Audiobook Sample
Listen to the sample to experience the story.
Please wait while we verify your browser...
- Title: Tiny Beautiful Things (10th Anniversary Edition): Advice from Dear Sugar (A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick)
- Author: Cheryl Strayed
- Narrator: Cheryl Strayed
- Length: 10:41:00
- Version: Abridged
- Release Date: 10/07/2012
- Publisher: Random House (Audio)
- Genre: Biography & Memoir, Health & Wellness, Marriage & Family, Memoir, Death & Bereavement
- ISBN13: 9.78E+12
As I pressed play on Cheryl Strayed’s narration of “Tiny Beautiful Things”, I was immediately transported back to my graduate school office in Berkeley, where I first discovered her ‘Dear Sugar’ columns. The walls were lined with books on literary theory, but it was Strayed’s raw, unflinching wisdom that truly taught me how stories can heal. This 10th anniversary edition, enriched with six new columns and a poignant preface, offers an even more profound listening experience than I remembered from my first encounter with the print version.
What makes this audiobook exceptional is Strayed’s narration – her voice carries the weight of lived experience, cracking at precisely the right moments when recounting painful memories, then swelling with quiet strength when offering hard-won advice. I found myself pausing the recording frequently, just as I used to pause while reading the physical book, to let particular phrases resonate. There’s an intimacy to hearing the author speak her own words that adds layers of meaning I hadn’t perceived in silent reading.
The structure of the audiobook follows the original collection of advice columns, but Strayed’s narration transforms them into something more akin to lyrical essays. Her pacing is masterful – she knows exactly when to let silence hang in the air, allowing listeners space to reflect on questions like ‘How do I forgive my cheating spouse?’ or ‘Why does my grief still feel so fresh years later?’ This reminded me of teaching Haruki Murakami’s work in Tokyo, where I learned how the spaces between words can be as meaningful as the words themselves.
Several themes emerge with particular clarity in the audio format:
1. “Radical Empathy”: Strayed’s responses demonstrate what I often teach my students about ‘narrative medicine’ – how stories can diagnose and treat emotional wounds. Her advice to ‘write like a motherfucker’ (a favorite column of mine) takes on new urgency when heard in her own impassioned voice.
2. “The Beauty of Imperfection”: The audio medium captures all the beautiful imperfections – the throat clears, the emotional pauses – that make the advice feel human rather than polished. This authenticity creates what Roland Barthes might call a ‘reality effect’ that print cannot fully replicate.
3. “Intergenerational Wisdom”: Hearing Strayed’s voice made me reflect on how oral storytelling traditions predate written advice columns by millennia. There’s something primal and comforting about receiving guidance through the human voice.
The production quality is excellent, with crisp audio that maintains consistent volume levels – crucial for an emotional work that listeners might experience in various settings. I tested this by listening both in my quiet home office and during my morning commute, and the recording held up beautifully in both environments.
Compared to other advice audiobooks like “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F”uck” (which I appreciate for its bluntness but find lacking in Strayed’s poetic grace), “Tiny Beautiful Things” offers a more nuanced, literarily rich approach to life’s challenges. Where Mark Manson might tell you to ‘choose your struggles,’ Strayed shows you how to find meaning within them through storytelling.
For those considering this audiobook, I’d recommend:
– Listening with headphones to fully appreciate the vocal nuances
– Keeping a journal nearby – you’ll want to process your reactions
– Not bingeing the entire book at once – each column deserves reflection
My only critique is that I occasionally wished for chapter titles that indicated the theme of each letter (e.g., ‘On Grief’ or ‘On Infidelity’) to make revisiting specific advice easier. However, this minor structural choice doesn’t diminish the overall power of the listening experience.
In solidarity through stories,
Prof. Emily Chen
