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The Learners Audiobook
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(3.02) - 1,078 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
A young graphic designer fresh out of college in the summer of 1961, Happy has just landed his first job at a wacky advertising firm filled with eccentric creative artists. Everything is going great until Happy is assigned to design a newspaper ad recruiting participants for an experiment in the Yale Psychology Department. Happy can’t resist responding to the ad himself. Little does he know that the experience will devastate him, forcing a reexamination of his past, his soul, and the nature of human cruelty—chiefly his own.
Written in sharp, witty prose and peppered with absorbing ruminations on graphic design, this stand-alone sequel to Chip Kidd’s previous novel, The Cheese Monkeys, again shows that Kidd’s writing is every bit as original, stunning, and memorable as his celebrated book jackets.
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"I just attended a reading for this newest novel by Chip Kidd. I've always admired his work as a designer of book jackets, I was pleasently surprised to find that I truly enjoyed his writing as well. It was a refreshing book, very easy to read, comedic, and an interesting subject matter, completely beyond my skeptic's expectation."
— Beuysjoycean (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“The Learners is witty and well observed as an office comedy, as a meditation on art, and as a story of self-discovery…the book is packed with sharp insights…Kidd ultimately is a brilliant, self-aware designer and a clever writer.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“Required reading.”
— New York Post -
“Kidd shares his deep knowledge of graphic design with his readers in inventive and generally delightful ways…His wit, astute observation, and compassion make The Learners that rarest of offerings—[an] immensely enjoyable novel.”
— Boston Globe -
“Snappy…Kidd invents a banter-filled workplace worthy of Howard Hawks, gleefully tweaks the old-guard panic of the Mad Men-era ad world, and even throws in a few typographic bells and whistles. A-.”
— Entertainment Weekly -
“[A] major writing talent…[Chip Kidd is] an author to watch.”
— USA Today -
“Ingenious…The Learners seduces the reader through a deceptive manipulation of form and content: It’s a matryoshka, or stacking doll, that hides a startling, dark content. By the time we get to the end of the first of its three parts, we are dropped into a creepy, disturbing, sociopolitical satire.”
— Philadelphia Inquirer -
“Wild and winning, funny and moving.”
— San Francisco Chronicle -
“Arresting and hip…captivating.”
— Christian Science Monitor -
“Kidd has held up an engrossing, distorting mirror to a time when marketplace language we all now speak was only just being coined.”
— Calgary Herald (Alberta) -
“Narrator Bronson Pinchot…offers a fresh perspective and a perfectly played performance that captures the essence of Kidd’s work. Pinchot assumes the personality of Happy with such vigor that he seems the only possible choice to narrate the novel…A witty story told by an even wittier narrator is a perfect combination.”
— AudioFile -
“Whimsical…keen-edged and original.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Pinchot’s fully voiced performance is electrifying. He moves easily between the comic and the somber elements in the novel.”
— Kliatt
Awards
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Winner of the Audie AwardAudie Award for Audie Award
The Learners Listener Reviews
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" Liked Cheese Monkeys better - but as soon as Happy got involved with Milgrim's famous experiments- I felt the lightness of Kidd's writing couldn't bear these potentially big ideas... had a good time with the book though! "
— Matthew, 2/10/2014 -
" fantastic, a wonderful follow up to cheese monkeys, but also stands up on its own accord. any book that talks about stanley milgram's obedience experiments and darwin's tubercles (which i have) wins. the ending is a bit weak, but better than his first book's ending. and i adore his vocabulary. "
— Virginia, 1/1/2014 -
" Mad Men story line before Mad Men existed. "
— Jeremy, 12/23/2013 -
" great point of departure (teacher/learner experiments) - terrible writing "
— Steven, 11/10/2013 -
" Gotta love a book where the narrator tells you what typeface text in front of him has been set in. "
— Jon, 8/17/2013 -
" Second book continuing after The Cheese Monkeys, and just as wonderful leaving you jaw dropped in anticipation for the third book. "
— Sarah, 8/2/2013 -
" Ken and I enjoyed listening to this in the car on our vacation. "
— Nancy, 6/22/2013 -
" Not quite done but I love the formatting, the interesting construction of a story and the understated wit. I'm going to read more of him soon. "
— Marita, 6/5/2013 -
" A good, solid book. Not as transporting as the first one (although it is usually difficult to compete with giddy, college-days plots) but still very good. Again, Kidd needs to work on his endings. I would also really enjoy seeing him write something in the third person. "
— Emily, 5/21/2013 -
" Three stars to indicate ambivalence. "
— Tortla, 9/18/2012 -
" chip kidd did it again. "
— Becca, 8/20/2012 -
" Read "The Cheese Monkeys" first - its definitely a 5 star - this one is mighty good "
— Brian, 8/5/2012 -
" It's okay. Tend to give the guy a break because he's not by trade "an author." But kind of tortuous story paralleling the advertising world with the Stanley Milgram punishment-experiments of the mid-20th c. "
— Eric, 5/14/2012 -
" This one wasn't that easy to get through, and it wasn't even that LONG. I only stuck with it because it takes place in New Haven, where I was about to move. And the story was mildly intriguing. It's more about the fonts than the actual story, though. Which isn't necessarily a good thing. "
— Nicolette, 5/6/2012 -
" Well-known theme, but fun continuation of the characters from the first book. Good writing. Satisfying ending. "
— Renee, 2/7/2012 -
" 4 1/2 stars, for rull rull. A hilarious, interesting, fully worthy followup to The Cheese Monkeys, one of my favorites of all time. "
— Aaron, 1/12/2012 -
" Fantastic! About an existentialistic graphic designer starting out in advertising in the 60's. "
— Amanda, 1/9/2012 -
" Smart, colorful, insightful. Compelling read. More dense that I thought. It took a while to get through, for being such a small book. Highly entertaining, especially for graphic designers. "
— Rob, 10/18/2011 -
" It's very hard to write a gay character in the 50s who doesn't seem anachronistic or tragic, but Kidd manages it. "
— Richard, 7/6/2011 -
" chip kidd makes sense to me now. easily one of my favorite people. "
— Eryn, 6/6/2011 -
" Engaging characters with a writing style that kept my interest. Great sense of humor injected throughout the novel. "
— Paul, 4/18/2011 -
" A fictional story around a non-fictional 1950s psychology experiment that I read about (and was horrified by) in college. Good read. "
— Lori, 1/10/2011 -
" Oh! It's so sad if you love the first. A very different novel, than The Cheese Monkeys. "
— Jodi, 1/8/2011 -
" A let-down after The Cheese Monkeys. I felt like Kidd was trying (and failing) too hard. Not as funny and clever as he thought. A little...boring? "
— Claire, 12/14/2010 -
" This book is interesting in both style and substance. Even though it's a sequel to Cheese Monkies, I think it can be read independently without missing much. It is one of those rare sequels that is better than the original. "
— Kay, 12/9/2010 -
" This loosely connected sequel to the Cheese Monkeys portrays a participant's perspective of the Milgram experiment. Like the Cheese Monkeys, Kidd uses many design elements as part of the narrative. The Learners was not as quirky and fun as the Cheese Monkeys, but still a very enjoyable read. "
— Paul, 12/2/2010 -
" Mad Men story line before Mad Men existed. "
— Jeremy, 10/7/2010 -
" I love Kidd's style and his sense of humor and semi-surrealist metaphor. However, I feel like he may have done a "cop out" towards the end. I felt like he hit a tough spot in his plot development and just shrugged at it instead of moving forward. Still a very worthwhile read. "
— Sarah, 6/28/2010 -
" Ken and I enjoyed listening to this in the car on our vacation. "
— Nancy, 6/25/2010
About Chip Kidd
Chip Kidd is a writer and graphic designer in New York City whose book-jacket designs have helped spawn a revolution in the art of American book packaging. He has written about popular culture for McSweeney’s, Vogue, New York Times, New York Observer, Entertainment Weekly, Details, 2WICE, and others.
About Bronson Pinchot
Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.