Assume the Worst
The Graduation Speech You'll Never Hear
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Narrated by:
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Carl Hiaasen
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By:
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Carl Hiaasen
About this listen
This is Oh, the Places You'll Never Go - the ultimate hilarious, cynical, but absolutely realistic view of a college graduate's future. And what he or she can or can't do about it.
"This commencement address will never be given, because graduation speakers are supposed to offer encouragement and inspiration. That's not what you need. You need a warning."
So begins Carl Hiaasen's attempt to prepare young men and women for their future. And who better to warn them about their precarious paths forward than Carl Hiaasen? The answer, after hearing Assume the Worst, is: Nobody. Following the format of Anna Quindlen's commencement address (Being Perfect) and George Saunders's commencement address (Congratulations, by the way), this might look typical from the outside, but inside it is anything but.
This book is bound to be a classic, sold year after year come graduation time. Although it's also a good gift for anyone starting a job, getting married, or recently released from prison. Because it is not just funny. It is, in its own Hiaasen way, extremely wise and even hopeful. Well, it might not be full of hope, but there are certainly enough slivers of the stuff in there to more than keep us all going.
©2018 Carl Hiaasen (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Tourist season is swinging into high gear in Miami. So are the activities of a bizarre terrorist group determined to keep the hapless "snowbirds" away. Armed with bombs, weed, and jumbled credos, they move toward their grand target, the Orange Bowl Parade, with plans to bring Miami and its tourist trade to a halt.
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CAUTION: BELLY ACHING LAUGHTER IMMINENT!
- By Tracy P. on 02-08-17
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Double Whammy
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: George Wilson
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A twisted tale of murder in the world of big-stakes bass fishing tournaments. Filled with ex-wives, evangelists, and an armed pit-bull, this is a story that could only be concocted by Carl Hiaasen, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, and czar of Florida noir fiction.
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Not for dog lovers
- By Tonette on 01-21-08
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Razor Girl
- A Novel
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: John Rubinstein
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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When Lane Coolman's car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an ordinary accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!). Behind the wheel of the other car is Merry Mansfield - the eponymous Razor Girl - and the crash scam is only the beginning of events that spiral crazily out of control while unleashing some of the wildest characters Hiaasen has ever set loose.
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Best book this year!
- By green ice cream garden on 09-19-16
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Dance of the Reptiles
- Rampaging Tourists, Marauding Pythons, Larcenous Legislators, Crazed Celebrities, and Tar-Balled Beaches: Selected Columns
- By: Carl Hiaasen, Diane Stevenson - editor
- Narrated by: Arte Johnson
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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If you think the wildest, wackiest stories that Carl Hiaasen can tell have all made it into his hilarious, bestselling novels, think again. Dance of the Reptiles collects the best of Hiaasen’s Miami Herald columns, which lay bare the stories—large and small—that demonstrate anew that truth is far stranger than fiction.
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Great book. Required reading!
- By Ron on 02-12-14
By: Carl Hiaasen, and others
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Strip Tease
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: George Wilson
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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No matter what you heard or thought about the movie version of Strip Tease, forget it. Film simply can’t catch the layers of humor, satire, and imagination that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Hiaasen creates in each of his novels.
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Hilarious drama
- By Pam W on 11-14-13
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Basket Case
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my newspaper career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff". Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident", might be the stiff of Jack’s dreams - if only he can figure out what happened.
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My fav Hiaasen book
- By Karen on 11-28-16
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Powder Burn
- By: Carl Hiaasen, Bill Montalbano
- Narrated by: Robert Ramirez
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author Carl Hiaasen teamed up with journalist Bill Montalbano for this gripping thriller. Powder Burn stars Chris Meadows, a successful Miami architect who's leaving a meeting with an ex-girlfriend when he sees a car strike his ex, killing her. But the nightmare is only just beginning. As a witness to the crime, Chris knows the car's passengers - thugs linked to Miami's deadliest drug lords - are sure to come after him next. But what can he do if the police refuse to give him protection?
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I Love Carl Hiaasen, but man this was the hard
- By Samantha on 09-30-13
By: Carl Hiaasen, and others
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Scat
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: Edward Asner
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Carl Hiaasen takes us deep in the Everglades with an eccentric eco-avenger, a ticked-off panther, and two kids on a mission to find their missing teacher. Florida - where the animals are wild and the people are wilder! Bunny Starch, the most feared biology teacher ever, is missing. She disappeared after a school field trip to Black Vine Swamp. And, to be honest, the kids in her class are relieved. But when the principal tries to tell the students that Mrs. Starch has been called away on a "family emergency", Nick and Marta just don't buy it.
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not just a kids book
- By Vicky on 07-05-09
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Hoot
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: Chad Lowe
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Everybody loves Mother Paula's pancakes. Everybody, that is, except the colony of cute but endangered owls that live on the building site of the new restaurant. Can the awkward new kid and his feral friend prank the pancake people out of town? Or is the owls' fate cemented in pancake batter?
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HOOT
- By Joseph on 12-05-03
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Lucky You
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Grange, Florida, is famous for its miracles - the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery. Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they're entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot. And they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America. But JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money - an Eden-like forest in Grange must be saved from strip-malling.
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Not Hiaasen's best work
- By Jimmy on 06-18-13
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Swamp Story
- A Novel
- By: Dave Barry
- Narrated by: Dave Barry
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Jesse Braddock is trapped in a tiny cabin deep in the Everglades with her infant daughter and her ex-boyfriend, a wannabe reality TV star who turned out to be a lot prettier on the outside than on the inside. Broke and desperate for a way out, Jesse stumbles across a long-lost treasure, which could solve all her problems—if she can figure out how to keep it. The problem is some very bad men are also looking for the treasure, and they know Jesse has it.
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Don’t waste your credit
- By Cat Mom on 05-13-23
By: Dave Barry
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Bad Monkey
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: Arte Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing).
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Flame-out fail
- By Lars on 06-16-13
By: Carl Hiaasen
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Nature Girl
- By: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrated by: Lee Adams
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Honey Santana, impassioned, willful, possibly bipolar, self-proclaimed "queen of lost causes", has a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference, and dinnertime sales calls. She's taking rude, gullible Relentless, Inc., telemarketer Boyd Shreave and his less-than-enthusiastic mistress, Eugenie, into the wilderness of Florida's Ten Thousand Islands for a gentle lesson in civility. What she doesn't know is that she's being followed by her Honey-obsessed former employer.
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Sample first!
- By Michael on 11-25-06
By: Carl Hiaasen
What listeners say about Assume the Worst
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- CG Schott
- 04-14-18
My mother said the same thing.
Great advice from Carl Hiassen channeling my mother. Must be some cosmic connection going on here across the space-time continuum. After all, she named me Carl too.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Matty B
- 04-30-18
funny and insightful
loved it and agreed. the world is a rough place and your responsible for your place in it.
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- Carmen Merriam
- 04-10-18
Fabulous Haase!
I've loved everything he's done. It sounds like he's reading from someone else's book but he has an enjoyable voice.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Linda
- 08-13-18
Practical advice I wish I had heard sooner
This is the perfect graduation speech. It’s loaded with good advice about your expectations for your future. See the world as it is, not with expectations of a grand future with little effort on your part. I’m an optimist and had high expectations for my future. I have had a good life, but it sure did take more stress and strain than I thought it would. A short listen packed with wisdom.
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- Jamie Van Epps
- 09-21-20
just sad that this was so short
I loved the point and would love to get my teenage son to listen. I hated that it was so short. I didn't know it was that short when I ordered and would not have used one of my credits for it. but the message was perfectly what I think about life.
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- Advocatus Peregrini
- 06-23-18
Practical, If Shopworn Wisdom. But not worth...
...an entire audible credit.
It is possible for a 15 minute speech to be worth an entire audible credit. But this isn't one of those speeches. It's one of a genre of commencement speeches (surely, everybody's favorite venue...) called "Straight, borderline cynical talk." If you are no longer a starry-eyed, freshly-minted grad, you have heard all this already, may times.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Ed
- 04-12-18
Profanity laced banality
I know why this would never be an actual speech. It’s pretty much worthless. I want my 15 minutes back.
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5 people found this helpful
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- TIMM
- 04-14-18
Adolescent wisdom and wit
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
I suppose middle school graduates would appreciate the adolescent cynicism, but certainly not Hiaasen's adult fans--I hope!
What was most disappointing about Carl Hiaasen’s story?
That he would write it: what was he thinking?
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
I had no issue with the performance.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Assume the Worst?
I would counsel H not to publish.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Walt Bagehot
- 03-01-24
A gyp
This was a nice little piece by Carl, but not really anything close to a book or even an essay.
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- Lynn Honstead
- 04-13-18
Disappointing
Very disappointed in this book. I expected some suspense and some excitement there’s was none.
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5 people found this helpful