Pimp my post-election audiobook reading list.

November 15, 2016 8:57 AM

I have a bunch of holdover credits from Audible (6 and soon to be 7) that I need to use at some point. I want to feel like I'm reading some things, both fiction and nonfiction, that are either productive or motivating or in some way relevant to making the world better than what it is right now. I also just moved and I've got a much longer commute now, so it seems like a good time for this. What should I be listening to?
posted by Sequence to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

I recall that you can max have six held, so you might want to burn one relatively fast.
posted by Iteki at 8:59 AM on November 15, 2016

Response by poster: Even more reason, then, to want to pick up something in the next couple days! Thanks.
posted by Sequence at 9:27 AM on November 15, 2016

6 on gold annual, 12 on platinum.
posted by Iteki at 9:28 AM on November 15, 2016

I just finished This is Where You Belong and found it so inspiring and full of ideas of how to engage with your community in a meaningful way. Now more than ever, I think it's essential that I keep loving my city while at the moment I can't love my country. It's uplifting and relatable. I recommended it to a sales rep friend in audiobook form for her long car rides and so far she likes it, though I read it in book form.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 9:35 AM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

22 hours of Noam Chomsky, including "Manufacturing Consent," which was going to be my recommendation if it was available by itself.
posted by rhizome at 9:38 AM on November 15, 2016

One of my favorite fiction audiobooks is the dramatic, full cast production of World War Z.
Sure it's about zombies, which is awesome, but this is a bunch of interconnected personal stories that folks are telling after the great zombie war.
Imagine if Studs Terkel went around interviewing folks about their adventures.
Totally awesome, and the folks they get to be cast members is pretty mindblowing.

PS. Oh, and don't fret, this is about a million times better than the watered down Hollywood and Brad Pitt movie.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 10:34 AM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

both fiction and nonfiction, that are either productive or motivating or in some way relevant to making the world better than what it is right now.

Oh Jeeze. I spaced out on this part. Sorry!
I might be moving in the wrong direction here with my recommendation.
It's still a great audiobook, but might be a bit of a downer. Or prophetic.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 10:49 AM on November 15, 2016

i feel like one of the big issues in this election is being stuck inside a bubble. so in the interests of trying to break that bubble, maybe something to understand the "other side"? if so, the only thing i can think of that's recent is listen liberal (on a similar vein, personally i plan to read something by hayek at some point, but i am not sure it's very connected to what's happening now).
posted by andrewcooke at 10:57 AM on November 15, 2016

I am almost to the end of When Breath Becomes Air and it might fit your needs. Everyone in book club posted how much they liked it (meeting for discussion is this week).

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? (He is diagnosed with lung cancer and facing his own death)
posted by maxg94 at 11:06 AM on November 15, 2016

It's UK centric but Get It Together by the Guardian's Zoe Williams is a good call to action.
posted by popcassady at 12:28 PM on November 15, 2016

Fiction, Monstrous Regiment, a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett.

Or just about anything else by the wonderful and humanistic Terry Pratchett. The audiobook readings are (almost) uniformly good, if not great.
posted by porpoise at 1:43 PM on November 15, 2016

Response by poster: I feel like fiction involving people Fighting The Good Fight in some fashion or another, including against the zombie horde, could qualify--and I've actually been meaning to read World War Z for awhile so I'm probably just going to shoehorn it in whether it counts or not.
posted by Sequence at 2:03 PM on November 15, 2016

I read The Happiness Project last year and really enjoyed it! It looks like that is on Audible.

I'm not sure if this fits the uplifting bill, but I'll pass it on anyway because I was so impressed with it: the Audible version of Dracula with Alan Cumming and Tim Curry was STELLAR.
posted by helloimjennsco at 6:40 AM on November 16, 2016

Belatedly, I've just finished Jeff Sharlet's C Street , about The Family and Christian fundamentalism in politics in the US and abroad. It explained the reasoning to me behind some policies I've been baffled by (still repulsive but not baffling!), and it features many men you will recognise like Mike Pence. The narration's good.
posted by carbide at 9:10 AM on April 9, 2017

The Fellowship, even - sorry!
posted by carbide at 9:16 AM on April 9, 2017