
I Shudder
And Other Reactions to Life, Death, and New Jersey
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $22.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Paul Rudnick
-
By:
-
Paul Rudnick
About this listen
At his Uncle Rudy's funeral, Rudnick's beloved Aunt Lil put one hand on her husband's coffin and her other hand on Rudnick's shoulder and said, "Your Uncle Rudy always loved you. He never understood why, in your writing, you had to use that kind of language, but he loved you."
Charming and touching, I Shudder is rendered in Rudnick's gorgeous, zinger-laden prose and reminds us of the need to keep our tongues sharp in the midst of life's many obstacles and absurdities. Here is one of the most accomplished collections in years, from a writer who ranks with David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs as one of our most gifted and hilarious social observers.
©2009 Paul Rudnick (P)2009 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
-
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style
- A Novel
- By: Paul Rudnick
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devastatingly handsome and insanely rich, Farrell Covington is capable of anything and impossible to resist. He’s a clear-eyed romantic, an aesthete but not a snob, self-indulgent yet wildly generous. As the son of one of the country’s most powerful and deeply conservative families, the world could be his. But when he falls for Nate Reminger, an aspiring writer from a nice Jewish family in Piscataway, New Jersey, the results are passionate and catastrophic. Together, the two embark on a unique romance that spans half a century.
-
-
Great audiobook
- By Ryan Macht on 11-30-23
By: Paul Rudnick
-
Playing the Palace
- By: Paul Rudnick
- Narrated by: Michael Urie
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After having his heart trampled on by his cheating ex, Carter Ogden is afraid love just isn’t in the cards for him. He still holds out hope in a tiny corner of his heart, but even in his wildest dreams he never thought he’d meet the Crown Prince of England, much less do a lot more with him. Yes, growing up he’d fantasized about the handsome, openly gay Prince Edgar, but who hadn’t? When they meet by chance at an event Carter’s boss is organizing, Carter’s sure he imagined all that sizzling chemistry. Or was it mutual?
-
-
LOL Rom com!
- By Bookworm16 on 05-31-21
By: Paul Rudnick
-
How Do I Un-Remember This?
- Unfortunately True Stories
- By: Danny Pellegrino
- Narrated by: Danny Pellegrino
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in small-town Ohio isn't easy, particularly when you're a closeted gay kid surrounded by...no one openly gay. Luckily, Danny Pellegrino grew up in the '90s, coming of age when the internet opened up a whole new world for a curious kid itching for life outside of Midwest suburbia.
-
-
Danny, my best friend
- By Amazon Customer on 03-18-22
By: Danny Pellegrino
-
Holidays on Ice
- Featuring Six New Stories
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favorites as the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); and what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow").
-
-
Best When In SantaLand
- By Dave on 12-06-11
By: David Sedaris
-
Best Men
- By: Sidney Karger
- Narrated by: Curtis Michael Holland
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Max Moody thought he had everything figured out. He’s trying to live his best life in New York City and has the best friend a gay guy could ask for: Paige. She and Max grew up next door to each other in the suburbs of Chicago. She can light up any party. She finishes his sentences. She’s always a reliable splunch (they don’t like to use the word brunch) partner. But then Max’s whole world is turned upside down when Paige suddenly announces some huge news: she’s engaged and wants Max to be her man of honor.
-
-
A Sweet Gay Romance...
- By Greenmarkut on 05-17-23
By: Sidney Karger
-
The Guncle
- By: Steven Rowley
- Narrated by: Steven Rowley
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is, honestly, overwhelmed. So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick's brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian.
-
-
In two words . . . Loved it!!
- By Donna Rauch Lanford on 06-05-21
By: Steven Rowley
-
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style
- A Novel
- By: Paul Rudnick
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devastatingly handsome and insanely rich, Farrell Covington is capable of anything and impossible to resist. He’s a clear-eyed romantic, an aesthete but not a snob, self-indulgent yet wildly generous. As the son of one of the country’s most powerful and deeply conservative families, the world could be his. But when he falls for Nate Reminger, an aspiring writer from a nice Jewish family in Piscataway, New Jersey, the results are passionate and catastrophic. Together, the two embark on a unique romance that spans half a century.
-
-
Great audiobook
- By Ryan Macht on 11-30-23
By: Paul Rudnick
-
Playing the Palace
- By: Paul Rudnick
- Narrated by: Michael Urie
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After having his heart trampled on by his cheating ex, Carter Ogden is afraid love just isn’t in the cards for him. He still holds out hope in a tiny corner of his heart, but even in his wildest dreams he never thought he’d meet the Crown Prince of England, much less do a lot more with him. Yes, growing up he’d fantasized about the handsome, openly gay Prince Edgar, but who hadn’t? When they meet by chance at an event Carter’s boss is organizing, Carter’s sure he imagined all that sizzling chemistry. Or was it mutual?
-
-
LOL Rom com!
- By Bookworm16 on 05-31-21
By: Paul Rudnick
-
How Do I Un-Remember This?
- Unfortunately True Stories
- By: Danny Pellegrino
- Narrated by: Danny Pellegrino
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in small-town Ohio isn't easy, particularly when you're a closeted gay kid surrounded by...no one openly gay. Luckily, Danny Pellegrino grew up in the '90s, coming of age when the internet opened up a whole new world for a curious kid itching for life outside of Midwest suburbia.
-
-
Danny, my best friend
- By Amazon Customer on 03-18-22
By: Danny Pellegrino
-
Holidays on Ice
- Featuring Six New Stories
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favorites as the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); and what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow").
-
-
Best When In SantaLand
- By Dave on 12-06-11
By: David Sedaris
-
Best Men
- By: Sidney Karger
- Narrated by: Curtis Michael Holland
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Max Moody thought he had everything figured out. He’s trying to live his best life in New York City and has the best friend a gay guy could ask for: Paige. She and Max grew up next door to each other in the suburbs of Chicago. She can light up any party. She finishes his sentences. She’s always a reliable splunch (they don’t like to use the word brunch) partner. But then Max’s whole world is turned upside down when Paige suddenly announces some huge news: she’s engaged and wants Max to be her man of honor.
-
-
A Sweet Gay Romance...
- By Greenmarkut on 05-17-23
By: Sidney Karger
-
The Guncle
- By: Steven Rowley
- Narrated by: Steven Rowley
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is, honestly, overwhelmed. So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick's brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian.
-
-
In two words . . . Loved it!!
- By Donna Rauch Lanford on 06-05-21
By: Steven Rowley
-
The Best of Me
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 25 years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing.
-
-
Almost No New Material
- By Lizardectomy on 11-05-20
By: David Sedaris
-
Big Gay Wedding
- A Novel
- By: Byron Lane
- Narrated by: Noah Galvin
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barnett Durang has a secret. No, not THAT secret. His widowed mother has long known he’s gay. The secret is Barnett is getting married. At his mother’s farm. In their small Louisiana town. She just doesn’t know it yet. It’ll be an intimate affair. Just two hundred or so of the most fabulous folks Barnett is shipping in from the “heathen coasts,” as Mom likes to call them, turning her quiet rescue farm for misfit animals into a most unlikely wedding venue.
-
-
Creative, simple, and sweet.
- By Jonathan Hurst on 08-01-23
By: Byron Lane
-
A Carnival of Snackery
- Diaries (2003-2020)
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Tracey Ullman
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If it’s navel-gazing you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observations turn outward: a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leaping to his death. There’s a dirty joke shared at a book signing, then a dirtier one told at a dinner party - lots of jokes here. Plenty of laughs.
-
-
Tracey Ullman?
- By Kelley R. on 10-05-21
By: David Sedaris
-
The Celebrants
- A Novel
- By: Steven Rowley
- Narrated by: Steven Rowley
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation from Berkeley when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living.
-
-
Just okay
- By kristine Barnes on 06-27-23
By: Steven Rowley
-
Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
-
-
Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
-
The Charm Offensive
- A Novel
- By: Alison Cochrun
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Graham Halstead, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.
-
-
Tiresome
- By Paula on 11-18-21
By: Alison Cochrun
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
-
-
Don't Start with this One
- By Elvie on 04-28-16
By: David Sedaris
-
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
-
-
Sedaris is the gay Mark Twain.
- By Steve on 06-02-04
By: David Sedaris
-
Naked
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the current mania for the memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview, a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.
-
-
Not the whole book
- By Gabriela on 03-09-13
By: David Sedaris
-
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch
- How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated
- By: Alison Arngrim
- Narrated by: Alison Arngrim
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch is Alison Arngrim's comic memoir of growing up as one of television's most memorable characters - the devious Nellie Oleson on the hit television show Little House on the Prairie. With behind-the-scenes stories from the set, as well as tales from her bohemian upbringing in West Hollywood and her headline-making advocacy work on behalf of HIV awareness and abused children, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch is a must for fans of everything Little House.
-
-
Do yourself a favor .....GET THIS AUDIO BOOK!!!!!
- By AnnShamrock on 11-07-17
By: Alison Arngrim
-
Barrel Fever and Other Stories
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 2 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In David Sedaris' world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz, and the National Enquirer, Sedaris' collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves.
-
-
Be warned- Santaland Diaries is NOT included
- By David on 06-05-12
By: David Sedaris
-
Coming Ashore
- A Memoir
- By: Catherine Gildiner
- Narrated by: Nathalie Toriel
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Picking up her story in the late '60s at age 21, Cathy whisks through seven years and three countries. Whether reciting verse in the classrooms of the University of Oxford, arranging a date with Jimi Hendrix, teaching inner-city kids literature, rooming with a major drug dealer, falling in love, or working in a psychiatric hospital, Cathy determinedly blazes her own trail through all the passion and uncertainty that comes with the cusp of adulthood.
-
-
Hit it out of the Park, Again!
- By Kindle Customer on 10-18-24
Critic reviews
"Paul Rudnick is a champion of truth (and love and great wicked humor) whom we ignore at our peril. There's no book wiser or half as funny as I Shudder." (David Sedaris)
What listeners say about I Shudder
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Mayte
- 01-12-10
Beautiful and funny
And a big discovery for me because I wasn´t familiar with his work. Well narrated too.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful