-
What Are We Doing Here?
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $17.90
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith.
Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display. What Are We Doing Here? is a call for Americans to continue the tradition of those great thinkers and to remake American political and cultural life as "deeply impressed by obligation [and as] a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still."
A BuzzFeed Books Pick of Most Exciting New Books of 2018.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Givenness of Things
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
-
-
Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
-
When I Was a Child I Read Books
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Marilynne Robinson
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor.
-
-
Great material, hard to process
- By Jeff Hopper on 08-24-18
-
Housekeeping (40th Anniversary Edition)
- A Novel (Picador Modern Classics)
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
-
-
A small and perfect novel
- By martin hall on 03-06-21
-
A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
-
-
Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Sacrifice (Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory)
- By: Rene Girard
- Narrated by: Tim Lundeen
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Sacrifice, Rene Girard interrogates the Brahmanas of Vedic India, exploring coincidences with mimetic theory that are too numerous and striking to be accidental. The Bible reveals collective violence, similar to that which generates sacrifice everywhere, but instead of making victims guilty, the Bible and the Gospels reveal the persecutors of a single victim. Instead of elaborating myths, they tell the truth absolutely contrary to the archaic sense.
-
-
solid, pithy Girard lectures transcribed
- By luke in seattle on 08-28-16
By: Rene Girard
-
The Givenness of Things
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
-
-
Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
-
When I Was a Child I Read Books
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Marilynne Robinson
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor.
-
-
Great material, hard to process
- By Jeff Hopper on 08-24-18
-
Housekeeping (40th Anniversary Edition)
- A Novel (Picador Modern Classics)
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
-
-
A small and perfect novel
- By martin hall on 03-06-21
-
A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
-
-
Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
-
At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
-
-
Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Sacrifice (Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory)
- By: Rene Girard
- Narrated by: Tim Lundeen
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Sacrifice, Rene Girard interrogates the Brahmanas of Vedic India, exploring coincidences with mimetic theory that are too numerous and striking to be accidental. The Bible reveals collective violence, similar to that which generates sacrifice everywhere, but instead of making victims guilty, the Bible and the Gospels reveal the persecutors of a single victim. Instead of elaborating myths, they tell the truth absolutely contrary to the archaic sense.
-
-
solid, pithy Girard lectures transcribed
- By luke in seattle on 08-28-16
By: Rene Girard
-
To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nicole Kidman
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s arresting analysis of domestic family life, centering on the Ramseys and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut), who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Hours, brings the impressionistic prose of this classic to vibrant life.
-
-
A book that will challenge you to think.
- By Kelly on 04-23-17
By: Virginia Woolf
-
The World-Ending Fire
- The Essential Wendell Berry
- By: Wendell Berry
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a time when our relationship to the natural world is ruled by the violence and greed of unbridled consumerism, Wendell Berry speaks out in these prescient essays, drawn from his 50-year campaign on behalf of American lands and communities. The writings gathered in The World-Ending Fire are the unique product of a life spent farming the fields of rural Kentucky with mules and horses, and of the rich, intimate knowledge of the land cultivated by this work.
-
-
Vital. Timely. Timeless.
- By David M. on 06-15-20
By: Wendell Berry
-
How to Inhabit Time
- Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now
- By: James K. A. Smith
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many Christians are disconnected from the past or imagine they are "above" history, immune to it, as if self-starters from clean slates in every generation. They suffer from a lack of awareness of time and the effects of history—both personal and collective—and thus are naive about current issues and fixated on the end times. Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that awakening to the spiritual significance of time is crucial for orienting faith in the twenty-first century.
-
-
Embracing time is part of embracing our humanity
- By Adam Shields on 10-13-22
-
The Need to Be Whole
- By: Wendell Berry
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 19 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wendell Berry has never been afraid to speak up for the dispossessed. The Need to Be Whole continues the work he began in The Hidden Wound (1970) and The Unsettling of America (1977), demanding a careful exploration of this hard, shared truth: The wealth of the mighty few governing this nation has been built on the unpaid labor of others.
