Living with a Wild God

¿A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything

By: Barbara Ehrenreich

Narrated by: Barbara Ehrenreich

From the New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed comes a brave, frank, and exquisitely written memoir that will change the way you see the world.

Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most important thinkers of our time. Educated as a scientist, she is an author, journalist, activist, and advocate for social justice. In Living With a Wild God, she recounts her quest-beginning in childhood-to find ""the Truth"" about the universe and everything else: What's really going on? Why are we here? In middle age, she rediscovered the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence, which records an event so strange, so cataclysmic, that she had never, in all the intervening years, written or spoken about it to anyone. It was the kind of event that people call a ""mystical experience""-and, to a steadfast atheist and rationalist, nothing less than shattering.

In Living With a Wild God, Ehrenreich reconstructs her childhood mission, bringing an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's impassioned obsession with the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. The result is both deeply personal and cosmically sweeping-a searing memoir and a profound reflection on science, religion, and the human condition. With her signature combination of intellectual rigor and uninhibited imagination, Ehrenreich offers a true literary achievement-a work that has the power not only to entertain but amaze.

Ehrenreich does not believe in a wild god.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Ehrenreich states at the beginning of the book that she has never, nor will she ever write an autobiography, then she goes on to write an autobiography about herself. You learn all about her childhood, teen years, love affairs, etc. for the first part of her life. In a book about spiritual experiences and the quest for enlightenment, I didn't need to know, nor did I care to learn about Ehrenreich's childhood. The bits where Ehrenreich talks about her mystical experience are curious and the parts about her personal philosophy are interesting. Still she has NO answers and you have to wad threw oceans of autobiographical material to get to that.

What else would you have wanted to know about Barbara Ehrenreich’s life?

I would like to know how Ehrenreich can be a professional author and not know what "autobiography" means.

Provocative

This is another book from a woman who earned my respect with Nickel and Dimed. Seekers of truth will find this helpful in their quest.

Like a fart in an elevator

at age 17, the author has an experience that bubbled out like a fart in an elevator. It gets a few lines of description. She’s embarrassed and spends a good 80% of the book explaining that she’s a scientist and analytical to frame her Experience so that she isn’t lumped in with flakes, Californians, and woo woo.

Then in chapter 7 after enduring her snarky, bitter, acerbic solipsism something rocks her world- classic lights like a burning bush etc. then we don’t hear about it again until the end.

It wasn’t living with a wild god as much as avoiding it. I was happy to finish the book, get out of the elevator and get some fresh air

Just read this

What made the experience of listening to Living with a Wild God the most enjoyable?

Many things: In general, I deeply appreciate Barbara Ehrenreich's writing. Her iconoclastic take on beliefs that are uncritically accepted defy demographic pigeonholing. Ms. Ehrenreich challenges the status quo, yet at the same time she works toward an original reframing of the concepts she deconstructs giving the listener something worthwhile to go toward. In this book, she reconciles seemingly paradoxical positions: mysticism and atheism. The insights she offers the reader are fresh and full of heart and intellect.

What other book might you compare Living with a Wild God to and why?

None.

Have you listened to any of Barbara Ehrenreich’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

An author reading their own philosophical treatise brings a degree of intent to the listening that transcends the merits and demerits of performance.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

For this book, there is no film. Live it.

Her Work. Her Voice

Not all authors have the voice and cadence for reading their own material, but I can't imagine anyone sharing Ehrenreich's highly intellectual, probing work better than Ehrenreich herself. Both empiricist and shaman, plain-spoken and poetic, she carries you through the steps of her journey candidly and articulately. Her one false claim is that she hasn't written an autobiography, but this is -- a solid one by a highly accomplished individual with a lifetime of research to reference. Loved it.