when his mother dies when he is a teenager. A lot of the stories you might have heard him tell on podcasts but I find Joey’s storytelling to be really comforting and fun. I listened while doing the chores in December of 2024.

Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, Tom O’Neill.
I listened to this during a period where I had panic feelings and insomnia. This was well written and and impressively researched and a nice companion piece to the Joan Dideon writing on the same subject. Yes, it’s all connected. No there’s no smoking gun. And if your life isn’t unravelling, or even if it is you may be better off listening to rain falling, because, the devil that changes masks throughout the work is right. You are just listening to yourself. Finished November of 2023.

The End: My Struggle: Book Six, Karl Ove Knausgaard.
This one wasn’t as easy to stay with or transporting as the other volumes. You could tell Karl was running out of gas for the project. He was weighed down by the resentment and disruption he was getting by his Uncle’s reaction to the previous volume’s publication. Furthermore, his home life is rough due to his wife’s struggles with mental illness. He handles all this in the most punk way I’ve seen by an artist in a long time. Admittedly, I don’t follow very many artists so closely. But he seems to be alienating readers purposefully. He quotes long portions of books about Adolph Hitler, and Hitler’s own book. He writes some long, difficult to follow literary criticism essays about world war II influenced poetry. And he finally tells us what his father’s real name is, a fuck you finger to the uncle, who told him he was a liar and not entitled to his own interpretation of life, nor the ability to make a living. This one really was a struggle, but also helpful. People do get mad when you tell the truth and live your own life. God bless him. Completed in November of 2022.

Chasing the Scream, Johann Hari
A highly researched history of the prohibition of drugs, and the resulting drug war in the United States. Told through the lens of biography by recounting the stories of the casualties, and operatives on both sides of the conflict. If you’re interested in drug policy, medical theory on addiction, Billie Holiday, or organized crime, I highly recommend it. Completed in March of 2019.

Future Sex, Emily Witt
The Art of Learning,  Josh Waitzkin
Vagabonding, Rolph Potts
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Just Friends, Patti Smith
The War of Art, Stephen Pressfield
My Struggle, Books 1 - 5, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Daily Rituals, Maison Currey
Carsick, John Waters
Role Models, John Waters
Life, Keith Richards