Biography of a Body
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Biography of a Body
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Narrated by:
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Jennifer Pickens
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By:
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Lizz Schumer
About this listen
Biography of a Body is a lyrical meander through the development of a messy, flawed, imperfect human and what it means to live in a society that both pulls a person into itself and fiercely pushes back. In personal essays and snippets of verse that shift back and forth through time and place, Lizz Schumer fidgets with the puzzle pieces of a life that are at once starkly unique and glaringly obvious.
Schumer probes the influence of religion on a person's psychological development, how the legacy of traditional femininity works their way under her skin, and the many pitfalls of living in a body that doesn't always conform to expectations, both from within and the world pressing on it.
Follow her as she grapples with an eating disorder that threatens to consume her body and soul, undergoes a sexual awakening that reverberates through her social structure and understanding of herself, tries to find her place in a world where the rules are always changing, and fumbles to understand how much of her personhood is a compilation of outside influences she can barely pinpoint, and how much is wholly her own.
This is less a narrative than a trail of breadcrumbs through an experience, where strange things whisper from the shadows and draw the listener into the dappled darkness. Listeners will find themselves wandering along with her, grasping onto vivid insights and suggestions of feelings that will stay with them until long after the have stopped listening.
©2021 Lizz Schumer (P)2021 Lizz SchumerListeners also enjoyed...
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- A Novel
- By: Emily Itami
- Narrated by: Lydia Wilson
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4 out of 5 stars 118
Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Confused by the choice of narrator
- By Bri T. on 02-13-22
By: Emily Itami
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The Fourth Child
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Winter
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 81
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
The author of Break in Case of Emergency follows up her the “extraordinary debut” (The Guardian) with a moving novel about motherhood and marriage, adolescence and bodily autonomy, family and love, religion and sexuality, and the delicate balance between the purity of faith and the messy reality of life.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Just OK - Considered Bailing
- By Madeleine Homan on 04-18-21
By: Jessica Winter
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Godshot
- A Novel
- By: Chelsea Bieker
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 164
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Story4 out of 5 stars 164
Drought has settled on the town of Peaches, California. The area of the Central Valley where fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live was once an agricultural paradise. Now it's an environmental disaster, a place of cracked earth and barren raisin farms. In their desperation, residents have turned to a cult leader named Pastor Vern for guidance. He promises, through secret "assignments," to bring the rain everybody is praying for.
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4 out of 5 stars
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flawless novel, not the best narration
- By Adrienne on 05-05-20
By: Chelsea Bieker
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Scars and Stilettos - 2nd Edition
- By: Harmony Dust
- Narrated by: Harmony Dust
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
Scars and Stilettos: At 13, after being abandoned by her mother one summer and left to take care of her younger brother, Harmony becomes susceptible to a relationship that turns out to be toxic, abusive, and ultimately exploitative. She eventually finds herself working in a strip club at the age of 19, and her boyfriend becomes her pimp, controlling her every move and taking all of her money. Ultimately, she discovers a path to freedom and a whole new life.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A religious book
- By Amazonbuyer on 10-12-21
By: Harmony Dust
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Color Me In
- By: Natasha Díaz
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
Growing up in an affluent suburb of New York City, 16-year-old Nevaeh Levitz never thought much about her biracial roots. When her Black mom and Jewish dad split up, she relocates to her mom's family home in Harlem and is forced to confront her identity for the first time. Nevaeh wants to get to know her extended family, but because she inadvertently passes as white, her cousin thinks she's too privileged, pampered, and selfish to relate to the injustices African Americans face on a daily basis.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mixed feelings about this book
- By Rachel Kohlbrenner on 02-02-20
By: Natasha Díaz
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Tomboyland
- Essays
- By: Melissa Faliveno, Joey Soloway - introduction
- Narrated by: Melissa Faliveno
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
Flyover country, the middle of nowhere, the space between the coasts. The American Midwest is a place beyond definition, whose very boundaries are a question. It's a place of rolling prairies and towering pines, where guns in bars and trucks on blocks are as much a part of the landscape as rivers and lakes and farms. Where girls are girls and boys are boys, where women are mothers and wives, where one is taught to work hard and live between the lines.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Embrace the Quirk
- By Lorraine S. on 07-26-22
By: Melissa Faliveno, and others
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Everything Is Awful
- And Other Observations
- By: Matt Bellassai
- Narrated by: Matt Bellassai
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,042
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 954
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Story4 out of 5 stars 950
From the break-out star of BuzzFeed and the People's Choice Award-winning comedian comes a collection of hilariously anguished essays chronicling awful moments from his life so far, the humiliations of being an adult, and other little indignities. Matt Bellassai has no idea what he's doing. Well, to be fair, he did become semi-Internet famous by getting drunk at work, making him a socially-acceptable - nay - professional alcoholic. He's got some things figured out. But the rest is all just a terrible, disgusting mess.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best Audio Book I’ve heard ever.
- By M on 11-23-17
By: Matt Bellassai
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Thin Girls
- A Novel
- By: Diana Clarke
- Narrated by: Jayme Mattler
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 88
Rose and Lily Winters are twins, as close as the bond implies; they feel each other’s emotions, taste what the other is feeling. Like most young women, they’ve struggled with their bodies and food since childhood, and high school finds them turning to food - or not - to battle the waves of insecurity and the yearning for popularity. But their connection can be as destructive as it is supportive, a yin to yang. When Rose stops eating, Lily starts - consuming everything Rose won’t or can’t.
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3 out of 5 stars
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nothing special
- By Drine on 10-11-20
By: Diana Clarke
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The Natural Mother of the Child
- A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood
- By: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Narrated by: Krys Malcolm Belc
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as "the natural mother of the child." The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By Kathryn Bradley on 03-04-23
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I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying
- Essays
- By: Bassey Ikpi
- Narrated by: Bassey Ikpi
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 405
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 360
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 360
In I’m Telling the Truth, but I’m Lying, Bassey Ikpi explores her life - as a Nigerian-American immigrant, a black woman, a slam poet, a mother, a daughter, an artist - through the lens of her mental health and diagnosis of bipolar II and anxiety. Her remarkable memoir in essays implodes our preconceptions of the mind and normalcy as Bassey bares her own truths and lies for us all to behold with radical honesty and brutal intimacy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Full, poignant, purposeful
- By Bree on 08-21-19
By: Bassey Ikpi
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Agorafabulous!
- Dispatches From My Bedroom
- By: Sara Benincasa
- Narrated by: Sara Benincasa
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
One of the funniest and most poignant books ever written about a mental illness, Agorafabulous! is a hilarious, raw, and unforgettable account of how a terrified young woman, literally trapped by her own imagination, evolved into a (relatively) high-functioning professional smartass. Down to earth and seriously funny, Benincasa's no-holds-barred revelations offer listeners the politically incorrect hilarity they heartily crave, yet is so often missing from your typical, weepy, and redemptive personal memoir.
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5 out of 5 stars
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More Fun than a Good Cry in a Bathroom Stall
- By Susie on 03-05-15
By: Sara Benincasa
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The Seep
- By: Chana Porter
- Narrated by: Shakina Nayfack
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4 out of 5 stars 106
Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle--but nonetheless world-changing--invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible. Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence--until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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“This is my pain. Let me have it!”
- By Martin Gibbs on 02-03-20
By: Chana Porter
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Priestdaddy
- A Memoir
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 949
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 856
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Story4 out of 5 stars 854
Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Terrible narration--read, don't listen
- By Penelope on 08-06-17
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The Art of Starving
- By: Sam J. Miller
- Narrated by: Tom Phelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4 out of 5 stars 104
Matt hasn't eaten in days. His stomach stabs and twists inside, pleading for a meal, but Matt won't give in. The hunger clears his mind, keeps him sharp - and he needs to be as sharp as possible if he's going to find out just how Tariq and his band of high school bullies drove his sister, Maya, away. Matt's hardworking mom keeps the kitchen crammed with food, but Matt can resist the siren call of casseroles and cookies because he has discovered something: the less he eats the more he seems to have...powers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Transformative book!
- By Uno Person on 01-01-20
By: Sam J. Miller
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Juliet Takes a Breath
- By: Gabby Rivera
- Narrated by: Gabby Rivera
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 253
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 224
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Story5 out of 5 stars 223
Juliet Milagros Palante is a self-proclaimed closeted Puerto-Rican baby dyke from the Bronx. Only, she's not so closeted anymore. Not after coming out to her family the night before flying to Portland, Oregon, to intern with her favorite feminist writer - what's sure to be a life-changing experience. And when Juliet's coming out crashes and burns, she's not sure her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan - sort of.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Healing & Growth
- By Judee Squeer on 02-26-22
By: Gabby Rivera
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Fat Girl Walking
- Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch of It
- By: Brittany Gibbons
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 688
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 633
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 633
Fat Girl Walking is a collection of stories from my life, my thoughts about the issues that I have faced as a woman, wife, mom, daughter, daughter-in-law, and Internet personality in regards to my weight. I have tried to be as honest as I possibly could - apologies in advance to my husband and parents, but hopefully any discomfort you feel is quickly replaced by laughter.
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4 out of 5 stars
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One Woman's Body; One Woman's Story
- By Meghan Matt on 06-03-15
By: Brittany Gibbons
What listeners say about Biography of a Body
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Blackeagle
- 07-28-21
Powerful, Intense, Heartbreaking Yet Real
Biography of a Body is by far one of the most intense books I have ever read or listened to it was heartbreakingly real. Lizz Schumer story has snippets that everyone somewhere in their life can relate to in their own lives. This book will deeply move you as the emotions flow not only from the words but the stellar narrative of Jennifer Pickens. The intensity of each little part of her life will pull at your heartstrings and the fact that she made it through is a testament to not giving up and the strength to soldier on. If you love stories that are real, powerful and intense this book I highly recommend.
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