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Depends What You Mean by Extremist
- Going Rogue with Australian Deplorables
- Narrated by: John Safran
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
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Puff Piece
- By: John Safran
- Narrated by: John Safran
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The folks that bring you Marlboro - Philip Morris - are wheezing, slowly dying. Cigarettes are out of favour with everyone, from world governments and investors to, increasingly, smokers. So, what's their plan? Prepare to be dazzled. Or, at the very least, befuddled. Philip Morris has announced they will shut down as a cigarette company, and relaunch as a health enterprise, dedicated to convincing the one billion smokers of the world to quit.
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Safran (Lucky) Strikes Again
- By Matthew on 04-09-2021
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Murder in Mississippi
- By: John Safran
- Narrated by: John Safran
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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The internationally acclaimed true-crime story you have to hear to believe. Taking us places only John Safran can, Murder in Mississippi paints an engrossing, revealing portrait of a dead man, his murderer, the place they lived and the process of trying to find out the truth about anything.
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A bit of a slog at times
- By Ryan on 27-05-2019
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The Men Who Stare at Goats
- By: Jon Ronson
- Narrated by: Jon Ronson
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1979, a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice - and indeed, the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror.
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Who knew goats were so maligned?
- By Amazon Customer on 16-09-2017
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Tripping Over Myself
- A Memoir of a Life in Comedy
- By: Shaun Micallef
- Narrated by: Shaun Micallef
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Comedy has been Shaun Micallef’s guiding light, his refuge, his passport, his lifebuoy, his drug, his mask, his means, his end, his lingua franca, his Self. But it’s not everything. Join Shaun on a journey from his earliest days as a gangly, bespectacled comedy nerd growing up on the mean streets of Adelaide to his rightful place today as a glittering star in Australia’s TV firmament. Though his road to success has not been without its failures – in fact, many, many failures – only a few of them can be blamed on others.
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Enjoyable journey with Shaun
- By Anonymous User on 23-02-2023
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I, Millennial
- One Snowflake's Screed Against Boomers, Billionaires and Everything Else
- By: Tom Ballard
- Narrated by: Tom Ballard
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Millions of Baby Boomers got beach houses, free education, jobs for life and a franking credit-fed retirement. But Millennials have been handed a housing crisis, crippling student debt, the gig economy, a cooked planet, a truly broken political system and now wars, inflation and a global pandemic, as a treat. This fully sucks. But never fear–this book is going to fix everything. Through the power of jokes, history, interviews and sass, so-called comedian Tom Ballard unpicks how his generation got here, and explains why we should probably do a revolution.
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The best book I’ve ever consumed
- By Anonymous User on 18-12-2022
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The Call of the Weird
- Travels in American Subcultures
- By: Louis Theroux
- Narrated by: Louis Theroux
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For 10 years, Louis Theroux has been making programmes about off-beat characters on the fringes of US society. Now he revisits America and the people who have most fascinated him to try to discover what motivates them, why they believe the things they believe, and to find out what has happened to them since he last saw them.
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Enjoyed
- By Anonymous User on 06-07-2017
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Puff Piece
- By: John Safran
- Narrated by: John Safran
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The folks that bring you Marlboro - Philip Morris - are wheezing, slowly dying. Cigarettes are out of favour with everyone, from world governments and investors to, increasingly, smokers. So, what's their plan? Prepare to be dazzled. Or, at the very least, befuddled. Philip Morris has announced they will shut down as a cigarette company, and relaunch as a health enterprise, dedicated to convincing the one billion smokers of the world to quit.
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Safran (Lucky) Strikes Again
- By Matthew on 04-09-2021
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Murder in Mississippi
- By: John Safran
- Narrated by: John Safran
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The internationally acclaimed true-crime story you have to hear to believe. Taking us places only John Safran can, Murder in Mississippi paints an engrossing, revealing portrait of a dead man, his murderer, the place they lived and the process of trying to find out the truth about anything.
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A bit of a slog at times
- By Ryan on 27-05-2019
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The Men Who Stare at Goats
- By: Jon Ronson
- Narrated by: Jon Ronson
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
In 1979, a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice - and indeed, the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror.
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Who knew goats were so maligned?
- By Amazon Customer on 16-09-2017
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Tripping Over Myself
- A Memoir of a Life in Comedy
- By: Shaun Micallef
- Narrated by: Shaun Micallef
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Comedy has been Shaun Micallef’s guiding light, his refuge, his passport, his lifebuoy, his drug, his mask, his means, his end, his lingua franca, his Self. But it’s not everything. Join Shaun on a journey from his earliest days as a gangly, bespectacled comedy nerd growing up on the mean streets of Adelaide to his rightful place today as a glittering star in Australia’s TV firmament. Though his road to success has not been without its failures – in fact, many, many failures – only a few of them can be blamed on others.
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Enjoyable journey with Shaun
- By Anonymous User on 23-02-2023
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I, Millennial
- One Snowflake's Screed Against Boomers, Billionaires and Everything Else
- By: Tom Ballard
- Narrated by: Tom Ballard
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of Baby Boomers got beach houses, free education, jobs for life and a franking credit-fed retirement. But Millennials have been handed a housing crisis, crippling student debt, the gig economy, a cooked planet, a truly broken political system and now wars, inflation and a global pandemic, as a treat. This fully sucks. But never fear–this book is going to fix everything. Through the power of jokes, history, interviews and sass, so-called comedian Tom Ballard unpicks how his generation got here, and explains why we should probably do a revolution.
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The best book I’ve ever consumed
- By Anonymous User on 18-12-2022
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The Call of the Weird
- Travels in American Subcultures
- By: Louis Theroux
- Narrated by: Louis Theroux
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 10 years, Louis Theroux has been making programmes about off-beat characters on the fringes of US society. Now he revisits America and the people who have most fascinated him to try to discover what motivates them, why they believe the things they believe, and to find out what has happened to them since he last saw them.
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Enjoyed
- By Anonymous User on 06-07-2017
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Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
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Excellent detail and black humour
- By Cyndi on 19-05-2016
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The Psychic Tests
- By: Gary Nunn
- Narrated by: Adam Bromley
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning journalist Gary Nunn investigates psychics, mediums and astrologers to understand their uncanny, under-investigated and unregulated power. Gary’s sister Taren consults mediums to process grief after a death in their family. Gary, concerned she’s being exploited, remains sceptical. When he reports on a clairvoyant’s link to a huge stockbroking firm collapse, personal questions become professional.
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Well researched and written. Narrator issues
- By Saraswati on 10-11-2022
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Them: Adventures with Extremists
- By: Jon Ronson
- Narrated by: Jon Ronson
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Them began as a book about different kinds of extremists, but after Jon had got to know some of them - Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen - he found that they had one oddly similar belief: that a tiny, shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, Jon sets out, with the help of the extremists, to locate that room. The journey is as creepy as it is comic, and along the way Jon is chased by men in dark glasses, unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp, and more.
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The truth is out there! Really out there... No, really, really out there!
- By Lawrence on 20-01-2016
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Jupiter's Travels
- By: Ted Simon
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas, Ted Simon
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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On October 6, 1973, Ted Simon knew there was no going back. He loaded up his 500cc Triumph Tiger in the pouring rain and said good-bye to London. Over four years he rode 64,000 miles round the world. Breakdowns, revolutions, war, a spell in prison, and a Californian commune were all part of his experience, which was colored variously by utter despair and unimaginable joy. He was treated as a spy, a god, a welcome stranger and a curiosity
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Bit negitive for such an accomplishment
- By Anonymous User on 27-11-2021
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Father Bob
- The Larrikin Priest
- By: Sue Williams
- Narrated by: Francis Greenslade
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the life story of Father Bob Maguire - a rare behind-the-scenes look at the much-loved 'people's priest'. The enigmatic champion of the down-and-out was shaped by a lonely childhood in poor circumstances, an early priesthood that collided with the upheaval of Vatican II and working with the army during the Vietnam War. This is a lively portrait of the man behind the resilient social activist and popular media performer who refuses to be defeated by enforced retirement from the parish over which he presided for nearly 40 years.
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A living legend
- By Lisa Robson on 11-09-2021
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I Am NOT Fine, Thanks
- By: Wil Anderson
- Narrated by: Wil Anderson
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How am I? How am I? How do you think I am? I know in the Before Times the tradition was to reply, 'I'm fine, thanks.' Then you would ask how they were, and they would reply, 'I'm fine, thanks.' And then we would all get on with our lives. But I can't play my part in that pantomime anymore. I cannot say, 'I am fine, thanks,' because (spoilers) I am not fine, thanks.
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Just when you thought Wil Anderson was too ubiquitous he pulls this excellent book from I don’t know where!!
