Length11h 20m
About this audiobook
From the award-winning author of The Dark Dark comes a genre-bending work of nonfiction explores the idea of haunting—writ large.
“I carry each book I’ve ever read with me, just as I carry my dead—those things that aren’t really there, those things that shape everything I am.”
A genre-bending work of nonfiction, Samantha Hunt’s The Unwritten Book explores the broadest sense of ghosts, ghost stories, and haunting. What is it to be haunted, to be a ghost, to die, to live, to read? Books are ghosts; reading is communion with the dead. Alcohol is a way of communing, too, as well as a way of dying.
Each chapter gathers subjects that haunt: dead people, the forest, the towering library of all those books we’ll never have time to read or write. Hunt, like a mad crossword puzzler, looks for patterns and clues. Through literary criticism, family history, history, and memoir, inspired by Sebald, Joyce, Ali Smith, Morrison, Faulkner, and many others, Hunt explores questions of motherhood, hoarding, legacies of addiction, grief, how we insulate ourselves from the past, how we misinterpret the world. Nestled within her inquiry is a very special ghost book, an incomplete manuscript about people who can fly without wings, written by her father and found in his desk just days after he died. What secret messages might his work reveal? What wisdom might she distill from its unfinished pages?
Hunt conveys a vivid and grateful life, one that comes from living closer to the dead and shedding fear for wonder. The Unwritten Book revels in the randomness, connectivity, and magic of everyday life. And at its heart, the immense weight of love.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.1 (831)
Includes Goodreads, StoryGraph, Amazon, LibraryThing
GenreLiterary Classics, Biography and Memoir
Length11 hrs 20 mins
Narrated byRichard Ferrone
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateJun 4, 2022
LanguageEnglish
More from Samantha Hunt
Demon CopperheadBarbara Kingsolver21h 3m4.5 (949.4K)$46 · $0.00
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee12h 18m4.5 (7.4M)$29 · $0.00
These Precious DaysAnn Patchett11h 14m4.5 (45.2K)$29 · $0.00
Pride & Prejudice (Annotated)Jane Austen15h 10m4.7 (13.3K)$2 · $0.00
The Jeeves and Wooster Stories: The Complete Collection (33 Books)P. G. Wodehouse21h 57m4.7 (2.8K)$15 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m4.7 (8.9K)$46 · $0.00
This Side of Paradise - The Original 1920 Edition (Annotated)F. Scott Fitzgerald11h 30m4.6 (1.6K)$2 · $0.00
The Great Gatsby: Original 1925 Edition (An F. Scott Fitzgerald Classic NovelFrancis Scott Fitzgerald4h 45m4.6 (9.3K)$18 · $0.00
TWELFTH NIGHTWilliam Shakespeare, Sidney Lee16h 38m4.6 (2.8K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Complete Histories / History Plays of William Shakespeare (Annotated)William Shakespeare29h 42m4.6 (2.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
Braving the TruthRachel Held Evans11h 31m4.7 (359)$29 · $0.00
The Old Man and the Sea (Annotated)Ernest Hemingway4h 27m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
Henry V (The Play, Historical Background and Analysis of the Character in the Play)William Shakespeare, William Hazlitt8h 50m4.6 (1.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
H. P. LOVECRAFT Ultimate Collection: Novellas, Short Stories, Poetry & Essays (Annotated)H. P. Lovecraft12h 28m4.6 (2.3K)$2 · $0.00
Time RegainedMarcel Proust16h 8m4.5 (10.6K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Mis-Education of the NegroCarter Goodwin Woodson4h 32m4.5 (28.4K)$10 · $0.00
TORAH - Bilingual Edition: English/Hebrew (Annotated)Max Margolis, JPS28h 26m4.6 (1K)$2 · $0.00
Betty Crocker picture cooky bookBetty Crocker, Inc. General Mills2h 13m4.5 (6.5K)$1 · $0.00
The Complete Tales of Beatrix PotterBeatrix Potter3h 36m4.5 (75K)$3 · $0.00
Anne of Green GablesL. M. Montgomery11h 1m4.5 (1.2M)$2.30 · $0.00
The Way of RoninTu Lam12h 9m4.9 (1.3K)$29 · $0.00
Matters of the HeartJacinta Nampijinpa Price9h 35m4.8 (359)$29 · $0.00
The StepsSylvester Stallone9h 4m4.8 (635)$29 · $0.00
How to Test Negative for StupidJohn Kennedy8h 13m4.7 (9.7K)$28 · $0.00
Bad Fat Black GirlSesali Bowen6h 32m4.7 (2.8K)$24 · $0.00
Send MeMarty Skovlund, Joe Kent8h 10m4.7 (1.6K)$26 · $0.00
John Muir: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth & Letters to a Friend (Annotated)John Muir10h 13m4.7 (1.1K)$1.99 · $0.00
Invisible StormJason Kander6h 48m4.7 (3.2K)$24 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m4.7 (5K)$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m4.7 (4.8K)$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m4.6 (11.9K)$29 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m4.6 (9.3K)$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m4.7 (343)$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m4.6 (10.8K)$24 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m4.6 (256.4K)$29 · $0.00
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m4.7 (385)$20 · $0.00
Birdie & HarlowTaylor Wolfe7h 50m4.6 (6.5K)$26 · $0.00
You may also like
My WorkOlga Ravn7h 33m3.9 (4.4K)$32 · $0.00
The Heart-Shaped TinBee Wilson7h 2m4.1 (598)$23
A Farewell to Gabo and MercedesRodrigo Garcia2h 16m4.3 (3.2K)$16 · $0.00
The House on Beartown RoadElizabeth Cohen7h 35m4.1 (547)$17 · $0.00
The Grieving BrainMary-Frances O'Connor8h 2m4.3 (5.8K)$26 · $0.00
Dog YearsMark Doty6h 15m3.9 (3.8K)$24 · $0.00
A Grief ObservedC. S. Lewis1h 51m4.4 (127.4K)$10
How to ForgetKate Mulgrew12h 6m4.1 (4.2K)$29 · $0.00
FearThich Nhat Hanh4h 18m4.5 (11.9K)$6 · $0.00
Hour of the HeartIrvin D. Yalom, Benjamin Yalom8h 19m4.6 (2.3K)$26 · $0.00
Between ThemRichard Ford3h 37m3.7 (3.3K)$18 · $0.00
Where the Past BeginsAmy Tan14h 32m3.9 (3.6K)$33 · $0.00
On the Soul and the ResurrectionGregory of Nyssa5h 26m4.4 (689)$2 · $0.00
The Theft of MemoryJonathan Kozol6h 34m3.9 (1.2K)$20 · $0.00
Big WorldMary Miller4h 21m4.3 (466)$17
Persimmon KissMel Bossa9h 57m4.0 (11)$5.50 · $0.00
The Twilight of the SoulsLouis Marie-Anne Couperus9h 13m4.0 (156)$1 · $0.00
Let All Our Ghosts DepartMeghana Mysore6h 58m$23
A Stranger On The ShoreJohn Symons5h 10m$6 · $0.00
The Death of a JaybirdJodi M. Savage7h 5m4.4 (97)$24 · $0.00