
Pure Innocent Fun
Essays
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Narrated by:
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Ira Madison III
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By:
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Ira Madison III
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this nostalgic and raucous collection of sixteen original essays, Ira Madison III—critic, television writer, and host of the beloved Keep It podcast—combines memoir and criticism to offer a brand-new pop-culture manifesto.
“This is the most fun I’ve had reading all year. Like Chuck Klosterman before him, Ira Madison III takes seriously and analyzes the pop culture detritus that took up hours of our lives.”—Lin-Manuel Miranda
You can recall the first TV show, movie, book, or song that made you feel understood—that shaped how you live, what you love, and whom you would become. It gave you an entire worldview. For Ira Madison, that book was Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which cemented the idea that pop culture could be a rigorous subject—and that, for better or worse, it shapes all of us.
In Pure Innocent Fun, Madison explores the key cultural moments that inspired his career as a critic and guided his coming of age as a Black gay man in Milwaukee. In this hilarious, full-throttle trip through the ’90s and 2000s, he recounts learning about sex from Buffy the Vampire Slayer; facing the most heartbreaking election of his youth (not George W. Bush’s win, but Jennifer Hudson losing American Idol); and how never getting his driver’s license in high school made him just like Cher Horowitz in Clueless: “a virgin who can’t drive.”
Brimming with a profound love for a bygone culture and alternating between irreverence and heartfelt insight, Pure Innocent Fun, like all the best products of pop culture, will leave you entertained and surprisingly enlightened.
©2024 Ira Madison, III (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
True to the book’s title, Madison’s humorous and perceptive essays will light a spark of recognition for those who came of age glued to their televisions at the turn of the century.”—The Washington Post, “10 Noteworthy Books for February”
“This is the most fun I’ve had reading all year. Like Chuck Klosterman before him, Ira Madison III takes seriously and analyzes the pop culture detritus that took up hours of our lives as byproducts of the late 1900’s. From Coldplay to Family Matters to Passions and everything in between, It feels like Ira has taken apart every dumb thing I’ve obsessed over and put it back together again—all my ‘roman empires.’ I laughed and cried and felt so, so seen. Buy it and KEEP IT.”—Lin-Manuel Miranda, Pulitzer Prize, Grammy, Emmy, and Tony award winning creator of Hamilton and NYT bestselling author of G'morning G'night
“Ira’s wit, intelligence, and reverence for pop culture is on full display in this fantastic essay collection. What a pleasure to read.”—Phoebe Robinson, award winning comedian and NYT bestselling author of You Can’t Touch My Hair
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Story
Licensed mental health therapist, somatic healer, and eating disorder specialist Alishia McCullough understands that for far too many Black women, racial trauma’s seismic impact has disrupted their most essential relationship: the one they have with their bodies—and by extension, with their food. African Americans are disproportionately impacted by disordered eating behaviors, yet their experiences are frequently neglected by doctors and mental health experts.
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How to Sell Out
- The (Hidden) Cost of Being a Black Writer
- By: Chad Sanders
- Narrated by: Chad Sanders
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 2020, when the nation was erupting in protest over the murder of George Floyd, Chad Sanders was quietly celebrating for selfish reasons. Why? After years of struggling to get his footing as a writer, he’d finally landed a New York Times op-ed. He wrote an essay about the hollow messages of concern he’d been receiving from white friends and colleagues. It went viral, and in the years that followed, he built a solid career as a creator—of books, podcasts, TV shows, and films—by mining his most painful experiences of being Black in America.
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Great and Honest
- By Danielle on 02-13-25
By: Chad Sanders
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Sucker Punch
- Essays
- By: Scaachi Koul
- Narrated by: Scaachi Koul
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her biting wit to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress.
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Vulnerable yet funny and so so relatable!
- By Diana on 03-14-25
By: Scaachi Koul
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Original Sins
- The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
- By: Eve L. Ewing
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Eve L. Ewing
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Why don’t our schools work? Eve L. Ewing tackles this question from a new angle: What if they’re actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America’s classrooms were designed to do the opposite: to maintain the nation’s inequalities. It’s a task at which they excel.
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A must read for educators and everyone!
- By Alonna on 05-06-25
By: Eve L. Ewing
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Show Don't Tell
- Stories
- By: Curtis Sittenfeld
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Curtis Sittenfeld, George Newbern, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In her second story collection, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as beloved for her short fiction as she is for her novels. In these dazzling stories, she conjures up characters so real that they seem like old friends, laying bare the moments when their long held beliefs are overturned.
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Always a pleasure
- By joshua simons on 03-21-25
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Bibliophobia
- A Memoir
- By: Sarah Chihaya
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners”. Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland.
By: Sarah Chihaya
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Burn, Baby, Burn
- The Life and Legacy of H Rap Brown
- By: Noor Wazwaz, Obaid Siddiqui
- Narrated by: Noor Wazwaz, Obaid Siddiqui
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Original Recording
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On a March night in 2000, two deputy sheriffs serving a warrant were shot in Atlanta, Georgia. One was severely wounded while the other would die a day later. The shooting kicked off a large manhunt in search of the alleged cop killer. Four days later in Alabama, authorities found their man—Jamil Al-Amin. He was a Muslim leader with the title of Imam in the West End neighborhood of Atlanta. He was also the man formerly known as H. Rap Brown. He was a charismatic Black radical in the late '60s.
