Coming Soon: RA Announces Classic Audio Material

/ July 3, 2019

Right, it’s already in the can:

Richard has recorded the whole lot of it, it seems. And it’s for Penguin Books. Very nice.

I have absolutely no prior experience or knowledge of Marcus Aurelius – despite studying Latin in school for six very long years. I can’t say that I would usually read philosophical texts voluntarily. I am more of a fiction reader. But experience tells me that more often than not, I find that RA’s surprising choices of projects actually widens my horizons. It’s not going to hurt imagining RA coming out with all those presumably  clever things that Marc Aurel once said…

https://riepu10.tumblr.com/post/120538329834/epiphanes-610

Not entirely sure whether that whole get-up fits a second century Roman emperor, but well, the nearest we are getting to it.

As for the chosen extract – interesting choice, Richard, interesting. Self-criticism – or merely another sermon to those who don’t know as well as you do? Definitely clever to include yourself in the whole “we must work on ourselves and be better people” shpiel. I’mnotgettinginvolvedI’mnotgettinginvolvedI’mnotgettinginvolvedI’mnotgettinginvolvedI’mnotgettinginvolved.

So, how do you feel about this audio project? Are you going to buy this – and listen to it? I’d love to know!

The Phanes twin were desperately working on their dance routine

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72 thoughts on “Coming Soon: RA Announces Classic Audio Material”

  1. I love that extract and imagine that it is a rather pointed side-eye at the current morons-in-power. I’m not too wild about the material but um…as we have all said numerous times, the man could read the phone book and I’d gladly listen to it.

    But…but…what about the news that he’s making a movie in Korea?! Do we have any more info beyond his tweets? I’ve been out of the social media world for a bit so apologies if this is very old news to everyone else.

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  2. Yes, I’ll buy it of course! I’m not familiar with the text but his choices of audio books certainly does broaden one’s horizons. Love the Roman get up (including the helmet…). I’m considering at the moment [trying to] understand what RA meant by ‘how I can better myself in understanding their meaning’. What does he mean?

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  3. Talking about sermons, you know when you asked in your A-Z about deal-breakers? Well, he sailed dangerously close yesterday. Sorry for any Lib-Demmers but it disappointed me that he has joined them and his prissiness about the ‘profanity’ annoyed me (even though I agree the t-shirt was a distraction). I feel like wearing one with Bollocks on to Uncle Vanya.

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            • I’m an American. Don’t do British politics. But Marcus Aurelius-interesting ideas. I also suffered through Latin for two years in high school and other than learning more than I wanted (at the time) about root words I think it helped me overall in life. Kind of like a typewriting class for languages. As to his voice-yes, I can sleep through that voice easily. Very comforting. I prefer my performers like my waiters. Capable and not opinionated. Hard to see a character when all you see when you look at someone are their political opinions. Kind of destroys their appeal. I’ve recently been sorting out dvds and no matter how ‘great’ a performer is, if all I see is rudeness and disrespect that dvds going to the thrift store. But tbh the bloom is coming off his rose to some extent. The only thing I got on twitter for was RA. Met many ppl with different viewpoints than mine. That’s ok. But getting blocked for having different views, we’ll that’s disappointing. But not surprising it seems. My biggest reason IF I’m able to go to London to see Vanya is: will RA greet the fans in the dead cold of January afterward?

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  5. I will definitely be buying it… and sorry Guylty but I’m absolutely delighted he’s joined the Lib Dems, they’re the only ones who might just stop the Brexit car crash…

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  8. I will get this recording for sure! Always try to keep an Audible credit on hand so rarely have to actually “buy” a book. Coincidentally, I opened a book I’ve had for several years now and a quote on the second page was from Marcus Aurelius. That made me smile having read that Richard planned to record it!

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  9. When I read..it brighten my horizons,I laughed, listening to wanderlust brighten my horizons I will never read a romance novel again!!! Yes, I might buy Meditation s,waiting for the reviews.

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  10. Absolutely will buy and listen. Of course, I would listen to Richard read the phone book if he was so inclined, but I happen to like a lot of Marcus Aurelius.

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  13. Can one of you Brits or UK-ers tell me how “nasty” is the word “bollocks?” Is it as bad as “fuck” is in the US, which is still considered rather crude, though you’d never know it from how widely you hear it, especially in music and entertainment. These cross-cultural issues are hard to explain, I know, but please try, because I don’t get it. The English swear words that I’m told are the worst, often sound kind of…quaint to me. Or maybe someone can post a link to a decent article that they’ve vetted as being reasonably accurate? Oh, and can you include “bloody” in your explanation? I have the same problem with that one, e.g. “Bloody hell, Carol,” coming from the introverted, usually so polite sheep farmer (John Standring).

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    • so i grew up being told anything worse than damn was bad, but my Father used the F word frequently though.
      Bloody is fairly tame these days and quite frankly so is bollocks-i mean The Sex Pistols used the word on a album back in 1977!
      Bollocks, bloody and bugger are very common swear words. F word and C word -more in use but frowned upon. I mean, certainly as a professional it’s not considered proper to swear.
      Maybe he’s unhappy because he probably he’s of the opinion that Politicians should be leaders and lead by example. But the Lid Dems have been using Bollocks to Brexit for a little while now

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      • Ah, great, I was waiting for a native speaker from the Brit Isles to write something. Thank you Rachel! 😘
        My two cents as a non-native speaker living in Ireland: Bollocks is definitely not on the same level as the C-word. Even the F-word is used quite frequently here. Bollocks is used as a synonym for shit, but you can also say “I am bollocksed” to mean you are exhausted. “Bloody” seems to be more common in England than in Ireland. The fact that I use it frequently owes more to the fact that it sounds like a German word “blöd” (stupid) which isn’t really a swear word…
        As Rachel said – Bollocks to Brexit has been the *official* (!) LibDem slogan with which they went into the last EU election campaign. I repeat – it’s their *official* slogan. I’m surprised that a “paid-up member” of the LibDems was unaware of that…

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