- By Judith on 03-11-2022
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QAnon and On
- A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults
- By: Van Badham
- Narrated by: Van Badham
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In QAnon and On, Guardian columnist Van Badham delves headfirst into the QAnon conspiracy theory, unpicking the why, how and who behind this century’s most dangerous and far-fetched internet cult. From Gamergate to Pizzagate and beyond to QAnon, internet manipulation and disinformation campaigns have grown to a geopolitical scale and spilled into real life with devastating consequences, entangling everyone from politicians to Hollywood celebrities.
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Is she for real?
- By Amanda Rochford on 26-09-2022
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The Lucy Family Alphabet
- By: Judith Lucy
- Narrated by: Judith Lucy
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Judith Lucy has been cracking jokes about her parents for years. But when a birth relative's casual comment implied that she despised them, Judith was shocked. Sure, she had been talking about Ann and Tony Lucy like they were one-dimensional Irish nutbags who'd ruined her life for years, but there was always more to them and her own feelings than that.So Judith decided it was time to write the full story of her parents and her childhood.
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Worth a listen
- By Cathryn Walker on 20-06-2015
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Player Piano
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut – wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.
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Still relevant
- By Sean on 12-02-2022
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Time to Think
- The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children
- By: Hannah Barnes
- Narrated by: Hannah Barnes
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), based at the Tavistock and Portman Trust in North London, was set up initially to provide - for the most part - talking therapies to young people who were questioning their gender identity. But in the last decade GIDS has referred more than a thousand children, some as young as nine years old, for medication to block their puberty. In the same period, the number of referrals has exploded, increasing thirty-fold, while the profile of the patients has changed, from largely pre-pubescent boys to mostly adolescent girls.
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Interesting
- By Jennie on 27-08-2023
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Sidesplitter
- How to Be from Two Worlds at Once
- By: Phil Wang
- Narrated by: Phil Wang
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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But where are you really from? Phil Wang has been asked this question so many times he's lost count. So, finally, he decided to write a book about it. About how to be from two places at once. Phil was born in the UK, in Stoke-on-Trent to an English mother and a Chinese-Malaysian father. Three weeks after his birth, the Wang family returned to his fathers' hometown in Malaysia, and at age 16, Phil was uprooted once again, to return with his family to the UK.
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Phil Wang-tastic
- By George W on 02-02-2023
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Theroux the Keyhole
- When the world went weird (and so did I)
- By: Louis Theroux
- Narrated by: Louis Theroux
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Like millions of others, Louis’ plans were mothballed by the onset of COVID. Unable to escape to the porn sets, prisons and maximum-security psychiatric units that are his usual journalistic beat, he began reporting on a location even more full of pitfalls and hostile objects of inquiry: his own home during a pandemic. Theroux the Keyhole is an honest, hilarious and ultimately heartwarming diary of the weirdness of family life in COVID World.
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A different side to Louis
- By Amazon Customer on 15-11-2021
Publisher's Summary
No one turns up where they're not wanted quite like John Safran. In this hilarious and disorienting adventure, he gets among our diverse community of white nationalists, ISIS supporters, anarchists and more, digging away at the contradictions that many would prefer be left unexamined.
Who is this black puppet master among the white nationalists? And this Muslim fundamentalist who geeks out on Monty Python? Is there a secret radicalisation network operating in John’s own Jewish suburb? And ultimately - is hanging with all these radicals washing off on John himself?
Populated by an extraordinary cast of 'ordinary' Australians, Depends What You Mean by Extremist is a startling, confronting portrait of contemporary Australia. We all think we know what's going on in our own country, but this larger-than-life, timely and alarmingly insightful true story will make you think again.... Drinking shots with nationalists and gobbling falafel with radicals, John Safran was there the year the extreme became the mainstream.
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What listeners say about Depends What You Mean by Extremist
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ben
- 17-07-2017
That wiley jew! As predicted, worth a listen.
A brilliant balance of satire and inside interviews. John takes a closer look at key members on both sides of the anti-immigration conversation. In typical Safran style, he magnificently highlights how strange and silly it is to hold black and white opinions on such a complex topic. He weasels himself into the underbelly of both the left and right camps and exposes the underlying agendas that are being pushed and all their hypocrisies. Great read!!!
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7 people found this helpful
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- Father Dave
- 20-07-2017
Great stuff
This is just what we needed - someone to show us the human (and sometimes all-too-human) side of the racial and religious tensions in our country. Well done, John! (Father Dave)
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5 people found this helpful
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- James
- 22-03-2018
Safran's unique voice tackles radicals
Due to the charged subject matter, this may be a difficult listen for many people, and there is probably something in here to challenge almost everyone, including me. Safran breaks some of the seemingly inviolable rules we have for talking about racism, particularly post-Charlottesville: "there are good people on both sides?" Well, Safran does talk to some sympathetic, misguided characters who found themselves on the side of nationalists and islamophobes. He also talks to a lot of really vile, hate-filled people, but with a surprising lack of the sort of moralising to the audience one might expect. It's as though Safran gets that his audience already knows that racism and ISIS are bad, and feels that he can skip stating the obvious.
