Nick Offerman has narrated 16 audiobooks on Listento.it by 11 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 1,259 ratings. The most-rated is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Summary
"Being paid to perform such a gratifying activity as reading Mark Twain aloud felt powerfully akin to Tom Sawyer hoodwinking other boys into paying him for the privilege of whitewashing a fence. Let's keep that between us." (Narrator Nick Offerman) With The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, not even Twain could have known that when he introduced readers to the inhabitants of the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, he would also be introducing two characters - one a clever and mischievous scamp, and the other a carefree, innocent ragamuffin - whose stories would ultimately shape the course of American literature. But whereas its sequel and companion piece, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, would harken an end to childhood, the story of Tom Sawyer is one that depicts the excitement and adventure of boyhood along the Mississippi. Revisit this enduring classic and you will be struck not only by Twain's skill at capturing a time and place so vividly but also by his uncanny ability to crystallize those oftentimes tumultuous and conflicting emotions that a child experiences at the precipice of adulthood: a longing to be free from the rules and obligations of adults while enjoying the laxity inherent in childhood; a love of all things macabre, like blood oaths, cemetery cures, and haunted houses, that reveal a true innocence - an unawareness of real-life consequences and one's own mortality; and the pangs of guilt when knowing the right thing to do and doing the right thing appear to be at odds. A natural storyteller and raconteur in his own right - just listen to Paddle Your Own Canoe and Gumption - actor, comedian, carpenter, and all-around manly man Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) brings his distinctive baritone and a fine-tuned comic versatility to Twain's writing. In a knockout performance, he doesn't so much as read Twain's words as he does rejoice in them, delighting in the hijinks of Tom - whom he lovingly refers to as a "great scam artist" and "true American hero" - while deftly delivering the tenderness and care Twain gave to his own characters.
Public Domain (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
Summary
At last, the full story behind Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman's epic romance, including stories, portraits, and the occasional puzzle, all telling the smoldering tale that has fascinated Hollywood for over a decade. The year: 2000. The setting: Los Angeles. A gorgeous virtuoso of an actress had agreed to star in a random play, and a basement-dwelling scenic carpenter had said he would assay a supporting role in the selfsame pageant. At the first rehearsal, she surveyed her fellow cast members, as one does, determining if any of the men might qualify to provide her with a satisfying fling. Her gaze fell upon the carpenter, and like a bolt of lightning, the thought struck her: No dice. Moving on. Yet, unbeknownst to our protagonists, Cupid had merely set down his bow and picked up a rocket launcher. Then fired a love rocket (not a euphemism). The players were Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, and the resulting romance, once it ignited, was... epic. Beyond epic. It resulted in a coupling that has endured to this day; a sizzling, perpetual tryst that has captivated the world with its kindness, athleticism, astonishingly low-brow humor, and true (fire emoji) passion. How did they do it? They came from completely different families, endured a significant age difference, and were separated by the gulf of several social strata. Megan loved books and art history; Nick loved hammers. But much more than these seemingly unsurpassable obstacles were the values they held in common: respect, decency, the ability to mention genitalia in almost any context, and an abiding obsession with the songs of Tom Waits. Eighteen years later, they're still very much in love, and have finally decided to reveal the philosophical mountains they have conquered, the lessons they've learned, and the myriad jigsaw puzzles they've completed, in an audiobook. Featuring anecdotes, hijinks, interviews, photos, and a veritable grab bag of tomfoolery, this is not only the intoxicating audiobook that Mullally's and Offerman's fans have been waiting for, it might just hold the solution to the greatest threat facing our modern world: the single life.
