Audiobooks by Calvin Trillin

True stories of sudden death in the classic collection by a master of American journalism 'Reporters love murders,' Calvin Trillin writes in the introduction to Killings. 'In a pinch, what the lawyers call 'wrongful death ' will do, particularly if it 's sudden.' Killings, first published in 1984 and expanded for this edition, shows Trillin to be such a reporter, drawn time after time to tales of sudden death. But Trillin is attracted less by violence or police procedure than by the way the fabric of people 's lives is suddenly exposed when someone comes to an untimely end. As Trillin says, Killings is 'more about how Americans live than about how some of them die.' These stories, which originally appeared in The New Yorker between 1969 and 2010, are vivid portraits of lives cut short. An upstanding farmer in Iowa finds himself drastically changed by a woman he meets in a cocktail lounge. An eccentric old man in Eastern Kentucky is enraged by the presence of a documentary filmmaker. Two women move to a bucolic Virginia county to find peace, only to end up at war over a shared road. Mexican American families in California hand down a feud from generation to generation. A high-living criminal-defense lawyer in Miami acquires any number of enemies capable of killing him. Stark and compassionate, deeply observed and beautifully written, Killings is 'that rarity, reportage as art' (William Geist, The New York Times Book Review). Praise for Killings 'Riveting tales of murder and mayhem. . . . [Calvin] Trillin is a superb writer, with a magical ability to turn even the most mundane detail into spellbinding wonder. Armed with this wealth of material, he utterly shines. Every piece here is a gem.' The Seattle Times 'What Mr. Trillin does so well, what makes Killings literature, is the way he pictures the lives that were interrupted by the murders. Even the most ordinary life makes a terrible noise . . . when it 's broken off.' Anatole Broyard, The New York Times 'Fascinating, troubling . . . In each of these stories is the basis of a Dostoevskian novel.' Edward Abbey, Chicago Sun-Times 'The stories . . . are unforgettable. They leave us, finally, with the awareness of the unknowable opacity of the human heart.' Bruce Colman, San Francisco Chronicle '[Trillin] writes brilliantly. . . . These stories still hold up, as classics.' The Buffalo News 'In his artful ability to conjure up a whole life and a whole world, Trillin comes as close to achieving the power of a Chekhov short story as can anyone whose material is so implacably tied to fact.' Frederick Iseman, Harper 's Bazaar 'I have a book for you true-crime addicts if you 're caught up on the podcast Serial, the cascade on TV of 48 Hours and Dateline NBC episodes. . . . It 's time to pick up Calvin Trillin 's Killings.' The New York Times Book Review 'Well-crafted and thoughtfully composed, lacking judgment and admonishment, these are a true piece of quality journalism, which clearly continues to captivate audiences.' Library Journal 'With telling detail and shrewd insights, [Calvin Trillin] masterfully evokes the places and personalities that hatched these grim episodes.' Publishers Weekly

Calvin Trillin (Author), Robert Fass (Narrator)

Audiobook

Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches From Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America

From bestselling author and beloved New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, a deeply resonant, career-spanning collection of articles on race and racism, from the 1960s to the present In the early sixties, Calvin Trillin got his start as a journalist covering the Civil Rights Movement in the South. Over the next five decades of reporting, he often returned to scenes of racial tension. Now, for the first time, the best of Trillin's pieces on race in America have been collected in one volume. In the title essay of Jackson, 1964, we experience Trillin's riveting coverage of the pathbreaking voter registration drive known as the Mississippi Summer Project-coverage that includes an unforgettable airplane conversation between Martin Luther King, Jr., and a young white man sitting across the aisle. ("I'd like to be loved by everyone," King tells him, "but we can't always wait for love.") In the years that follow, Trillin rides along with the National Guard units assigned to patrol black neighborhoods in Wilmington, Delaware; reports on the case of a black homeowner accused of manslaughter in the death of a white teenager in an overwhelmingly white Long Island suburb; and chronicles the remarkable fortunes of the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, a black carnival krewe in New Orleans whose members parade on Mardi Gras in blackface. He takes on issues that are as relevant today as they were when he wrote about them. Excessive sentencing is examined in a 1970 piece about a black militant in Houston serving thirty years in prison for giving away one marijuana cigarette. The role of race in the use of deadly force by police is highlighted in a 1975 article about an African American shot by a white policeman in Seattle. Uniting all these pieces are Trillin's unflinching eye and graceful prose. Jackson, 1964 is an indispensable account of a half-century of race and racism in America, through the lens of a master journalist and writer who was there to bear witness. Reader by Robert Fass, with the introduction read by the author Advance praise for Jackson, 1964 "Trillin, a regular contributor to the New Yorker since 1963, collects his insights and musings on race in America in previously published essays from over fifty years of reporting. . . . What's shocking is how topical and relatively undated many of these essays seem today."-Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The author of some thirty titles, Trillin revisits the last half-century's racial struggles in various regions of the country, and readers are likely to come away thinking, 'so much has not really changed all that much.' . . . Haunting pieces that show how our window on the past is often a mirror."-Kirkus Reviews Praise for Calvin Trillin "That rarity, reportage as art."-The New York Times "[A writer] of painterly, impeccably crafted journalism."-People "Trillin is perhaps the finest reporter in America."-The Miami Herald "If Truman Capote invented the nonfiction novel, as he claimed, and Norman Mailer devised variations on it, Trillin has perfected the nonfiction short story; moreover, his craftsmanship can contend with that of either Capote or Mailer at their best."-Kirkus Reviews "Without false rhetoric, [Trillin] can suddenly bring into focus the whole confused story of Civil Rights by examining in detail one particularly significant episode."-The Times Literary Supplement