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I did not know
- By Angela on 06-11-25
By: Noor Wazwaz, and others
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Right Story, Wrong Story
- How to Have Fearless Conversations in Hell
- By: Tyson Yunkaporta
- Narrated by: Tyson Yunkaporta
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Continuing the work of the award-winning Sand Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta casts an Indigenous lens on contemporary society, challenging us to face conflict and embrace conversation to find our way onto the right track. With Right Story, Wrong Story, Apalech Clan member Tyson Yunkaporta, from far north Queensland, tackles the divisions that prevent us from talking to one another. Yunkaporta invites us to confront life’s biggest questions and arms us with the tools we need to really listen, and to open our minds to change based upon our connections with others.
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Listen to right stories and wrong stories
- By Paige H. on 05-27-25
By: Tyson Yunkaporta
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Crooked Smile
- What It Took to Escape a Decade of Homelessness, Addiction, & Crime
- By: Jared Klickstein, Michael Schellenberger - foreword
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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"Darkly humorous" is an understatement when it comes to this tale of addiction, homelessness, incarceration, and redemption. Jared Klickstein, the child of two heroin addicts who eventually became addicted himself, takes listeners on a raw and personal journey from his unsettling and secretive childhood in the suburbs to the slums of Skid Row. Through tales of violence, relapse, and deep inner struggle, Klickstein provides a harrowing account of his personal encounter with near-death.
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Storyline
- By Burl Smith on 04-10-25
By: Jared Klickstein, and others
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Autopsy (of an Ex-Teen Heartthrob)
- (Poems of Rage, Love, Sex, and Sadness)
- By: Avan Jogia
- Narrated by: Avan Jogia
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Avan Jogia grew up as a teen idol. He stumbled into the spotlight during the birth of the internet, the early days of Instagram and Twitter, before everyone online was a star. He spent his time in that spotlight writing, observing the cult of celebrity, the hilarity, the absurdity, and sometimes sinister side of being idolized before you’ve even had the chance to decide for yourself who you are. Now, in his most revealing and honest work to date, he has assembled a book of poems as an act of self-dissection.
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I'm really bad with titles
- By Aine on 03-28-25
By: Avan Jogia
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The Art of Small Talk
- By: Casey Wilson, Jessica St. Clair
- Narrated by: Casey Wilson, Jessica St. Clair, Malcolm Gladwell, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Prepare to be schooled in the art of conversation by dynamic duo Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair. Dismissing the notion that small talk is a painful social obligation, these self-proclaimed small talk maestros share their gift of gab in this laugh-out-loud and instructive audiobook. With their help you might find yourself excitedly asking your barista about the weather…and maybe you’ll get a free coffee. Who knows!
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Such a fun vibe!
- By Michael on 06-12-24
By: Casey Wilson, and others
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Written in the Waters
- A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging
- By: Tara Roberts
- Narrated by: Tara Roberts
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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When Tara Roberts first caught sight of a photograph at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History depicting the underwater archaeology group Diving With a Purpose, it called out to her. Here were Black women and men strapping on masks, fins, and tanks to explore Atlantic Ocean waters along the coastlines of Africa, North America, and Central America, seeking the wrecks of slave ships long lost in time. Inspired, Roberts joined them—and started on a path of discovery more challenging and personal than she could ever have imagined.
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Grateful for this book!
- By Adreiona J on 06-29-25
By: Tara Roberts
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The Loves of My Life
- A Sex Memoir
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Joel Froomkin
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Written with White’s signature honesty, irreverence, and wit, The Loves of My Life is the culmination of a legend's life and work, a delightful and moving tour of over seventy years of being unabashedly gay and in love with love in all its forms.
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Does not compare favorably to White's other books
- By Reader X on 04-03-25
By: Edmund White
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I Lived to Tell the Story
- By: Tamika D. Mallory
- Narrated by: Tamika D. Mallory
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In I Lived to Tell the Story, Tamika Mallory takes us beyond the headlines and podiums, offering an unfiltered look at the moments that shaped her—not just as an activist but as a woman navigating love, loss, and self-discovery. From her early days as the daughter of civil rights organizers in Harlem to her battles with the personal pain that many never imagined—the trauma of sexual assault, the pressures of motherhood, the fallout of public scrutiny, and the fight to reclaim her peace—this is Tamika as the world has never seen her before.
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Much needed!! Until I am freed!!
- By Felicia on 05-07-25
Shoutout to Ira
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Too Much Fun
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Laugh out loud perspectives on 90s-00s pop culture
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instantly selfishly want more
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A funny, thoughtful, timely, and timeless series of essays
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short and sweet
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Excellent and enthralling personal dissection of culture
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Amazing Debut!
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Relatable! Great word choice! Hilarious!
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A fun and hilarious memoir from one of my favorites
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