Tom Bissell has 6 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 363 ratings. The most-rated is The Disaster Artist.
The Disaster Artist
Summary
Nineteen-year-old Greg Sestero met Tommy Wiseau at an acting school in San Francisco. Wiseau's scenes were rivetingly wrong, yet Sestero, hypnotized by such uninhibited acting, thought, "I have to do a scene with this guy." That impulse changed both of their lives. Wiseau seemed never to have read the rule book on interpersonal relationships (or the instructions on a bottle of black hair dye), yet he generously offered to put the aspiring actor up in his LA apartment. Sestero's nascent acting career first sizzled, then fizzled, resulting in Wiseau's last-second offer to Sestero of co-starring with him in The Room, a movie Wiseau wrote and planned to finance, produce, and direct - in the parking lot of a Hollywood equipment-rental shop. Wiseau spent $6 million of his own money on his film, but despite the efforts of the disbelieving (and frequently fired) crew and embarrassed (and frequently fired) actors, the movie made no sense. Nevertheless, Wiseau rented a Hollywood billboard featuring his alarming headshot and staged a red carpet premiere. The Room made $1,800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. One reviewer said that watching The Room was like "getting stabbed in the head". The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero's laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" (Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon, with Wiseau himself beloved as an oddball celebrity. Written with award-winning journalist Tom Bissell, The Disaster Artist is an inspiring tour de force, an open-hearted portrait of an enigmatic man who will improbably capture your heart.
©2013 Greg Sestero and Thomas Carlisle Bissell (P)2014 Tantor
The Disaster Artist
Summary
Now a major motion picture, The Disaster Artist, starring James Franco, Alison Brie, Zoey Deutch, Lizzy Caplan, Zac Efron, Bryan Cranston, Dave Franco, Kristen Bell, Seth Rogen, Sharon Stone, and Judd Apatow. In 2003, an independent film called The Room - starring and written, produced, and directed by a mysteriously wealthy social misfit named Tommy Wiseau - made its disastrous debut in Los Angeles. Described by one reviewer as 'like getting stabbed in the head', the $6 million film earned a grand total of $1,800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. Over a decade later, The Room is an international cult phenomenon whose legions of fans attend screenings featuring costumes, audience rituals, merchandising, and thousands of plastic spoons. In The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero, Tommy's costar, recounts the film's bizarre journey to infamy, explaining how the movie's many nonsensical scenes and bits of dialogue came to be and unravelling the mystery of Tommy Wiseau himself. But more than just a riotously funny story about cinematic hubris, The Disaster Artist is an honest and warm testament to friendship.
©2018 Kelly Pietrangeli (P)2018 Audible, Ltd
Extra Lives
Summary
Tom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of 34. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Oblivion for, literally, days. If you are reading this copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know. Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games. In this, he is not alone. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well-designed if mindless entertainment. Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming - but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell’s descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions. Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is like no other work on the subject ever published. Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, Extra Lives is required listening.
©2010 Tom Bissell (P)2010 Random House
Magic Hours
Summary
Award-winning essayist Tom Bissell explores the highs and lows of the creative process. He takes us from the set of The Big Bang Theory to the first novel of Ernest Hemingway to the final work of David Foster Wallace; from the films of Werner Herzog to the film of Tommy Wiseau to the editorial meeting in which Paula Fox’s work was relaunched into the world. Originally published in magazines such as The Believer, The New Yorker, and Harper’s, these essays represent 10 years of Bissell’s best writing on every aspect of creation - be it Iraq War documentaries or video-game character voices - and will provoke as much thought as they do laughter. What are sitcoms for exactly? Can art be both bad and genius? Why do some books survive and others vanish? Bissell’s exploration of these questions make for a gripping, unforgettable listen.
©2018 Tom Bissell (P)2018 Random House Audio
Apostle
Summary
A profound and moving journey into the heart of Christianity that explores the mysterious and often paradoxical lives and legacies of the 12 apostles - a book both for those of the faith and for others who seek to understand Christianity from the outside in. Peter, Matthew, Thomas, John: Who were these men? What was their relationship to Jesus? Tom Bissell provides rich and surprising answers to these ancient, elusive questions. He examines not just who these men were (and weren't) but also how their identities have taken shape over the course of two millennia. Ultimately Bissell finds that the story of the apostles is the story of early Christianity: its competing versions of Jesus' ministry, its countless schisms, and its ultimate evolution from an obscure Jewish sect to the global faith we know today in all its forms and permutations. In his quest to understand the underpinnings of the world's largest religion, Bissell embarks on a years-long pilgrimage to the supposed tombs of the 12 apostles. He travels from Jerusalem and Rome to Turkey, Greece, Spain, France, India, and Kyrgyzstan, vividly capturing the rich diversity of Christianity's worldwide reach. Along the way he engages with a host of characters - priests, paupers, a Vatican archaeologist, a Palestinian taxi driver, a Russian monk - posing sharp questions that range from the religious to the philosophical to the political. Written with warmth, empathy, and rare acumen, Apostle is a brilliant synthesis of travel writing, biblical history, and a deep, lifelong relationship with Christianity. The result is an unusual, erudite, and at times hilarious book - a religious, intellectual, and personal adventure fit for believers, scholars, and wanderers alike.
©2016 Tom Bissell (P)2016 Random House Audio
Creative Types
Summary
From the best-selling coauthor of The Disaster Artist, a new collection of stories that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disturbingly dark - unflinching portraits of women and men struggling to bridge the gap between art and life A young and ingratiating assistant to a movie star makes a blunder that puts his boss and a major studio at grave risk. A long-married couple hires an escort for a threesome in order to rejuvenate their relationship. An assistant at a prestigious literary journal reconnects with a middle school frenemy and finds that his carefully constructed world of refinement cannot protect him from his past. A Bush administration lawyer wakes up on an abandoned airplane, trapped in a nightmare of his own making. In these and other stories, Tom Bissell vividly renders the complex worlds of characters on the brink of artistic and personal crises - writers, video-game developers, actors, and other creative types who see things slightly differently from the rest of us. With its surreal, poignant, and sometimes squirm-inducing stories, Creative Types is a brilliant new offering from one the most versatile and talented writers working in America today.
©2020 Tom Bissell (P)2020 Random House Audio