Listen free for 30 days
-
I Like to Watch
- Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
- Narrated by: Emily Nussbaum
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Essays
People who bought this also bought...
-
Uncanny Valley
- A Memoir
- By: Anna Wiener
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anna Wiener was beginning to tire of her assistant job in New York publishing. Within a year she had moved to San Francisco to take up a job at a data analytics start-up in Silicon Valley. She had a healthy income for the first time in her life. She felt like part of the future. But a tide was beginning to turn. People were speaking of tech start-ups as surveillance companies. Out of 60 employees, only 8 of her colleagues were women. Casual sexism was rife. Sexual harassment cases were proliferating.
-
-
Engaging narrator, thin content
- By Anonymous User on 19-03-20
-
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
- By: Jia Tolentino
- Narrated by: Jia Tolentino
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are living in the era of the self, in an era of malleable truth and widespread personal and political delusion. In these nine interlinked essays, Jia Tolentino, the New Yorker’s brightest young talent, explores her own coming of age in this warped and confusing landscape.
-
-
Insightful and thought provoking
- By Paulo on 01-11-19
-
Wow, No Thank You.
- By: Samantha Irby
- Narrated by: Samantha Irby
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Staring down the barrel of her 40th year, Samantha Irby is confronting the ways her life has changed since the days she could work a full 11 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep, change her shoes and put mascara on in the back of a moving cab and go from drinks to dinner to the club without a second thought. Recently, things are more 'Girls Gone Mild.'
-
-
wow, yes please
- By Mrs. Lindsay P. Tonner on 22-04-20
-
How to Do Nothing
- Resisting the Attention Economy
- By: Jenny Odell
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gidel
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity...doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance. So argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to doing nothing (at least as capitalism defines it). Odell sees our attention as the most precious - and overdrawn - resource we have.
-
-
What is the point?
- By rjj on 01-02-21
-
Catch and Kill
- Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
- By: Ronan Farrow
- Narrated by: Ronan Farrow
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family.
-
-
Expertly written, poorly voiced
- By Hana on 02-01-20
-
Intimations
- Six Essays
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Zadie Smith
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of essays on the experience of lockdown, by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time. Crafted with the sharp intelligence, wit and style that have won Zadie Smith millions of fans and suffused with a profound intimacy and tenderness in response to these unprecedented times, Intimations is a vital work of art, a gesture of connection and an act of love - an essential book in extraordinary times.
-
-
So eloquently captures the complexity of feeling
- By Ms. N. K. Jones on 27-10-20
-
Uncanny Valley
- A Memoir
- By: Anna Wiener
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anna Wiener was beginning to tire of her assistant job in New York publishing. Within a year she had moved to San Francisco to take up a job at a data analytics start-up in Silicon Valley. She had a healthy income for the first time in her life. She felt like part of the future. But a tide was beginning to turn. People were speaking of tech start-ups as surveillance companies. Out of 60 employees, only 8 of her colleagues were women. Casual sexism was rife. Sexual harassment cases were proliferating.
-
-
Engaging narrator, thin content
- By Anonymous User on 19-03-20
-
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
- By: Jia Tolentino
- Narrated by: Jia Tolentino
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are living in the era of the self, in an era of malleable truth and widespread personal and political delusion. In these nine interlinked essays, Jia Tolentino, the New Yorker’s brightest young talent, explores her own coming of age in this warped and confusing landscape.
-
-
Insightful and thought provoking
- By Paulo on 01-11-19
-
Wow, No Thank You.
- By: Samantha Irby
- Narrated by: Samantha Irby
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Staring down the barrel of her 40th year, Samantha Irby is confronting the ways her life has changed since the days she could work a full 11 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep, change her shoes and put mascara on in the back of a moving cab and go from drinks to dinner to the club without a second thought. Recently, things are more 'Girls Gone Mild.'
-
-
wow, yes please
- By Mrs. Lindsay P. Tonner on 22-04-20
-
How to Do Nothing
- Resisting the Attention Economy
- By: Jenny Odell
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gidel
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity...doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance. So argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to doing nothing (at least as capitalism defines it). Odell sees our attention as the most precious - and overdrawn - resource we have.
-
-
What is the point?
- By rjj on 01-02-21
-
Catch and Kill
- Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
- By: Ronan Farrow
- Narrated by: Ronan Farrow
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family.
-
-
Expertly written, poorly voiced
- By Hana on 02-01-20
-
Intimations
- Six Essays
- By: Zadie Smith
- Narrated by: Zadie Smith
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of essays on the experience of lockdown, by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time. Crafted with the sharp intelligence, wit and style that have won Zadie Smith millions of fans and suffused with a profound intimacy and tenderness in response to these unprecedented times, Intimations is a vital work of art, a gesture of connection and an act of love - an essential book in extraordinary times.
-
-
So eloquently captures the complexity of feeling
- By Ms. N. K. Jones on 27-10-20
-
Coming Undone
- A Memoir
- By: Terri White
- Narrated by: Terri White
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To everyone else, Terri White appeared to be living the dream, named one of Folio's Top Women in US Media and accruing further awards for the magazines she was editing. In reality, she was rapidly skidding towards a mental health crisis that would land her in a locked psychiatric ward as her past caught up with her. As well as growing up in a household in poverty, Terri endured sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a number of her mother's partners.
-
-
Loved it
- By Anonymous User on 30-08-20
-
Thick
- And Other Essays
- By: Tressie McMillan Cottom
- Narrated by: Tressie McMillan Cottom
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Smart, humorous, and strikingly original essays by one of “America’s most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time.” (Rebecca Traister) In these eight piercing explorations on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom - award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed - embraces her venerated role as a purveyor of wit, wisdom, and Black Twitter snark about all that is right and much that is wrong with this thing we call society.
-
-
actually mindblowing
- By Maz on 03-10-19
-
I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are
- By: Rachel Bloom
- Narrated by: Rachel Bloom
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rachel Bloom has felt abnormal and out of place her whole life. In this exploration of what she thinks makes her 'different', she's come to realise that a lot of people also feel this way - even people who she otherwise thought were 'normal'. In a collection of laugh-out-loud funny essays, all told in the unique voice (sometimes singing voice) that made her a star, Rachel writes about everything from her love of Disney, OCD and depression, weirdness and female friendships to the story of how she didn't poop in the toilet until she was four years old.
-
-
Brilliantly delivered and both honest and funny
- By Daniel Taylor on 17-11-20
-
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Diane Keaton
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Universally acclaimed from the time it was first published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has been admired for decades as a stylistic masterpiece. Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton (Annie Hall, The Family Stone) performs these classic essays, including the title piece, which will transport the listener back to a unique time and place: the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the neighborhood’s heyday as a countercultural center.
-
-
How is this book still relevant?
- By Claire Leith on 28-03-18
-
The Chiffon Trenches
- By: André Leon Talley
- Narrated by: André Leon Talley
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A candid look at the who's who of the last 50 years of fashion and proof that fact is always devilishly more fascinating than fiction. André Leon Talley's engaging and detailed memoir is his story of surviving and thriving in the notoriously cutthroat fashion industry amidst racism, homophobia and other challenges to become one of the most legendary voices and faces in fashion journalism.
-
-
Thank goodness Mr Leon Talley narrated this excellent book, as it truly brings the stories to life.
- By M on 20-07-20
-
Little Weirds
- By: Jenny Slate
- Narrated by: Jenny Slate
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To see the world through Jenny Slate's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility. As she will remind you, we live on an ancient ball that rotates around a bigger ball made up of lights and gases that are science gases, not farts (don't be immature). Heartbreak, confusion and misogyny stalk this blue-green sphere, yes, but it is also a place of wild delight and unconstrained vitality, a place where we can start living as soon as we are born, and we can be born at any time.
-
-
Springtime in literary form
- By Amazon Customer on 11-04-20
-
Exciting Times
- By: Naoise Dolan
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ava, newly arrived in Hong Kong from Dublin, spends her days teaching English to rich children. Julian is a banker. A banker who likes to spend money on Ava, to have sex and discuss fluctuating currencies with her. But when she asks whether he loves her, he cannot say more than 'I like you a great deal'. Enter Edith, a lawyer. Refreshingly enthusiastic and unapologetically earnest, Edith takes Ava to the theatre when Julian leaves Hong Kong for work. Quickly, she becomes something Ava looks forward to. And then Julian writes to tell Ava he is coming back to Hong Kong....
-
-
Exhausted by Ava’s tedious self-absorption
- By AD on 20-10-20
-
Hood Feminism
- Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot
- By: Mikki Kendall
- Narrated by: Mikki Kendall
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All too often the focus of mainstream feminism is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. Meeting basic needs is a feminist issue. Food insecurity, the living wage and access to education are feminist issues. The fight against racism, ableism and transmisogyny are all feminist issues. White feminists often fail to see how race, class, sexual orientation and disability intersect with gender. How can feminists stand in solidarity as a movement when there is a distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?
