FEBRUARY 28, 2020
What’s all the buzz about?
Police and firemen had to shut down an entire L.A. block after a swarm of nearly 40,000 Africanized honey bees attacked first responders who had arrived to address a single bee sting. Yikes. So what does this have to do with listening you might ask?1. A few of us are obsessed with bees, and with this mind blowing book.
2. Did you have any idea how many DIY beekeeping guides we have at Audible?
3. One of our favorite new releases in kidlit, How to Bee, is about a world facing the very problem that the creation of Africanized honey bees (a cross between western honey bees and East African lowland honey bee that tends to be overly aggressive) was meant to address: population collapse. In Bren McDibble's charming yet heartbreaking new book, the bees are gone and children are having to work as pollinators.
So even if they do shut down the occasional city block, let's take better care of these little guys, OK?
Viral storytelling
With the spread of coronavirus leading to the cancellation of the Bologna Book Fair this year, we were reminded of the impact another global health crisis had on Italian storytelling. Boccaccio’s Decameron, written in the 14th century, is the story of 10 friends who flee Florence during the Black Death; in the hills of Fiesole, each one tells a tale a day to pass the time. Some of the stories were basically fanfic inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Chaucer, in his turn, drew upon Boccaccio for the Canterbury Tales. So while we certainly hope this global threat doesn’t reach pandemic levels, we were inspired by the amazing literature that has arisen in times of crisis throughout history. As this newsletter goes to press, we’re digesting the White House briefing on Coronavirus in the US, and tucking into this nerve-wracking-but-highly-practical preparedness guide.A bombshell conviction for #MeToo
In a landmark verdict this week, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of two counts of felony sex crimes. The high-profile case helped catalyze the #MeToo movement and was the basis for two of the most compelling nonfiction audiobooks of the past year, She Said and Catch and Kill. Like the Larry Nassar gymnastics scandal, the case inspired women to come forward despite a seemingly impenetrable culture of widespread abuse and silent enablement. And now, the criminal justice system is responding to their voices—slowly but surely.Do you have the bandwidth to level-set and circle back to linguistics?
Lovers of language that we are, we vacillate between preservationist (“literally” should literally mean literally!), and progressive (hooray for “they” as a pronoun!). We’ve sort of come to accept that meetings have become “syncs” and working on tasks simultaneously is “parallel-pathing” (a linguistic phenomenon Anna Wiener observes so richly in her Silicon Valley memoir, Uncanny Valley), but Molly Young’s excellent examination of the “Garbage Language” of corporations does have us second-guessing some of the terms we’ve allowed to creep into our our daily vernacular. Are you on the same page? Let’s take it offline with this listen on how the internet has shaped our language.We love (!) this tennis retiree’s goodbye message
Your pep talk of the week is brought to you by tennis star Maria Sharapova, who penned an eloquent letter in Vanity Fair about her decision to retire from tennis after 28 years and five Grand Slam titles. Of the sport, she writes that ittested my character, my will, my ability to channel my raw emotions into a place where they worked for me instead of against me.Please excuse us while we go soak up more of her wisdom in her truly fantastic 2017 memoir Unstoppable from our list of the 20 best sports audiobooks for the superfan in all of us.
And let's not forget:
- Congrats to our very own Audibilite C.J. Farley, whose hilarious coming-of-age story, Around Harvard Square, won an NAACP Image Award last weekend!
- We admit we appreciated the Hot Pockets heiress’ college admissions scam conviction in part for the delightful literary Twitter it spawned, but also for the reminder to listen to the presciently timely The Price of Admission.
- We lost several greats this past week, which had us remembering the brilliant work of space race icon Katherine Johnson, restaurateur and lifestyle icon B. Smith, and thriller-adventure writer extraordinaire, Clive Cussler.
- Our bright spot of the week came in the form of a Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai meet cute.
- If you haven’t yet subscribed to the audio edition of this newsletter, what are you waiting for?
Audiobooks in This Edition
-
The Bees
- A Novel
- By: Laline Paull
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive, where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw, but her courage and strength are assets. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect nectar and pollen.
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My Favorite Book of 2014
- By Em on 12-07-14
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A Game of Thrones
- A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1
- By: George R.R. Martin
- Narrated by: Roy Dotrice
- Length: 33 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King's Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert's name. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse - unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season. Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances....
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Terrible editing, though...
- By Kristie on 05-09-13
-
The Decameron
- By: Giovanni Boccaccio
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Gunnar Cauthery, Alison Pettitt, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.
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Not Up to the Usual Naxos Standard
- By John on 11-15-17
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Clive James - translator, Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned poet and critic Clive James presents the crowning achievement of his career: a monumental translation into English verse of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and this translation - decades in the making - gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent and compulsively listenable lyric poem. Written in the early 14th century and completed in 1321, the year of Dante’s death, The Divine Comedy is perhaps the greatest work of epic poetry ever composed.
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Brilliant!
- By Tad Davis on 10-18-13
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The Canterbury Tales [Blackstone]
- By: Geoffrey Chaucer
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis, Jay Carnes, Ray Porter, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this edition, we hear, translated into modern English, 20-some tales, told in the voices of knight and merchant, wife and miller, squire and nun, and many more. Some are bawdy, some spiritual, some romantic, some mysterious, some chivalrous. Between the stories, the travelers converse, joke, and argue, revealing much about their individual outlooks upon life as well as what life was like in late 14th-century England.
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A helpful index
- By Ruth Green on 03-06-09
-
How to Bee
- By: Bren MacDibble
- Narrated by: Katherine Littrell
- Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to Bee is a beautiful, fierce, and ultimately hopeful dystopian novel, set against an all-too-possible future where the bees are extinct, and it is up to the quickest and bravest kids to pollinate the flowers by hand. Peony lives with her sister, Magnolia, and their grandfather on a fruit farm outside the city. All Peony really wants is to be a bee. Even though she is only nine - and bees must be 10 - Peony already knows all there is to know about being a bee, and she is determined to achieve her dream.
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AMAZING
- By Anonymous User on 01-18-21
-
The Bees
- A Novel
- By: Laline Paull
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive, where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw, but her courage and strength are assets. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect nectar and pollen.
-
-
My Favorite Book of 2014
- By Em on 12-07-14
-
A Game of Thrones
- A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1
- By: George R.R. Martin
- Narrated by: Roy Dotrice
- Length: 33 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King's Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert's name. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse - unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season. Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances....
-
-
Terrible editing, though...
- By Kristie on 05-09-13
-
The Decameron
- By: Giovanni Boccaccio
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Gunnar Cauthery, Alison Pettitt, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.
-
-
Not Up to the Usual Naxos Standard
- By John on 11-15-17
-
The Divine Comedy
- By: Clive James - translator, Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned poet and critic Clive James presents the crowning achievement of his career: a monumental translation into English verse of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and this translation - decades in the making - gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent and compulsively listenable lyric poem. Written in the early 14th century and completed in 1321, the year of Dante’s death, The Divine Comedy is perhaps the greatest work of epic poetry ever composed.
-
-
Brilliant!
- By Tad Davis on 10-18-13
-
The Canterbury Tales [Blackstone]
- By: Geoffrey Chaucer
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis, Jay Carnes, Ray Porter, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this edition, we hear, translated into modern English, 20-some tales, told in the voices of knight and merchant, wife and miller, squire and nun, and many more. Some are bawdy, some spiritual, some romantic, some mysterious, some chivalrous. Between the stories, the travelers converse, joke, and argue, revealing much about their individual outlooks upon life as well as what life was like in late 14th-century England.
-
-
A helpful index
- By Ruth Green on 03-06-09
-
How to Bee
- By: Bren MacDibble
- Narrated by: Katherine Littrell
- Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to Bee is a beautiful, fierce, and ultimately hopeful dystopian novel, set against an all-too-possible future where the bees are extinct, and it is up to the quickest and bravest kids to pollinate the flowers by hand. Peony lives with her sister, Magnolia, and their grandfather on a fruit farm outside the city. All Peony really wants is to be a bee. Even though she is only nine - and bees must be 10 - Peony already knows all there is to know about being a bee, and she is determined to achieve her dream.
-
-
AMAZING
- By Anonymous User on 01-18-21
-
How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It
- Tactics, Techniques and Technologies for Uncertain Times
- By: James Wesley Rawles
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Wesley Rawles, founder of survivalblog.com, shares with you everything you need to know to be ready for the worst. The book includes information on proper food storage and sanitation, gardening and livestock basics, investment strategies to protect your assets, medical advice, communication techniques, home security, and how to get "outta Dodge" when, in the parlance of the movement, "the shit hits the fan".