-
-
Necessary Reading for These Troubled Times
- By Jane Vandenburgh on 11-05-22
By: Wendell Berry
-
A Short History of Ethics
- By: Alasdair MacIntyre
- Narrated by: Tim Dalgleish
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Short History of Ethics is a significant contribution written by one of the most important living philosophers. It remains an important work, ideal for all students interested in ethics and morality.
-
-
Great philosopher made ridiculous by accents
- By Olivia Walling on 10-04-17
-
Biblical Critical Theory
- How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture
- By: Christopher Watkin, Timothy Keller
- Narrated by: Christopher Ashman
- Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Biblical Critical Theory, Christopher Watkin draws a winsome vision for biblical cultural engagement in which faithfulness to Scripture and sensitivity to culture walk hand in hand. If Christians want to speak with a fresh, engaging and constructive voice within our culture, we need to press deeper into the core truths of the Bible.
-
-
learn to diagonalize.
- By Charles W. Arnold on 08-24-23
By: Christopher Watkin, and others
-
The Word of Promise Audio Bible—New King James Version, NKJV: Complete Bible
- By: Thomas Nelson Inc.
- Narrated by: Jason Alexander, Joan Allen, Richard Dreyfuss, and others
- Length: 98 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With an original music score by composer Stefano Mainetti (Abba Pater), feature-film quality sound effects, and compelling narration by Michael York and the work of over 500 actors, the The Word of Promise Audio Bible will immerse listeners in the dramatic reality of the scriptures as never before. Each beloved book of the Bible comes to life with outstanding performances by Jim Caviezel as Jesus, Richard Dreyfuss as Moses, Gary Sinise as David, Jason Alexander as Joseph, Marisa Tomei as Mary Magdalene, Stacy Keach as Paul, Louis Gossett, Jr. as John...
-
-
Lovely...needs a section guide. I made one
- By A. Lee on 08-29-16
-
The Unsettling of America
- Culture & Agriculture
- By: Wendell Berry
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural and spiritual discipline. Today’s agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land - from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it.
-
-
love the material, meh on the performance.
- By Fireham on 07-10-20
By: Wendell Berry
-
Knowing What We Know
- The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom?
-
-
Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
- By reader on 05-03-23
By: Simon Winchester
-
Essays
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
- Length: 25 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With great originality and wit, Orwell unfolds his views on subjects ranging from a revaluation of Charles Dickens to the nature of Socialism, from a comic yet profound discussion of naughty seaside postcards to a spirited defense of English cooking. Displaying an almost unrivalled mastery of English plain prose, Orwell’s essays created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and continue to challenge, move, and entertain.
-
-
Great Content; Would benefit from chapter names
- By Laimis on 08-15-20
By: George Orwell
-
On the Soul and the Resurrection
- By: St. Gregory of Nyssa
- Narrated by: James Fowler
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The resurrection from death is a strong component of the Christian faith, which the Nicene Creed, affirms stating: "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." The early Christian writers Irenaeus and Justin Martyr, in the second century, wrote against the widespread idea of their time that only the soul survived. In like manner, we have this later writing of St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-395 AD) which clearly articulates the position that a person is both soul and body and that Christ has promised to raise them both.
-
-
Beautiful discourse
- By stephen on 03-16-23
-
Making Sense of God
- An Invitation to the Skeptical
- By: Timothy Keller
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.
-
-
Good for confirming existing beliefs...
- By Mikkikon on 12-20-16
By: Timothy Keller
Critic reviews
"Carrington MacDuffie brings her vocal skills and narrative art to this remarkable collection of Robinson's essays.... MacDuffie's elegant intonation comes through in these challenging and thought-provoking works.... Robinson's brilliance illuminates this audiobook, and she could have no better narrator than MacDuffie." (AudioFile)
Related to this topic
-
The Givenness of Things
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
-
-
Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
-
Nature's God
- The Heretical Origins of the American Republic
- By: Matthew Stewart
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green Mountain Boys, and Thomas Young, the forgotten Founder who kicked off the Boston Tea Party. These radicals who founded America set their sights on a revolution of the mind. Derided as "infidels" and "atheists" in their own time, they wanted to liberate us not just from one king but from the tyranny of supernatural religion.