-
-
Very American.
- By Amazon Customer on 18-04-20
-
OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea
- By: Patrick Freyne
- Narrated by: Patrick Freyne
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Freyne has tried a lot of stupid ideas in his life. Now, in his scintillating debut, he is here to tell you about them: like the time (aged five) he opened a gate and let a horse out of its field, just to see what would happen; or the time (aged 19) he jumped out of a plane for charity, even though he didn't much care about the charity and was sure he'd end up dead; or the time (aged old enough to know better) he used a magazine as a funnel for fuel when the petrol cap on his band's van broke.
-
-
Be wary of listening in public
- By Sue murphy on 12-10-20
-
A Very Punchable Face
- A Memoir
- By: Colin Jost
- Narrated by: Colin Jost
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If there’s one trait that makes someone well-suited to comedy, it’s being able to take a punch - metaphorically and, occasionally, physically. Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy - with a face you can’t help but want to punch.
-
-
Why I love Colins mom
- By SaraDee on 14-09-20
-
We Need New Stories
- The Fortress of Corrupt Ideas and How to Tear It Down
- By: Nesrine Malik
- Narrated by: Nesrine Malik
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are in a unique moment as it is becoming clear that the old frames of reference are not working, that the narratives used for decades to stave off progressive causes are in danger of being exposed as falsehoods, that the myths, be it of sexual liberation or of white non-identity, are at odds with the lived experience and in urgent need of revision. Nesrine Malik applies her uniquely sharp intellect to a range of stories used to maintain the status quo.
-
-
Finger-pointing at the world
- By P. Ivanova on 08-08-20
-
Shrill
- Notes from a Loud Woman
- By: Lindy West
- Narrated by: Lindy West
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'Women are told, from birth, that it's our job to be small: physically small, small in our presence, and small in our impact on the world. We're supposed to spend our lives passive, quiet and hungry. I want to obliterate that expectation....' Guardian columnist Lindy West wasn't always loud. It's difficult to believe she was once a nerdy, overweight teen who wanted nothing more than to be invisible. Fortunately for women everywhere, along the road she found her voice - and how she found it!
-
-
I wish she was my real life friend.
- By Noel Edmunds on 29-05-16
Summary
From The New Yorker’s fiercely original, Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic, a provocative collection of new and previously published essays arguing that we are what we watch.
"Emily Nussbaum is the perfect critic - smart, engaging, funny, generous, and insightful." (David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon)
Named one of the Best Books of the Year NPR • Chicago Tribune • Esquire • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews
From her creation of the "Approval Matrix" in New York magazine in 2004 to her Pulitzer Prize-winning columns for The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum has argued for a new way of looking at TV. In this collection, including two never-before-published essays, Nussbaum writes about her passion for television, beginning with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show that set her on a fresh intellectual path. She explores the rise of the female screw-up, how fans warp the shows they love, the messy power of sexual violence on TV, and the year that jokes helped elect a reality television president.
There are three big profiles of television showrunners - Kenya Barris, Jenji Kohan, and Ryan Murphy - as well as examinations of the legacies of Norman Lear and Joan Rivers. The audiobook also includes a major new essay written during the year of #MeToo, wrestling with the question of what to do when the artist you love is a monster.
More than a collection of reviews, the audiobook makes a case for toppling the status anxiety that has long haunted the "idiot box", even as it transformed. Through it all, Nussbaum recounts her fervent search, over 15 years, for a new kind of criticism, one that resists the false hierarchy that elevates one kind of culture (violent, dramatic, gritty) over another (joyful, funny, stylized). I Like to Watch traces her own struggle to punch through stifling notions of "prestige television", searching for a more expansive, more embracing vision of artistic ambition - one that acknowledges many types of beauty and complexity and opens to more varied voices. It’s an audiobook that celebrates television as television, even as each year warps the definition of just what that might mean.
Finalist for the Pen/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
"This collection, including some powerful new work, proves once and for all that there’s no better American critic of anything than Emily Nussbaum. But I Like to Watch turns out to be even greater than the sum of its brilliant parts - it’s the most incisive, intimate, entertaining, authoritative guide to the shows of this golden television age." (Kurt Andersen, author of Fantasyland)
"Reading Emily Nussbaum makes us smarter not just about what we watch, but about how we live, what we love, and who we are. I Like to Watch is a joy." (Rebecca Traister)
Critic reviews
"You’ll be delighted.... Nussbaum’s essay about men, art, and the #MeToo movement is alone worth the price of the book." (The Washington Post)
"Sometimes I’ll just be sitting around, reading something this woman’s written, and I’ll actually think, Why doesn’t somebody just put all of Emily Nussbaum’s writing into a book? And now somebody has! Except I Like to Watch is more than I knew I wanted. It’s got some of the Nussbaum hits (on The Sopranos, on Girls, on Joan Rivers, on Vanderpump Rules, for starters). But it’s also more: a work of sustained philosophical argument (What is television?) and resonant personal reflection (What does fandom cost?). It’s a book by a critic who loves an art form ardently and remains committed to both questioning the people who make the art and interrogating the ardor itself." (Wesley Morris, critic at large, The New York Times)
"Emily Nussbaum is the perfect critic - smart, engaging, funny, generous, and insightful. All of these talents are on display in this marvelous anthology of her essays on television. They illuminate the shows shaping our culture and the power of this flourishing art form." (David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon)
What listeners say about I Like to Watch
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 05-07-19
Yes, this is worth a credit! 💯
I’ve had the audiobook literally two days, and I’ve now listened to almost all of it. I absolutely see myself listening to it again, especially as I choose what shows to watch or to watch again through her critic’s eye. Some shows she loves - Girls, for example. I had a hard time getting beyond one episode for some reason; now that I’ve listened to Emily, I have a better idea why and I’m willing to go back. Her pieces on Joan Rivers and the Marvelous Mrs Maisel were especially insightful. Listen to this book for insight into American culture, politics, art, gender, and yes, even just for entertainment. It’s a great guide to TV - some shows better than others - that is an instant classic.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 15-07-19
An excellent collection of criticism
Emily Nussbaum's book features detailed analysis of culturally significant television shows and strong insight into the medium as a whole. Her essays also trace a unique history of television, especially over the last two decades of major changes for consumers and producers. The narration is solid, maintaining a nice flow that can be difficult to achieve in non-fiction audiobooks.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Tom
- 07-02-20
makes me want to watch more TV
I was especially keen to listen to this book for the lengthy essay on Louie C.K. and difficult men, which turned out not to be the best essay in the book. But then I listened twice to the standout piece on Joan Rivers and loved several others, such as those about Jenji Kohan and Kenya Barris as well. Nussbaum makes me want to watch more, not less TV. As for the Louie C. K., Nussbaum seemed for once a little over her head trying to find a way to make consistent judgments about work produced by artists with repellant moral flaws. It is a difficult topic.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- SusanV
- 01-07-19
Smart, Smart, Smart
Smart and engaging from a great writer and brilliant contemporary thinker. Read by the author who has a lovely alto voice.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Katie
- 07-01-20
Skipped around to the chapters I was interested in
Listened like a podcast, which is good. I didn't listen all at once, if I became bored with a different book I would choose a chapter to listen too and then would go back. The author is a very talented writer and very passionate about her content, which makes it an easy listen.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- AS
- 14-08-19
A must for tv watchers
If you want to understand television in the 21st century and how it fits into the history of the medium, and you want to read exacting criticism of your favorite shows, this is your book. Great collection of essays by a superb critic.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- J Brown Strabley
- 14-08-19
I don’t.
This was a fantastically good production. The essays were interesting and compelling and kept me interested even though there were many shows that I haven’t seen and will not watch. The author’s honesty about artists and heroes and bad men was about the most cogent essay I have encountered on the topic. While I don’t think she manages to be completely undogmatic in the whole of her narrative, when it comes to “me too” she gives an insider’s account that is also an examination of her own grappling with art and in a way, guilt. On a lighter side, I now have a note on my phone with a list of shows that should keep me glued for longer than I’d like. Winter is coming. I enjoyed every minute of listening to this book.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Hoapili
- 05-08-19
Writing worth reading, whether you or not you like to watch
I missed a lot of the tv reviewed here, but it didn’t matter. Nussbsum’s review are valuable social critiques more generally and her writing is exceptional. I like to listen!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- JMcBride
- 25-07-19
Interesting pretty quick read
For those who have read Nussbaum’s NY reviews, this is just a collection of them. I didn’t pay enough attention in ordering and thought there would be some new material here. That’s on me and I still found her takes on last 20 years of TV a pleasant read. The Middle and interview with Jenji Kohan were personal highlights. Each chapter is a distinct review so was able to skip past those of shows never watched/cared for.