©2018 Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Lincoln in the Bardo
Summary
Winner of the 2018 Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul. Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end? The 166-person full cast features award-winning actors and musicians, as well as a number of Saunders’ family, friends, and members of his publishing team, including, in order of their appearance: Nick Offerman as Hans Vollman David Sedaris as Roger Bevins III Carrie Brownstein as Isabelle Perkins George Saunders as The Reverend Everly Thomas Miranda July as Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford Lena Dunham as Elise Traynor Ben Stiller as Jack Manders Julianne Moore as Jane Ellis Susan Sarandon as Mrs. Abigail Blass Bradley Whitford as Lt. Cecil Stone Bill Hader as Eddie Baron Megan Mullally as Betsy Baron Rainn Wilson as Percival “Dash” Collier Jeff Tweedy as Captain William Prince Kat Dennings as Miss Tamara Doolittle Jeffrey Tambor as Professor Edmund Bloomer Mike O’Brien as Lawrence T. Decroix Keegan-Michael Key as Elson Farwell Don Cheadle as Thomas Havens Patrick Wilson as Stanley “Perfesser” Lippert With Kirby Heyborne as Willie Lincoln, Mary Karr as Mrs. Rose Milland, and Cassandra Campbell as Your Narrator Praise for the audiobook “Lincoln in the Bardo sets a new standard for cast recordings in its structure, in its performances, and in its boldness. Now, let's see who answers the challenge.” (Chicago Tribune) “Like the novel, the audiobook breaks new ground in what can be accomplished through a story. It helps that there’s not a single bad note in the cast of a whopping 166 people. It’s also the rare phenomenon of an audiobook being a completely different experience compared to the novel. Even if you’ve read the novel, the audiobook is worth a listen (and vice versa). The whole project pushes the narrative form forward.” (A.V. Club) “The result is an auditory experience unlike any other, where the awareness of individual voices disappears while the carefully calibrated soundscape summons a metaphysical masterpiece. This is a tour de force of audiobook production, and a dazzling realization of Saunders’ unique authorial structure.” (Booklist) “The finished audiobook’s tapestry of voices perfectly mirrors the novel.” (Entertainment Weekly)
©2017 George Saunders (P)2017 Random House Audio
Paddle Your Own Canoe
Summary
Parks and Recreation actor Nick Offerman shares his humorous fulminations on life, manliness, meat, and much more in his first book. Growing a perfect moustache, grilling red meat, wooing a woman - who better to deliver this tutelage than the always charming, always manly Nick Offerman, best known as Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson? Combining his trademark comic voice and very real expertise in woodworking - he runs his own woodshop - Paddle Your Own Canoe features tales from Offerman's childhood in small-town Minooka, Illinois - "I grew up literally in the middle of a cornfield" - to his theater days in Chicago, beginnings as a carpenter/actor and the hilarious and magnificent seduction of his now-wife Megan Mullally. It also offers hard-bitten battle strategies in the arenas of manliness, love, style, religion, woodworking, and outdoor recreation, among many other savory entrees. A mix of amusing anecdotes, opinionated lessons and rants, sprinkled with offbeat gaiety, Paddle Your Own Canoe will not only tickle readers pink but may also rouse them to put down their smart phones, study a few sycamore leaves, and maybe even handcraft (and paddle) their own canoes.
©2013 Nick Offerman (P)2013 Penguin
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Summary
Praise for Nick Offerman narrating Mark Twain: “Offerman’s Illinois-raised voice and actor’s talent suit him ideally to channel Mark Twain.” (The New York Times Book Review) “There’s something about his wry Midwestern merriment that aspires to Twainishness.” (Men’s Journal) “It’s a melding of sardonic voices: Mark Twain, meet Nick Offerman.” (The Wall Street Journal) With his trademark mirth and boundless charisma, actor Nick Offerman brought the loveable shenanigans of Twain's adolescent hero to life in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Now, in yet another virtuosic performance, the actor proves that despite being separated by a span of over a century, his connection to the author and his work is undeniable and that theirs is a timeless collaboration that should not be missed. Trading in the idyllic banks of Twain's Mississippi for medieval England, Offerman regales listeners with one of American literature's foremost satires and the author's most inventive and darkly funny pieces of fiction. Hank Morgan is the archetype of modern man in 19th-century New England: adept at his trade as a mechanic, innovative, forward thinking. So when a blow to the head inexplicably sends him back in time 1300 years and places him in Camelot, instead of despair, he feels emboldened by the prospect placed before him and sets out to modernize and improve the lives of his fellow citizens. But, in order to do so, he'll need to contend with brash nobles, superstitious nincompoops, and a conniving, blowhard wizard. While time travel has become a common trope in storytelling today, in Twain's time it was truly a novel idea; all the more imaginative when you consider how it's used for satirical effect. A thinly veiled critique of the political and social institutions that impede progress and a scathing condemnation of the naiveté that allows them to thrive, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court saw Twain's biting wit and sharp tongue honed to a fine point. Told primarily through Hank's first-person perspective, Offerman effortlessly captures the Yankee's straightforward, matter-of-fact gruffness. Like Offerman - whose woodworking skills are the stuff of legend - Hank is a natural builder of things and his can-do, by-the-bootstraps spirit finds its vocal foil in Offerman's crisp delivery. But it's in Offerman's ability to convey the myriad characters and absurdities Hank faces that makes this an incomparable listening experience: the flowery embellishments and insane braggadocio of knights; the lilting, feathery sing-song of Clarence; the garrulous, long-winded pomp of the aristocracy; the old, dithering windbag pronouncements of Merlin. Offerman plays each of these with a humor and humanity that Twain himself would have enjoyed.
Public Domain (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
The Raven King
Summary
The fourth and final installment in the spellbinding series from irrepressible, number-one New York Times best-selling author Maggie Stiefvater. All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore. In a starred review for Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Kirkus Reviews declared: "Expect this truly one-of-a-kind series to come to a thundering close."
©2016 Maggie Stiefvater (P)2016 Scholastic Inc.
Gumption
Summary
The star of Parks and Recreation and author of the New York Times best seller Paddle Your Own Canoe returns with a second book that humorously highlights 21 figures from our nation's history, from her inception to present day - Nick's personal pantheon of "great Americans". To millions of people, Nick Offerman is America. Both Nick and his character, Ron Swanson, are known for their humor and patriotism in equal measure. After the great success of his autobiography Paddle Your Own Canoe, Offerman now focuses on the lives of those who inspired him. From George Washington to Willie Nelson, he describes 21 heroic figures and why they inspire in him such great meaning. He'll combine both serious history with light-hearted humor - comparing, say, George Washington's wooden teeth to his own experience as a woodworker. The subject matter will also allow Offerman to expound upon his favorite topics, which listeners love to hear - areas such as religion, politics, woodworking and handcrafting, agriculture, creativity, philosophy, fashion, and, of course, meat.
©2015 Nick Offerman (P)2015 Penguin Audio
Good Clean Fun
Summary
After two New York Times best sellers, Nick Offerman returns with the subject for which he’s known best - his incredible real-life woodshop - in a program that includes five original songs. Nestled among the glitz and glitter of Tinseltown is a testament to American elbow grease and an honest-to-god hard day’s work: Offerman Woodshop. Captained by hirsute woodworker, actor, comedian, and writer Nick Offerman, the shop produces not only fine handcrafted furniture, but also fun stuff - kazoos, baseball bats, ukuleles, moustache combs, even cedar strip canoes. Now Nick shares his experience of working at the woodshop with his ragtag crew of champions, tells you all about his passion for the discipline of woodworking, and teaches you how to make two of the woodshop’s most popular projects along the way: a Pop Top bottle opener and a three-legged stool. This audiobook will take you behind the scenes of the woodshop, both inspiring and teaching you to make your own projects while besotting you with the infectious spirit behind the shop and its complement of dusty wood-elves. While working on their projects, listeners can also enjoy exclusive original songs by Nick and his pal Jeff Tweedy - “Music to Sand By”, “American White Oak”, “Raising the Grain”, “The Lazy Carpenter”, and the title track, “Good Clean Fun”. Good Clean Fun also includes writings by Nick, humorous essays, odes to his own woodworking heroes, insights into the ethos of woodworking in modern America, and other assorted tomfoolery, all imbued with Nick Offerman’s brand of bucolic yet worldly wisdom. *Includes a Bonus PDF with Drawings, Visuals, and Original Song Lyrics. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2016 Nick Offerman (P)2016 Penguin Audio
Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
Summary
From the best-selling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette - the one Frenchman we could all agree on - and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality. On August 16, 1824, an elderly French gentlemen sailed into New York Harbor, and giddy Americans were there to welcome him. Or, rather, to welcome him back. It had been 30 years since he had last set foot in the United States, and he was so beloved that 80,000 people showed up to cheer for him. The entire population of New York at the time was 120,000. Lafayette's arrival in 1824 coincided with one of the most contentious presidential elections in American history. Congress had just fought its first epic battle over slavery, and the threat of a Civil War loomed. But Lafayette, belonging to neither North nor South, to no political party or faction, was a walking, talking reminder of the sacrifices and bravery of the revolutionary generation and what they wanted this country to be. His return was not just a reunion with his beloved Americans; it was a reunion for Americans with their own astonishing, singular past. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States is a humorous and insightful portrait of the famed Frenchman, the impact he had on our young country, and his ongoing relationship with instrumental Americans of the time, including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and many more. John Slattery as the Marquis de Lafayette Nick Offerman as George Washington Fred Armisen as Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben Bobby Cannavale as Benjamin Franklin John Hodgman as John Adams Stephanie March as Evelyn Wotherspoon Wainwight and Linda Williams Alexis Denisof as The British Leadership Patton Oswalt as Thomas Jefferson and Sherm
©2015 Sarah Vowell (P)2015 Simon & Schuster Audio
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling, Booker Prize - winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves — and our world today. For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art — namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible. This audiobook includes a PDF of the tables, outlines, figures, and appendices from the book.
©2021 George Saunders (P)2021 Random House Audio
All Rise
Summary
Spend a rollicking evening with Nick Offerman's All Rise, an evening of deliberative talking, mirth, and song that compels listeners to chuckle while also causing them to contemplate a better side of humanity than the one to which they've grown accustomed. In Nick Offerman's view, we as a country can be doing a better job when it comes to decency. While most of the country has spent the last few years fighting about everything from politics to the existence of science, there are some things we can all agree about, like that we only really need one flavor of Oreo cookies. And that despite all the challenges we're currently facing, America can get it together if we can, simply, rise above it all, and admit that a lot what we're fighting about is actually pretty stupid, especially when told in Nick's signature comedic voice - songs included. An Audiobook Original. Cover illustration by Matt Davies
©2020 Nick Offerman (P)2020 Penguin Audio
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
Summary
Twenty-five years after Jesus’ Son, a haunting new collection of short stories on mortality and transcendence, from National Book Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Denis Johnson The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the long-awaited new story collection from Denis Johnson. Written in the luminous prose that made him one of the most beloved and important writers of his generation, this collection finds Johnson in new territory, contemplating the ghosts of the past and the elusive and unexpected ways the mysteries of the universe assert themselves. Finished shortly before Johnson’s death, this collection is the last word from a writer whose work will live on for many years to come. Audiobook Table of Contents: “The Largesse of the Sea Maiden”, read by Nick Offerman “The Starlight on Idaho”, read by Michael Shannon “Strangler Bob”, read by Dermot Mulroney “Triumph over the Grave”, read by Will Patton “Doppelgänger, Poltergeist”, read by Liev Schreiber Advance praise for The Largesse of the Sea Maiden: “Mesmerizing...psychologically revelatory, spiritually inquisitive, and grimly funny stories...Johnson will be remembered and revered as an incisive storyteller fluent in the comedy and tragedy of human confusion and the transcendence of compassion.” [Booklist (starred review)] “American literature suffered a serious loss with Johnson’s death. These final stories underscore what we’ll miss.... Johnson is best known for his writing about hard-luck cases - alcoholics, thieves, world-weary soldiers. But this final collection ranges up and down the class ladder; for Johnson, a sense of mortality and a struggle to make sense of our lives knew no demographic boundaries.” [Kirkus Reviews (starred review)] “An instant classic... A masterpiece of deep humanity and astonishing prose... It’s filled with Johnson's unparalleled ability to inject humor, profundity, and beauty - often all three - into the dark and the mundane alike. These characters have been pushed toward the edge; through their searches for meaning or clawing just to hold on to life, Johnson is able to articulate what it means to be alive, and to have hope.” (Publishers Weekly)
©2018 Denis Johnson (P)2018 Random House Audio
The Unsettling of America
Summary
Since its publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural and spiritual discipline. Today’s agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land - from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it. Sadly, his arguments and observations are more relevant than ever. Although “this book has not had the happy fate of being proved wrong,” Berry writes, there are people working “to make something comely and enduring of our life on this earth.” Wendell Berry is one of those people, writing and working, as ever, with passion, eloquence, and conviction.
