https://slackersmuse.com/tags/audio/ Recent content in audio on Slacker's Muse Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_vineland/ Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_vineland/ A Review: Vineland Title of Work: Vineland Author: Thomas Pynchon Format: Published: 1990 Started: Finished: 2025-12-04\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 Way more fun than I expected. A lot of it goes over my head but you kinda sense when that’s happening and can appreciate the maniac that makes it all happen. Enjoyed this one a lot more than Crying of Lot 49. It was fun to see how the recent One Battle After Another film stuck to and how it deviated from the source. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_becomewhatyouare/ Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_becomewhatyouare/ A Review: Become What You Are Title of Work: Become What You Are Author: Alan W. Watts Format: Published: 1955 Started: Finished: 2025-09-22\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 3/5 One of those you-are-what-you-aren’t, do-nothing-to-have-everything, become-empty-to-be-full type books which makes it difficult to say one way or the other if it’s recommendable or not. In this everything is its negation way, it is: useless ∴ priceless overly general ∴ hyper-personal obvious ∴ obscure https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_themaniac/ Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_themaniac/ A Review: The Maniac Title of Work: The Maniac Author: Benjamín Labatut Format: Published: 2023 Started: Finished: 2025-07-18\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 3/5 Give it a spin if you’ve ever found yourself reading the Wikipedia pages of the great math and physics geniuses of our kind, wondering what their lives may have been like. Did they argue? Did they admire each other? Were they dorks? Did they sleep around? What, if anything, did they struggle with? https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_mythologies/ Tue, 03 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_mythologies/ A Review: Mythologies Title of Work: Mythologies Author: Roland Barthes Format: Published: 1957 Started: Finished: 2024-09-03\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 The modern myth, for Barthes’ purposes, seems to fall somewhere between the traditional/folk story (think Greek myths: Icarus, Pandora, Persephone and Hades, etc.) and the more contemporary usage meaning a widely held belief that is, in fact, false (think: goldfish only have a three second memory, MSG is bad for you, Mythbusters in the good ol’ days of Discovery channel). https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_theoverstory/ Sun, 28 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_theoverstory/ A Review: The Overstory Title of Work: The Overstory Author: Richard Powers Format: Published: 2018 Started: Finished: 2024-04-28\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 5/5 It’s good in a sort of East of Eden way but with an entirely different flavor profile. A splash of Grapes of Wrath too, empathy for the downtrodden and exploited–maybe more like us than we thought. Very eco-centric. The slow and rich lives of trees and what they may teach us if we slow down and give them time time to share what they’ve learned in their hundreds of millions of years of experimentation. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_thecreativeactawayofbeing/ Sun, 03 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_thecreativeactawayofbeing/ A Review: The Creative Act: A Way of Being Title of Work: The Creative Act: A Way of Being Author: Rick Rubin Format: Published: 2023 Started: Finished: 2023-12-03\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 Felt a little soft at first, a little cliché. I even worried briefly that Rubin might descend into a self-helpification of the creative process. But with time my defenses softened and all of my hopes for this book bubbled into clarity. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_yearbook/ Tue, 25 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_yearbook/ A Review: Yearbook Title of Work: Yearbook Author: Seth Rogen Format: Published: 2021 Started: Finished: 2023-04-25\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 Alright, this was pretty fun. Would recommend for funny, light memoir. You have to listen to the audio book read by Rogen and the cast, of course. You’re in for: Coming of age, pot-smokin’ shenanigans. “This one time me and my friends tried to get high and…” sort of stuff. Lotsa Jewish and Jewish adjacent jokes (can I say Jew? https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_afterdark/ Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_afterdark/ A Review: After Dark Title of Work: After Dark Author: Haruki Murakami Format: Published: 2004 Started: Finished: 2023-01-20\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 2/5 It is night. In the neighborhood, all is quiet above the faint and ever present background noise of the city. A black cat saunters past in the alley below and pauses, one paw raised as if momentarily frozen, and looks upward in your direction. As you move through the open window on the second floor the cat is suddenly reanimated and continues on in the same direction, this time with more vigor. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_goodomenstheniceandaccuratepropheciesofagnesnutterwitch/ Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_goodomenstheniceandaccuratepropheciesofagnesnutterwitch/ A Review: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch Title of Work: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch Author: Terry Pratchett Format: Published: 1990 Started: Finished: 2022-12-16\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 It’s funny; it’s British humor. It pokes fun at religion and government and society at large but not in a snobbish way. We’re all in on the joke and the humor is almost respectfully critical. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_lolita/ Sun, 11 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_lolita/ A Review: Lolita Title of Work: Lolita Author: Vladimir Nabokov Format: Published: 1955 Started: Finished: 2022-12-11\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 5/5 Lolita and Shame This story has long existed at the periphery of my literary awareness, always inexplicably important but subdued within a dark air of shame and perversion. I could acknowledge its existence only with sidelong glances, perhaps feeling if I looked at it directly, if I picked it up and turned to the first page, that I would be forced to stand before interrogations to which I did not yet know how to reply: why would you read that? https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_acarnivalofsnackerydiaries20032020/ Wed, 09 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_acarnivalofsnackerydiaries20032020/ A Review: A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020 Title of Work: A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020 Author: David Sedaris Format: Published: 2021 Started: Finished: 2022-11-09\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 3/5 Okay, I’ll be brief. David Sedaris is funny, I like his sense of humor, and I’ve had great things to say about his writing in the past (just look at my Me Talk Pretty One Day review). That said, this one was LONG, probably too long. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_lincolninthebardo/ Sat, 05 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_lincolninthebardo/ A Review: Lincoln in the Bardo Title of Work: Lincoln in the Bardo Author: George Saunders Format: Published: 2017 Started: Finished: 2022-11-05\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 What the hell is a bardo? Well, it’s not quite heaven or hell but adjacent in a way. Bardo is a Tibetan Buddhist tenet for the space between death and reincarnation. A sort of purgatory where souls linger after exiting their earthly bodies but before descending again into the land of the living. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_greenlights/ Fri, 04 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_greenlights/ A Review: Green Lights Title of Work: Green Lights Author: Matthew McConaughey Format: Published: 2020 Started: Finished: 2022-11-04\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 This one has been on my to-read list for a while but I think I had been putting it off under suspicion that it might be a self-helpy “how I made it against all odds!” sermon-disguised-as-memoir from another rich celebrity. Probably ghost written. I was recommended the title again recently by a close friend who thought I might find portions of it relatable given my current phase in life. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_metalkprettyoneday/ Tue, 11 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_metalkprettyoneday/ A Review: Me Talk Pretty One Day Title of Work: Me Talk Pretty One Day Author: David Sedaris Format: Published: 2000 Started: Finished: 2022-10-11\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 I am of the simple-minded folk that find David Sedaris hilarious. I have seen those scathing and exasperated reviews in which the reviewer, probably ivy-educated and with a sense of humor much finer than my own, just doesn’t get the love, adoration, and guffaws showered upon our dear David and even goes so far to riducule the sheep who let fly a bleating chuckle every time he jokes about how gay he is or how grumpy and old or how much of a sissy coward. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_imastrangerheremyselfnotesonreturningtoamericaaftertwentyyearsaway/ Mon, 03 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_imastrangerheremyselfnotesonreturningtoamericaaftertwentyyearsaway/ A Review: I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away Title of Work: I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away Author: Bill Bryson Format: Published: 1998 Started: Finished: 2022-10-03\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 How have I made it this far in life without receiving the blessing of Bill Bryson’s observant wit on eyes or ears? He amuses us with the frustrations and musings of a multi-decade American expat to England, returned and living out middle age in New England. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_therumdiary/ Mon, 26 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_therumdiary/ A Review: The Rum Diary Title of Work: The Rum Diary Author: Hunter S. Thompson Format: Published: 1998 Started: Finished: 2022-09-26\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 An amusing account of a vagrant — sorry, freelance — journalist’s drunkenness and dereliction set in Puerto Rico of the late ‘50s. Angry editors, stolen lovers, skulls bashed, cheeseburgers ordered and rum swilled in the spots the gringo expats could “get away from those disgusting gringo tourists”. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_adultchildrenofemotionallyimmatureparentshowtohealfromdistantrejectingorselfinvolvedparents/ Sun, 18 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_adultchildrenofemotionallyimmatureparentshowtohealfromdistantrejectingorselfinvolvedparents/ A Review: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents Title of Work: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents Author: Lindsay C. Gibson Format: Published: 2015 Started: Finished: 2022-09-18\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 Perhaps a bit of over-sharing ahead. When I was younger, searching for answers to the distance and anger I felt within my relationship with my parents, I reached out to the internet. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_foundationfoundation1/ Wed, 07 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_foundationfoundation1/ A Review: Foundation (Foundation, #1) Title of Work: Foundation (Foundation, #1) Author: Isaac Asimov Format: Published: 1951 Started: Finished: 2022-09-07\ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 3/5 Let’s say 3.5/5 Excellent world building and large scale sci fi ideas that stretch across incomprehensible expanses of space and time. Read this if you like the ten-steps-ahead-of-you, triple agent, you bluff me I’ll bluff you type of political/military subterfuge. And in this case, Asimov’s introduction of “psychohistory” — the scarily accurate computation and prediction of historical events thousands of years into the future — takes predestination and absolutely nerdifies it. https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_deepworkrulesforfocusedsuccessinadistractedworld/ Wed, 27 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://slackersmuse.com/posts/br_deepworkrulesforfocusedsuccessinadistractedworld/ A Review: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World Title of Work: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World Author: Cal Newport Format: audio Published: 2016 Started: 2026-05-20 Finished: \ Posted: Goodreads Rating: 4/5 One of those productivity/self-improvement books that has been on my to-read back burner for so long I’ve already fumbled my way into many of the strategies described. Still, good to be reminded as many times as necessary that attention is at the root of anything worthwhile.