-
-
Excellent exploration of this subject
- By Caroline on 01-13-15
By: Matthew Stewart
-
The Enlightenment
- And Why It Still Matters
- By: Anthony Pagden
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world. Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world.
-
-
A thorough political tract rather than history
- By Jacobus on 03-08-14
By: Anthony Pagden
-
Between Past and Future
- Eight Exercises in Political Thought
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hannah Arendt's insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future, Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future.
-
-
Just stunning
- By Peter Stephens on 02-26-18
By: Hannah Arendt
-
The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
-
-
The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
By: Alan Jacobs
-
The God Argument
- The Case Against Religion and for Humanism
- By: A. C. Grayling
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What are the arguments for and against religion and religious belief - all of them - right across the range of reasons and motives that people have for being religious, and do they stand up to scrutiny? Can there be a clear, full statement of these arguments that once and for all will show what is at stake in this debate? Equally important: what is the alternative to religion as a view of the world and a foundation for morality?
-
-
Fascinating Topic Made Mind Numbingly Dull
- By m.emery on 06-17-15
By: A. C. Grayling
-
The Givenness of Things
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
-
-
Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
-
Nature's God
- The Heretical Origins of the American Republic
- By: Matthew Stewart
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green Mountain Boys, and Thomas Young, the forgotten Founder who kicked off the Boston Tea Party. These radicals who founded America set their sights on a revolution of the mind. Derided as "infidels" and "atheists" in their own time, they wanted to liberate us not just from one king but from the tyranny of supernatural religion.
-
-
Excellent exploration of this subject
- By Caroline on 01-13-15
By: Matthew Stewart
-
The Enlightenment
- And Why It Still Matters
- By: Anthony Pagden
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world. Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world.
-
-
A thorough political tract rather than history
- By Jacobus on 03-08-14
By: Anthony Pagden
-
Between Past and Future
- Eight Exercises in Political Thought
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hannah Arendt's insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future, Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future.
-
-
Just stunning
- By Peter Stephens on 02-26-18
By: Hannah Arendt
-
The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
-
-
The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
By: Alan Jacobs
-
The God Argument
- The Case Against Religion and for Humanism
- By: A. C. Grayling
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What are the arguments for and against religion and religious belief - all of them - right across the range of reasons and motives that people have for being religious, and do they stand up to scrutiny? Can there be a clear, full statement of these arguments that once and for all will show what is at stake in this debate? Equally important: what is the alternative to religion as a view of the world and a foundation for morality?
-
-
Fascinating Topic Made Mind Numbingly Dull
- By m.emery on 06-17-15
By: A. C. Grayling
-
The Dream of Enlightenment
- The Rise of Modern Philosophy
- By: Anthony Gottlieb
- Narrated by: Anthony Gottlieb
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Dream of Enlightenment, Anthony Gottlieb expertly navigates a second great explosion of thought, taking us to northern Europe in the wake of its wars of religion and the rise of Galilean science. In a relatively short period - from the early 1640s to the eve of the French Revolution - Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Hume all made their mark. The Dream of Enlightenment tells their story and that of the birth of modern philosophy.
-
-
Enlightenment meets Neuroscience
- By Rodger on 12-05-19
By: Anthony Gottlieb
-
Atheist Delusions
- The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Ralph Morocco
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious "histories" offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’s misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.
-
-
A Conversion Experience.
- By Ted on 12-01-14
-
The Portable Atheist
- Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
- By: Christopher Hitchens
- Narrated by: Nicholas Ball
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices past and present that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you'll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, and more.
-
-
This is ABRIDGED
- By David Wolf on 06-05-08
-
A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
-
-
Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
-
Seven Types of Atheism
- By: John Gray
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a generation now, public debate has been corroded by a shrill, narrow derision of religion in the name of an often vaguely understood “science.” John Gray’s stimulating and enjoyable new book, Seven Types of Atheism, describes the complex, dynamic world of older atheisms, a tradition that is, he writes, in many ways intertwined with and as rich as religion itself.
