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Shakey's Madness
- Does a Mental Disorder Reveal the "Real" William Shakespeare?
- Narrated by: Robert P. Boog
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
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Publisher's summary
Are you fond of hearing amusing real-life stories mixed with an interesting, true-life mystery? If so, check out Shakey’s Madness.
Does a mental disorder reveal the “real” William Shakespeare? Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, bipolar disorder was a mystery, and even as late as the early 2000s, most doctors had difficulties diagnosing it. Unlike COVID-19, there is no swab test for antibodies. No blood test. It is a mood disorder, so doctors rely on their patients to “self-report” their symptoms and ask them questions like, “Were you in a good mood yesterday?”
What has this got to do with William Shakespeare? His poems, plays, and sonnets talk about the author feeling “melancholy” or depressed along with thoughts of deep distress and suicide. After all, who has not heard of Hamlet’s famous line, "To be or not to be, that is the question", and in that very line, Hamlet contemplates taking his own life.
All this talk about despair, despising oneself, and suicide? These are all bipolar symptoms. But if the real author did suffer from bipolar disorder, then would not these symptoms be found in his real life, too? Boog claims that the manic symptoms of fainting, racing thoughts, and insomnia are found in the life of Edward de Vere. According to Mr. Boog, “Whenever I ask Shakespeare lovers why all the fainting in the Shakespeare canon, I will usually get answers like poor ventilation, dehydration, or bloody tragedy on stage, which totally misses the point. Talk about fainting and 'near' fainting are found in Shakespeare's poetry."
Thus, fainting is something the "real" author must have personally experienced, but William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was not known to black out or swoon. Sir Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe didn't, either. Only one man with bipolar symptoms fits a bipolar disorder profile, and that is what Shakey’s Madness is about - using bipolar disorder symptoms to reveal the “real” author of the Shakespeare canon.
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- By Roswatheist on 03-29-14
By: Susan Bordo
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The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
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The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
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Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
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Sontag
- Her Life and Work
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.
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Cloying voice
- By Suzanne on 11-02-19
By: Benjamin Moser
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The Gift of Adversity
- The Unexpected Benefits of Life's Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections
- By: Norman E. Rosenthal M.D.
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The noted research psychiatrist explores how life's disappointments and difficulties provide us with the lessons we need to become better, bigger, and more resilient human beings. Adversity is an irreducible fact of life. Although we can and should learn from all experiences, both positive and negative best-selling author Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal believes that adversity is by far the best teacher most of us will ever encounter.
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Book ruined by the narrator
- By David C. on 12-07-22
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Kierkegaard
- A Single Life
- By: Stephen Backhouse
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of 19th century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse.
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Great!
- By Will on 07-11-17
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Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?
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JOHNATHAN SWIFT AND POWER OF THE PEN
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 09-30-14
By: Leo Damrosch
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Fifth Business
- The Deptford Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Robertson Davies
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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This first novel in The Deptford Trilogy introduces Ramsay, a man who returns from World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross but who is destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As we hear Ramsey tell his story, we begin to realize that, from childhood, he has influenced those around him in a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious way.
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Been waiting for this
- By Vinity on 12-10-11
By: Robertson Davies
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Patience with God
- Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism)
- By: Frank Schaeffer
- Narrated by: Frank Schaeffer
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Frank Schaeffer has a problem with Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, and the rest of the New Atheists—the self-anointed “Brights.” He also has a problem with the Rick Warrens and Tim LaHayes of the world—the religious fundamentalists. The problem is that he doesn’t see much of a difference between the two camps. As Schaeffer puts it, they “often share the same fallacy: truth claims that reek of false certainties.
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A Very Personal Book
- By Thomas on 09-24-10
By: Frank Schaeffer
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The Art of Inventing Hope
- Intimate Conversations with Elie Wiesel
- By: Howard Reich
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The Art of Inventing Hope offers an unprecedented, in-depth conversation between the world's most revered Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, and a son of survivors, Howard Reich. During the last four years of Wiesel's life, he met frequently with Reich in New York, Chicago, and Florida - and spoke often on the phone - to discuss the subject that linked them: both Wiesel and Reich's father, Robert Reich, were liberated from Buchenwald death camp on April 11, 1945. What started as an interview assignment from the Chicago Tribune evolved into a friendship and partnership.
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a view into post holocaust survivors recovery
- By Lance Strosser on 02-17-21
By: Howard Reich
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Origins of The Wheel of Time
- The Legends and Mythologies That Inspired Robert Jordan
- By: Michael Livingston, Harriet McDougal - contributor, Robert Jordan
- Narrated by: Harriet McDougal, Kate Reading, Michael Kramer, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Take a deep dive into the real-world history and mythology that inspired the world of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time®. This companion to the internationally bestselling series will delve into the creation of Jordan’s masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes. Michael Livingston tells the behind-the-scenes story of who Jordan was, how he worked, and why he holds such an important place in modern literature. Origins of The Wheel of Time will provide exciting knowledge and insights to both new and longtime fans.
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Agenda driven ideological bend.
- By Maxwell on 06-19-23
By: Michael Livingston, and others
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Where the Past Begins
- A Writer's Memoir
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from her childhood in Oakland and growing up with her Chinese parents through her success as a novelist, Amy Tan delves into her creative interests in music, the paralysis of beginning a new project, journal writing, and travelling. Where the Past Begins chronicles the making of a writer. With characteristic humor and poignant observation, Tan weaves a nontraditional introspective narrative that is as complex and vibrant as this beloved American novelist's fiction.
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Narration Issues
- By Sara on 12-14-17
By: Amy Tan
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Paranormal
- My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife
- By: Raymond Moody MD, Paul Perry
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The grandfather of the NDE (near death experience) movement, Raymond Moody has, in the words of Dr. Larry Dossey, author of The Power of Premonitions, "radically changed the way modern humans think about the afterlife." Paranormal, essential listening for fans of Dannion Brinkley and Jeffrey Long, is "a thrilling and inspiring literary experience. Anyone who is not grateful for Moody's immense contribution to human welfare ought to check his pulse."
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Engaging memoir of near-death researcher
- By tru britty on 03-20-20
By: Raymond Moody MD, and others
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The Body Never Lies
- The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting
- By: Alice Miller
- Narrated by: Sara Clinton
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Never before has world-renowned psychoanalyst Alice Miller examined so persuasively the long-range consequences of childhood abuse on the body. Using the experiences of her patients along with the biographical stories of literary giants such as Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and Marcel Proust, Miller shows how a child's humiliation, impotence, and bottled rage will manifest itself as adult illness - be it cancer, stroke, or other debilitating diseases.
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Remarkably Enlightened
- By Amazon Customer on 08-24-16
By: Alice Miller
What listeners say about Shakey's Madness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Gwendolyn Burditt
- 08-01-21
Shakespeare
You don’t need a random fellow listener to tell you that these are masterpieces, so on to the production: it’s generally very good,
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- Conception Piraino
- 08-01-21
The plays are listed now!
I downloaded this, slightly concerned that I’d have to wade through every play to find what I needed. But the plays are listed once you download the book on the app (it’s split into 9 parts, and each part is divided into chapters, with the beginning and end of each play being clearly marked). It would be handy to have a master list of plays, in order to locate the part you need to download if you don’t have room for everything, but they are in alphabetical order so it’s easy to make an educated guess. Wonderful value to have all the plays together like this.
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