What Are We Doing Here?, Marilynne Robinson
What Are We Doing Here?, Marilynne Robinson
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What Are We Doing Here?
Essays

Author: Marilynne Robinson

Narrator: Carrington MacDuffie

Unabridged: 11 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/20/2018

Synopsis

Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith.Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson’s peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display. What Are We Doing Here? is a call for Americans to continue the tradition of those great thinkers and to remake American political and cultural life as “deeply impressed by obligation [and as] a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still.”

About Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Lila, Home, Gilead (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and Housekeeping, and five books of nonfiction: The Givenness of Things, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Mother Country, The Death of Adam, and Absence of Mind. She lives in Iowa.

About Carrington MacDuffie

Carrington MacDuffie is a voice actor and recording artist who has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, received numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has been a frequent finalist for the Audie Award, including for her original audiobook, Many Things Invisible. Alongside her narration work, she has released a new album of original songs, Only an Angel.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mark on August 31, 2024

My favorite (self-described) biblicist, Calvinist, Edwards-and-Puritan-reputations-rehabilitating, America-and-humanities-and-Western-tradition-defending, mainline Protestant, United Church of Christ liberal. Robinson is like no other writer I know. I've never seen a more wickedly incisive takedown o......more

Goodreads review by Kathleen on February 17, 2018

My review for the Chicago Tribune: [URL not allowed] What does a set of theological essays — essays that aim plainly to consider the nature of God and religious belief in the context of both politics and individual consciousness — have to offer an increasingly secular country? M......more

Goodreads review by Haley on May 13, 2018

These essays, as academic rather than literary artifacts, are so much stronger than the pseudo-philosophy that so many writers attempt. In many of these essays, Robinson engages seriously with the debate between science and religion, and has much to offer on the nature of human consciousness and the......more

Goodreads review by Ted on April 21, 2018

For some reason, I don't quite grasp her essays but I love their depth. Ms. Robinson is a subtle writer who suggests more than states (I think) and is remarkable as a highly theologically literate thinker and author. I keep going back to her works for refreshment.......more

Goodreads review by Donald on December 30, 2018

This was very hard to read. The vocabulary was above me. The prose was complicated and nuanced. The subject matter was very deep from Christianity to the malignancy of our current affairs. She deals with science, Puritans, old English history, conscience, philosophy of "being" and the interplay of t......more

Quotes

“Carrington MacDuffie brings her vocal skills and narrative art to this remarkable collection…MacDuffie’s elegant intonation comes through in these challenging and thought-provoking works. Her clear delivery gives shape to the complex arguments…Robinson’s brilliance illuminates this audiobook, and she could have no better narrator than MacDuffie.” AudioFile

“With this volume, Robinson claims her place as an essential thinker—a modern, homebred Tocqueville—and offers a wake-up call for the soul, and for the nation.” O, The Oprah Magazine

“Dwells on the current political and cultural climate, and defends the importance of the public university.” New York Times Book Review

“As a grieving daughter, What Are We Doing Here? supplied me with the nourishing attention to beauty and grace that is everywhere present in Housekeeping and Gilead." Literary Hub

“Robinson’s gorgeous, demanding, and enlightening essays, propelled by her intricate vision of unity, radiantly recharge both mind and soul.” Booklist

“Trenchant essays about faith, values, and history, most delivered as lectures at religious institutions and universities from 2015 to 2017…Sharp, elegant cultural analysis.” Kirkus Reviews

“Robinson’s overall trajectory is clear and important. Her eloquent work stands up for a compassionate faith, the value of education, and a sense of decency.” Publishers Weekly

“Addressing our current political climate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Robinson, not unexpectedly, does so by considering how writers such as Emerson and Tocqueville have shaped our political thought, encouraging us to continue their tradition and play a role in ‘a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still.’” Library Journal

Awards

  • BuzzFeed Books Pick
  • Amazon Best Book of the Month
  • Book Riot Pick
  • Elle Magazine Pick
  • Millions.com Pick
  • New York Times Pick
  • Midwest Booksellers Association Pick
  • New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
  • Oprah’s Book Club Selection
  • Audiofile Magazine “Best of the Year”
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