By: John Gray
-
Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
-
-
A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
-
Deep Thought
- 42 Fantastic Quotes That Define Philosphy
- By: Gary Cox
- Narrated by: Richard Mitchley
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Douglas Adams points out, if there is no final answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" 42 is as good or bad an answer as any other. Indeed, 42 quotes might be even better! Gary Cox guides us through 42 of the most misunderstood, misquoted, provocative, and significant quotes in the history of philosophy, providing witty and compelling commentary along the way.
-
-
Best philosophy intro ever
- By Fabian on 04-14-18
By: Gary Cox
-
Culture and the Death of God
- By: Terry Eagleton
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to live in a supposedly faithless world threatened by religious fundamentalism? Terry Eagleton, formidable thinker and renowned cultural critic, investigates in this thought-provoking audiobook the contradictions, difficulties, and significance of the modern search for a replacement for God. Lucid, stylish, and entertaining in his usual manner, Eagleton presents a brilliant survey of modern thought that also serves as a timely, urgently needed intervention into our perilous political present.
-
-
Intelligently written and without Grace
- By Gary on 10-25-17
By: Terry Eagleton
-
The Mind That Is Catholic
- Philosophical and Political Essays
- By: James V. Schall
- Narrated by: Tim Lundeen
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James V. Schall is a treasure of the Catholic intellectual tradition. A prolific author and essayist, Schall readily connects with his readers on sundry topics from war to friendship, philosophy, politics, and to ordinary everyday living. In his newest work, The Mind That Is Catholic, he presents a retrospective collection of his academic and literary essays written in the past 50 years.
-
-
Profound Insights
- By Considerable on 10-17-14
By: James V. Schall
-
Orientalism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism. Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism Said claimed a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."
-
-
We're lucky to have this on audio
- By Delano on 02-27-13
By: Edward Said
-
The Story of Philosophy
- The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.
-
-
Fantastic and insightful book
- By ESK on 01-25-13
By: Will Durant
-
Knowing Christ Today
- Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge
- By: Dallas Willard
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At a time when popular atheism books are talking about the irrationality of believing in God, Willard makes a rigorous intellectual case for why it makes sense to believe in God and in Jesus, the Son.
-
-
Logical to a fault
- By cynthia on 05-13-10
By: Dallas Willard
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Givenness of Things
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
-
-
Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
-
Reading Genesis
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For generations, the book of Genesis has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various hands, expressing different factional interests, with borrowings from other ancient literatures that mark the text as derivative. In other words, academic interpretation of Genesis has centered on the question of its basic coherency, just as fundamentalist interpretation has centered on the question of the appropriateness of reading it as literally true.
-
-
I couldn't finish it
- By Customer on 04-17-24
-
Housekeeping
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Becket Royce
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone, set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
-
-
errancy, abandonment, and madness
- By Emily on 07-19-11
-
Housekeeping (40th Anniversary Edition)
- A Novel (Picador Modern Classics)
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
-
-
A small and perfect novel
- By martin hall on 03-06-21
-
When I Was a Child I Read Books
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Marilynne Robinson
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor.
-
-
Great material, hard to process
- By Jeff Hopper on 08-24-18
-
Tell Me Everything
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?”
-
-
Very disappointed
- By Cheri on 09-11-24
By: Elizabeth Strout
-
The Givenness of Things
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
-
-
Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
-
Reading Genesis
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For generations, the book of Genesis has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various hands, expressing different factional interests, with borrowings from other ancient literatures that mark the text as derivative. In other words, academic interpretation of Genesis has centered on the question of its basic coherency, just as fundamentalist interpretation has centered on the question of the appropriateness of reading it as literally true.