What he focuses on instead are the often surprising, criss-crossing faultlines in the culture wars over race, religion, and identity, which are easily glossed over in our search for simple narratives. The radical left's antisemitism problem is something that particularly irks Safran; he shows repeated contempt for their tendency to dismiss antisemitic attacks committed by Muslims as "non-structural violence."
His observations about the homophobia that persists in many otherwise-left-leaning non-white immigrant communities has proved prescient: in the national marriage equality survey, Chris Bowen's immigrant-packed, safe Labor seat was one of the few electorates to vote no.
Lest anyone think that Safran gives Israel a free pass, there are also vignettes with an IDF-loving, Trump-supporting gym owner, and at several other points Safran turns his probing gaze inward, not sparing himself from the scrutiny he applies to others.
The book at times feels like a loose collection of anecdotes, rather than points in service of an overarching argument, and that's because it *is* a loose collection of anecdotes. But Safran does seem to have a point, that point being that there is hypocrisy on both the far right and the far left, and that the conflicts that we think are so simple actually have so many facets, factions, and axes, and the motives of the principal players are not always stated upfront. As Safran might put it, it's not just the Jews that are wily.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Matthew Farncomb
- 23-07-2017
Excellent!
A fascinating dive into Australia's extreme ish political movements and the interesting characters involved.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 12-07-2017
Nasally voices are my thing
I enjoy just about everything John does. This is no exception. Great book! A must listen.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Morrie Mo
- 29-06-2017
Safran at his best
This might be the funniest book ever written about Australian race relations and religious extremists of every sort. Previous fans of Sunday Night Safran on the radio will be thrilled to have hour upon hour of John's inimitable narration making the book even funnier. As well as being highly engaging, it's intelligent and investigates divisive movements and individuals that many other writers would shy away from.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 06-06-2017
loved it
i felt this worked really well as an audio book. It was cool to hear John Safran narrating the book.
really interesting insights into all sides of the "extreme".
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3 people found this helpful
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- Tegan H.
- 15-05-2017
Brilliant and hilarious
Eye-opening, regardless of personal politics. A must-listen for all Aussies. I can't wait to seek out more Safran!
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-07-2017
Awesome Listen
Realy enjoyed listening to John read his book.
His unique way of dealing with potentionaly volatile subjects is very entertaining. Nice work John.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Nadja
- 13-06-2017
Unique! highly recommend reading this
John Safran first hand insights with its wit will pull the wool off your eyes.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Alex
- 13-03-2018
Classic
The genuine nature of John's storytelling makes pausing this audiobook difficult even jarring at times. I only wish there was more, it's left me googling what happened to everyone and where things ended. The way John breaks down his thinking for the audience is great too. Bravo mate.
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- Luke Donnelly
- 17-07-2017
An intriguing problematisation of extremists
Johns writing is easy to follow as he takes you on an exploration of the different voices of the far right, far left and Islamist extremists. It is easy to oversimplify our political adversaries, but with this book John reminds us that they are still humans with complicated histories and beliefs.
The characters of Safran's story provide a way of understanding what has unfolded in politics in the past few years. By imbedding himself into the narrative, Safran offers a funny and intelligent point of view.
While Safran is the main character of the story, he also has the least to say. It's not often that he raises his point of view directly, and instead asks some good questions.
I would have liked to if seen some form of conclusion where John takes a stand or tries to explain why history has unfolded this way. But frustratingly the book doesn't really show that Safran learned much along the way.
I can recommend Depends What You Mean By Extremist to anyone who enjoys character driven, long form journalism. Especially fans of Jon Ronson.
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- Alan J. Couch
- 27-05-2017
Refreshingly Irreverent
Safran takes difficult and politically charged topics and tells a funny yarn in a very Australian way. Approaching even-handed, although his leanings are not entirely concealed, he pokes fun at both ends of the political horseshoe and the big religions to make many insightful observations. The real concerns of the large set in the middle of the horseshoe are necessarily omitted. In any case these are better dealt with by others, albeit without a trace of humour. The Strange a Death of Europe is one example. Some may not love Safran's voice but there is an authenticity coming from this author's narration of his own work.
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