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White

By: Bret Easton Ellis
Narrated by: Bret Easton Ellis
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About this listen

THE CONTROVERSIAL SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER.

Candid, fearless and provocative
the author of American Psycho on who he is and what he thinks is wrong with the world today.

Bret Easton Ellis is most famous for his era-defining novel American Psycho and its terrifying anti-hero, Patrick Bateman. With that book, and many times since, Ellis proved himself to be one of the world’s most fearless and clear-sighted observers of society – the glittering surface and the darkness beneath.

In White, his first work of non-fiction, Ellis offers a wide-ranging exploration of what the hell is going on right now. He tells personal stories from his own life. He writes with razor-sharp precision about the music, movies, books and TV he loves and hates. He examines the ways our culture, politics and relationships have changed over the last four decades. He talks about social media, Hollywood celebrities and Donald Trump.

Ellis considers conflicting positions without flinching and adheres to no status quo. His forthright views are powered by a fervent belief in artistic freedom and freedom of speech. Candid, funny, entertaining and blisteringly honest, he offers opinions that are impossible to ignore and certain to provoke.

What he values above all is the truth. ‘The culture at large seemed to encourage discourse,’ he writes, ‘but what it really wanted to do was shut down the individual.’ Bret Easton Ellis will not be shut down.

Freedom & Security Politics & Government Social Sciences Funny

Critic Reviews

The first work of non-fiction from the American Psycho author is very good . . . the best thing he has published for years
A winning mixture of incautious autobiography and caustic polemic, with plenty of sharp social observation thrown in . . . What a timely book this is – bursting with wit and diablerie, shameless, bracing and fun.
A splenetic analysis of the culture of today . . . occasionally brilliant, often thought-provoking
Not everybody is going to like it. He doesn’t care.
For the youthful twitterati, I suppose, he’s just another old white man who hates everything
This attack on political correctness in the Twitter age . . . has all the sound, fury and insignificance of a misguided rant posted at 3am
Ellis will lose friends over this book.
Best described as a provocation . . . it’s up to you, the reader, to choose to what degree you are prepared to allow yourself to be riled.
@BretEastonEllis Your book White is staggeringly good. I’m loving it. Thank you so much for your style, your humour and your honesty. (Eric Idle (on Twitter))
All stars
Most relevant
I enjoyed BEE’s classic analysis/over- analysis of everything wrong with the last 15 or so years. With heavy thought and deep insight from the life of a gay liberal responding to the radically partisan thought control of his friends and colleagues, Bee gives his own (refreshing) take on the “Age of Trump.”

Introversion in the age of Weakness

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Taut and thrilling critique of today’s political and cultural environment. Loved every second of it.

Thrilling cultural critique

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This was so fantastic and refreshing—a wonderful take on everything from current politics to culture in the 70s and 80s to Ellis’s own time writing his books. I enjoyed all of it. Perhaps you think I shouldn’t, as a millennial “coloured” leftist female, but to think that would be to misunderstand what he’s doing and what he’s about. I don’t think he is at all stirring anything, I think he’s genuinely concerned about the way aesthetics are often hijacked by political ideology. And I join him. I worry too about group think; where you can’t listen to both sides of political persuasion like we once could. what happens to a society that no longer cares about art? That is is scary—when you can’t call out or question ideology it becomes dogged. And where to do so you can be labelled misogynist or racist (as a coloured woman I myself have been called racist!m for the most inane defence of something!). Everyone has to have the same reactions to art now and to not think ‘super important’ films are actually any good could get you cancelled. I don’t think Ellis says anything to warrant the vitriol he got when this book came out — but then I guess sometimes you can use the crazed generation that is mine to your PR advantage.

Witty, erudite, and refreshing.

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A clear, well spoken iconoclast who is a pleasure to listen to as much as he is to read. I really enjoyed his insights on his writing and the clarity with which he spoke on the state of the post empire world.

Classic

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A timely observation of the culture wars from one of Gen X's leading flag bearers.

White aka Gen X ain't impressed

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