-
-
I couldn't finish it
- By Customer on 04-17-24
-
Housekeeping
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Becket Royce
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone, set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
-
-
errancy, abandonment, and madness
- By Emily on 07-19-11
-
Housekeeping (40th Anniversary Edition)
- A Novel (Picador Modern Classics)
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death.
-
-
A small and perfect novel
- By martin hall on 03-06-21
-
When I Was a Child I Read Books
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Marilynne Robinson
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor.
-
-
Great material, hard to process
- By Jeff Hopper on 08-24-18
-
Tell Me Everything
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Strout
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?”
-
-
Very disappointed
- By Cheri on 09-11-24
By: Elizabeth Strout
What listeners say about What Are We Doing Here?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Elijah
- 02-24-24
True literature
Robinson is a writer in the truest sense of the word. Beautifully articulate and poetically descriptive, she makes reasoning enjoyable!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- lizabeth A Pacosa
- 12-06-20
Refreshment for the learned peaceful Christian
my vocabulary and knowledge of theological and literary history is better than many but not up to fully comprehending her prose. I did glean the central truths however. I find my heart refreshed and encouraged by what she has written, during this time when I scarcely recognize the faith of the Bible among those who profess to be it's leaders and media spokespeople. I felt validated by her work, when for 5 years I have felt very much alone with my observations.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adam Shields
- 03-07-18
Unpersuasive and a bit repetitive
I am a fan of Marilynne Robinson. I have read all but one of her novels, and to be honest the reason I haven’t read the last is that I don’t want to have read all of her novels. But I have read Gilead twice and the most recent, and my favorite, Lila, three times. I have also read two of her previous collections of essays. I am more mixed on her essays. I had decided not to read Robinson’s most recent until I read James KA Smith’s review in Comment. His review is such a good example of what a review is supposed to be, and such an interesting comparison between Ta’Nehisi Coates and Robinson that I picked up the audiobook the same day.
But regardless of the praise from Smith, the problems I have with Robinson’s What We Are Doing Here is still the same basic problems I have with Robinson’s other essays. She is an incredible writer. Although the essays here, which were mostly talks given over the past two years edited together into a book, have an odd sort of repetition. She literally quotes the same quotes and cites the same ideas multiple times. Individually, I think most of them are great. But put together, they are somehow less than the individual parts.
Robinson is known as a writer. But her interests mean that she is writing about things that are outside of her academic background. She is fascinated by Puritans and Jonathan Edwards and how we talk and think about science and politics. She is clearly much smarter than I am and so I love being able to listen to her musings about things that I would not have ever considered apart from her.
But enough with the Puritans and Jonathan Edwards. I understand that she is interested and I think it is fascinating that she wants to, as a political and theological liberal, defend their reputations. Some of that is important. But she is limited in her analysis. I just finished reading Reconstructing the Gospel, which had a serious critique of our love of Puritans (because I read a number of conservative reformed Christians I read a lot of positive comments about the Puritans that maybe Robinson is just not reading.) Smith in his review notes the same problems. Robinson is talking about part of the story, but in pointing out some of the missing parts of how we understand Puritans, she also misses some of the more serious critiques. Yes, many of those that were serious abolitionists were of Puritan background. But many were not. And that same Puritan background may have supported theoretically the freedom of slaves, but wasn’t particularly interested in embracing former slaves into Northeastern society.
No essayist can do everything in a single essay. But over the past three books of essays she has had at least six essays on puritanisms or Jonathan Edwards and hasn’t been able to find time to deal with their weakness in loving actual people, or in communicating their faith to future generations, or in critiquing the problems of a system that may have opposed slavery, but was willing to become rich though shipping and banking on the backs of those slaves.
Politically I am fairly liberal. I love her writing style and I even love her attempts at being a fair thinker and trying to push back against false narratives of history or dismissal of inconvenient alliances. But each time I read a book of her essays, even though I often enjoy many of the individual parts and I always learning something, I also tend to find her unpersuasive, even though I was likely already on her side before I started reading.
If an essay is at least in part designed to persuade, then I think that Robinson is a failed essayist. She is a great writer and an important novelist. But I think a failed essayist.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful