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The Bassoon King
- My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy
- Narrated by: Rainn Wilson
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Rainn Wilson’s memoir about growing up geeky and finally finding his place in comedy, faith, and life.
For nine seasons Rainn Wilson played Dwight Schrute, everyone's favorite work nemesis and beet farmer. Viewers of The Office fell in love with the character and grew to love the actor who played him even more. Rainn founded a website and media company, SoulPancake, that eventually became a best-selling book of the same name. He also started a hilarious Twitter feed (sample tweet: “I'm not on Facebook” is the new “I don't even own a TV”) that now has more than four million followers.
Now, he's ready to tell his own story and explain how he came up with his incredibly unique sense of humor and perspective on life. He explains how he grew up “bone-numbingly nerdy before there was even a modicum of cool attached to the word”. The Bassoon King chronicles his journey from nerd to drama geek (“the highest rung on the vast, pimply ladder of high school losers”), his years of mild debauchery and struggles as a young actor in New York, his many adventures and insights about The Office, and finally, Wilson's achievement of success and satisfaction, both in his career and spiritually, reconnecting with the artistic and creative values of the Bahá’í faith he grew up in.
Critic Reviews
"Rainn Wilson narrates his own story with such perfection that the only disappointment is the fact that it ends. The memoir is smart, inspirational, and funny, so the addition of Wilson's performance adds delectable icing to a tasty cake." (AudioFile)
"Quirky, witty, literate." (Washington Post)
"Rainn Wilson's memoir captures essence of his offbeat humor." (Chicago Sun-Times)
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What listeners say about The Bassoon King
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Wendy Hertog
- 30-09-2023
fabulous
wish it didn't end, covers so much. so insightful and unexpected gems of knowledge. bravo rainn.
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- Jessica Smith
- 23-01-2022
A bit of a hard listen.
While I love Rainn Wilson's acting and characters but I found this book to be a mix of pretentiousness, oddly paced and moments of humour that weren't quite delivered right. There was some strong messages and interesting anecdotes about the life of a struggling actor coming into his own which I enjoyed. However there is a lot of unnecessary jumping around story-wise which left me lost and frustrated at times. And even though I'm sure he got her permission the amount of detail he goes into about his wife's private moments during pregnancy and giving birth was just uncomfortable. There is really only a chapter about his time working on the Office which is a let down for Office fans listening to this book. It's tricky because I definitely liked and respected parts of this book but hated others.
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- Anonymous User
- 28-12-2022
Classic Rainn
So eloquently written, well spoken and irreverently relevant, love the vulnerability and the way he shares the pain and triumphs of his journey in equal part hilarity and abandon. Highly recommend.
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- Jake
- 15-03-2021
a great book!
I love Rainn and wanted to hear his story, and I couldn't be more satisfied, funny, charming and insightful...ps. Mindy Kaling eww
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- Mr. Dimitar Petreski
- 13-09-2021
Fantastic, interesting and insightful
Loved every minute of Rainn’s autobiography- such a full, challenging and interesting life.
Highly recommend.
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- William Louisisbh
- 26-06-2022
Excellent !
love this book ! Very interesting stories, good reading, enjoy this book. I will give 5 stars.
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- Benjamin
- 29-06-2023
Terrible
boring, unimaginative, unfunny.
he's an actor trying to be a comedian.
more words more
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