Calvin Trillin (Author), Calvin Trillin, Robert Fass (Narrator)

Audiobook

Andy Borowitz Presents The Funniest American Writers

Award-winning comedian and New Yorker humorist Andy Borowitz presents an evening of literary laughter and a look at the new Library of America collection he edited, The Fifty Funniest American Writers—a hilarious collection of American humor writing from Mark Twain and James Thurber to David Sedaris and The Onion. Borowitz, who has been called “one of the funniest people in America” by 'CBS News Sunday Morning,' will be joined onstage by an all-star cast of the best American humorists.

Calvin Trillin, Jennifer Allen, Nora Ephron (Author), Andy Borowitz (Narrator)

Audiobook

About Alice

In Calvin Trillin's antic tales of family life, she was portrayed as the wife who had "a weird predilection for limiting our family to three meals a day" and the mother who thought that if you didn't go to every performance of your child's school play, "the county would come and take the child." Now, five years after her death, her husband offers this loving portrait of Alice Trillin off the page-an educator who was equally at home teaching at a university or a drug treatment center, a gifted writer, a stunningly beautiful and thoroughly engaged woman who, in the words of a friend, "managed to navigate the tricky waters between living a life you could be proud of and still delighting in the many things there are to take pleasure in." Though it deals with devastating loss, About Alice is also a love story, chronicling a romance that began at a Manhattan party when Calvin Trillin desperately tried to impress a young woman who "seemed to glow." "You have never again been as funny as you were that night," Alice would say, twenty or thirty years later. "You mean I peaked in December of 1963?" "I'm afraid so." But he never quit trying to impress her. In his writing, she was sometimes his subject and always his muse. The dedication of the first book he published after her death read, "I wrote this for Alice. Actually, I wrote everything for Alice." In that spirit, Calvin Trillin has, with About Alice, created a gift to the wife he adored and to his readers.

Calvin Trillin (Author), Calvin Trillin (Narrator)

Audiobook

Piece By Piece

Calvin Trillin, who has something witty and insightful to say about any topic, has distinguished himself in fields of writing that are remarkably diverse. For thirty years, he has reported on the American scene for The New Yorker. His memoir of the fifties, Remembering Denny, was a New York Times bestseller. But he is perhaps best known for his humor—in his syndicated newspaper column, in the "Shouts and Murmurs" section of The New Yorker, in his antic adventures as a "happy cater," in the weekly appearances with Johnny Carson and David Letterman. This original recording—his first—features Trillin at his most uproarious, reading from his own articles and books. Wonderfully funny and full of surprises, this is a thoroughly satisfying, eminently entertaining, and beautifully crafted collection.

Calvin Trillin (Author), Calvin Trillin (Narrator)

Audiobook

Tepper Isn't Going Out: A Novel

Murray Tepper would say that he is an ordinary New Yorker who is simply trying to read the newspaper in peace. But he reads while sitting behind the wheel of his parked car, and his car always seems to be in a particularly desirable parking spot. Not surprisingly, he is regularly interrupted by drivers who want to know if he is going out. Tepper isn't going out. Why not? His explanations tend to be rather literal: the indisputable fact, for instance, that he has twenty minutes left on the meter. Tepper's behavior sometimes irritates the people who want his spot. ("Is that where you live? Is that car rent-controlled?") It also irritates the mayor-Frank Ducavelli, known in tabloid headlines as Il Duce-who sees Murray Tepper as a harbinger of what His Honor always calls "the forces of disorder." But once New Yorkers become aware of Tepper, some of them begin to suspect that he knows something they don't know. And an ever-increasing number of them are willing to line up for the opportunity to sit in his car with him and find out. Tepper Isn't Going Out is a wise and witty story of an ordinary man who, perhaps innocently, changes the world around him.

Calvin Trillin (Author), Calvin Trillin (Narrator)

Audiobook

Tales from the Tummy Trilogy

What Calvin Trillin likes to write about is eating rather than food. Known to his fans as a "happy eater," he is also a highly-respected journalist and a nimble humorist. It is this unique combination of talents that makes The Tummy Trilogy such a wonderfully entertaining collection. Includes American Fried; Alice, Let’s Eat; and Third Helpings. In the 1970’s, when Trillin was writing the "American Journal" feature for the New Yorker, he spent a great deal of time on the road, diligently questing after the best cooking in every city, town, and village he passed through. When approaching local people, his technique was simple, and simply brilliant: "Don’t take me to the place you took your parents on their 25th wedding anniversary; take me to the place you went the night you came home after 14 months in Korea." With this kind of attitude, whether he is writing about taking his own multi-course picnic on a no-frills flight to Miami, describing the perils of post eating, indulging in the pleasures of pigging-out in Hong Kong, or giving us the definitive history of the origin of the Buffalo chicken wing, the results are marvelously funny and will be a very special treat for people who love eating and relish good prose.

Calvin Trillin (Author), Calvin Trillin (Narrator)

Audiobook