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Unsurprising
- By skyrat on 04-25-11
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Catch and Kill
- Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
- By: Ronan Farrow
- Narrated by: Ronan Farrow
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
In 2017, a routine network television investigation led to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move, and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family.
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Excellent book
- By Jonathan Knodel on 10-16-19
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Uncanny Valley
- A Memoir
- By: Anna Wiener
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her mid-20s, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener - stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial - left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: A world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress.
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Could have been better
- By R. Herz on 01-20-20
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Because Internet
- Understanding the New Rules of Language
- By: Gretchen McCulloch
- Narrated by: Gretchen McCulloch
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are.
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Why Do Authors Insist on Reading Their Own Books?
- By Ross Bennett on 08-20-19
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Unstoppable
- My Life So Far
- By: Maria Sharapova
- Narrated by: Maria Sharapova
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
In 2004, in a stunning upset against the two-time defending champion Serena Williams, 17-year-old Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon, becoming an overnight sensation. Out of virtual anonymity, she launched herself onto the international stage. "Maria Mania" was born. Sharapova became a name and face recognizable worldwide. Her success would last: she went on to hold the number-one WTA ranking multiple times, to win four more Grand Slam tournaments, and to become one of the highest-grossing female athletes in the world.
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Unstoppable - But at what cost?
- By VFMAGator on 03-16-18
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She Said
- Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement
- By: Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman, Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published an article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey - and then the world changed. For months, Kantor and Twohey had been having confidential discussions with top actresses, former Weinstein employees, and other sources, learning of disturbing long-buried allegations. But nothing could have prepared them for what followed the publication of their Weinstein story. With superlative detail, insight, and journalistic expertise, Kantor and Twohey take us for the first time into the very heart of this social shift.
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Great until the Kavanaugh tangent
- By JC on 09-14-19
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Around Harvard Square
- By: C.J. Farley
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Tosh Livingston, superstar student-athlete from small-town USA, thinks he's made it big as a rising freshman at Harvard University. Not so fast! Once on campus, he's ensnared in a frenzied competition to win a spot on Harvard's legendary humor magazine, the Harpoon. Tosh soon finds that joining the Harpoon is a weird and surprisingly dangerous pursuit. He faces off against a secret society of super-rich kids, gets schooled by a philosophy professor who loves flunking everyone, and teams up with a genius student-cartoonist with an agenda of her own.
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Life at Harvard
- By Carolyn on 03-22-20
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Hidden Figures
- The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
- By: Margot Lee Shetterly
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets and astronauts into space. Among these problem solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation.
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Great Story of a History Obscured
- By Cynthia on 09-18-16
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Before I Forget
- Love, Hope, Help, and Acceptance in Our Fight Against Alzheimer's
- By: B. Smith, Dan Gasby, Michael Shnayerson
- Narrated by: B. Smith, Dan Gasby
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef, and nationally known lifestyle maven, B. Smith is struggling at 66 with a tag she never expected to add to that string: Alzheimer's patient. She's not alone. Every 67 seconds someone newly develops it, and millions of lives are affected by its aftershocks.
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Poignant Memoir, Stirring Call to Action
- By Gillian on 01-29-16
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Treasure
- Dirk Pitt, Book 9
- By: Clive Cussler
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The President of the United States had reason to be grateful. Dirk Pitt had unearthed the greatest storehouse of knowledge in the ancient world: the Alexandria Library. The trail began in a lonely fjord in Greenland. It ended on the banks of the Rio Grande. In between Pitt had frustrated an assassination, rescued a hijacked liner, survived a deadly gun battle and halted an invasion. A gripping, action-packed story by a master of the craft.
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The excessice profanity was not needed.
- By Amazon Customer on 03-10-20
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I Am Malala
- The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
- By: Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb - contributor
- Narrated by: Archie Panjabi
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York.
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One Book Can Change the World
- By Cynthia on 10-13-13
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The Price of Admission
- How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges - and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates
- By: Daniel Golden
- Narrated by: Nancy Linari
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Naming names, along with grades and test scores, Golden lays bare a corrupt system in which middle-class and working-class whites and Asian Americans are routinely passed over in favor of wealthy white students with lesser credentials - children of alumni, big donors, and celebrities. The Price of Admission is a must-listen - for parents and students with a personal stake in college admissions but also for those disturbed by the growing divide between ordinary and privileged Americans.
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Good for a view of how the admissions process favors others, but not a critically-thinking piece
- By Alejandro Wences on 01-27-20