

Notes of a Native Son
Author: James Baldwin
Narrator: Ron Butler
Unabridged: 5 hr 3 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 02/03/2015
Author: James Baldwin
Narrator: Ron Butler
Unabridged: 5 hr 3 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 02/03/2015
Born in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, social critic and the author of more than twenty books. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collection The Fire Next Time was a bestseller that made him an influential figure in the civil rights movement. Baldwin spent many years in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in 1987.
Ron Butler is a Los Angeles-based actor and voice artist with over a hundred film and television credits (playing everything from brooding doctors to screwball hipsters). Most kids will recognize him from the three seasons he spent on Nickelodeon's True Jackson, VP. Ron works regularly as a commercial and animation voice-over artist and has voiced a wide variety of audiobooks. He is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company and an Independent Filmmaker Project Award winner for his work in the HBO film Everyday People. Originally from the Bahamas, Ron grew up singing calypso onstage with his father (the country's number-one recording artist) before touring (and recording) in Europe with a jazz band. In his spare time, he impersonates the president while playing the ukulele.
I read books extremely fast most of the time, for two main reasons: 1) my natural reading pace is pretty speedy, and 2) and much more significantly, I have an absurd and punishing brain that urges me to pursue projects like "read a short story a day" and "read three chapters of a classic for a month"......more
Around this time last year friend Rowena and I did a buddy-read of this collection of Baldwin essays. It wasn’t the first Baldwin book that I’d read, but it was the first book of his non-fiction. It was also the first book that I’ve read that made me feel SHAME for being a white man. The full weight......more
I could not be more grateful to Erica (thebrokenspine) for including me on this journey where we are reading Baldwins entire bibliography. This was my first time reading Baldwin and it didn't disappoint. It was pure brilliance. I would be a liar if I said I didn't struggle with reading this. There we......more
“He named for me the things you feel but couldn’t utter…articulated for the first time to white America what it meant to be American and a black American at the same time.” Henry Louis Gates Jr., author, essayist, and literary critic
“A straight-from-the-shoulder writer, writing about the troubled problems of this troubled earth with an illuminating intensity.” Langston Hughes, poet, social activist, and novelist
“I owe a tremendous debt to the example of his work.” John Edgar Wideman, National Book Award nominee
“Baldwin’s vision, his humor, his tragically beautiful style, make this a book [to]…turn to for a long time.” American Scholar
“The collected ‘pieces’ of the author of Go Tell It on the Mountain form a compelling unit as he applies the high drama of poetry and sociology to a penetrating analysis of the Negro experience on the American and European scene…The expression of so many insights enriches rather than clarifies, and behind every page stalks a man, an everyman, seeking his identity…and ours. Exceptional writing.” Kirkus Reviews