©1977 Wendell Berry (P)2020 Recorded Books
No More Poems!
Summary
Acclaimed singer-songwriter Rhett Miller returns in a riotous collection of irreverent poems for modern families. In the tradition of Shel Silverstein, these poems bring a fresh new twist to the classic dilemmas of childhood as well as a perceptive eye to the foibles of modern family life. Full of clever wordplay - and toilet humor to spare - these 23 rhyming poems make for an ideal listening experience. Taking on the subjects of a bullying baseball coach and annoying little brothers with equally sly humor, renowned lyricist Rhett Miller's clever verses will have the whole family cackling.
©2019 Rhett Miller (P)2019 Hachette Audio
The World-Ending Fire
Summary
In a time when our relationship to the natural world is ruled by the violence and greed of unbridled consumerism, Wendell Berry speaks out in these prescient essays, drawn from his 50-year campaign on behalf of American lands and communities. The writings gathered in The World-Ending Fire are the unique product of a life spent farming the fields of rural Kentucky with mules and horses, and of the rich, intimate knowledge of the land cultivated by this work. These are essays written in defiance of the false call to progress and in defense of local landscapes, essays that celebrate our cultural heritage, our history, and our home. With grace and conviction, Wendell Berry shows that we simply cannot afford to succumb to the mass-produced madness that drives our global economy - the natural world will not allow it. Yet he also shares with us a vision of consolation and of hope. We may be locked in an uneven struggle, but we can and must begin to treat our land, our neighbors, and ourselves with respect and care. As Berry urges, we must abandon arrogance and stand in awe.
©2018 Wendell Berry (P)2020 Recorded Books
The Second We Met
Summary
Dear Jerk Across the Street, sorry for accidentally walking in on you and catching an eyeful of your - equipment. And hard pass on the open invitation to join you in the shower “anytime”, A-hole. That’s the note I should’ve written. Instead I sent a pleasant and apologetic version. Had I known Phoenix “Nix” Russo would’ve been the neighbor from hell, I’d have told him right where he could shove my words. Nix is the big man on campus with everyone lined up at his games to make sure he knows it. Sure, he’s got piercing blue eyes, abs that don’t quit, and a smile that could set fire to a set of panties from a hundred yards away, but he’s also the biggest pain in my ass. Dear Pink-Haired Menace, learn how to take a joke and stop being such a kill-joy... Elle Masterson called the cops on one of my parties - again. My sweet talking usually gets me out of trouble, but this time it got me into a nice pair of silver handcuffs. Now I’m on a reputation rehab tour with a stop at a spring break community service project. Guess who’s my new boss? Now we’re shoulder to shoulder, sweaty, tired, and...she’s not anything like I expected. There might just be a heart under that hard-ass exterior. She’s invading my dreams and I can’t shake the feeling she’s the key to unlocking a piece of me that I’ve hidden away. It’s only a matter of time until she finds out why I’m really here. Maybe I can break through her walls and into her heart before that happens...one screw at a time. The Second We Met is a stand-alone new adult romance.
©2019 Maya Hughes (P)2020 Maya Hughes