The Call of the Weird

The Call of the Weird

Travels in American Subcultures

4.1 (232 ratings from Audible, Apple)
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Read by: Louis Theroux

Language: English

Length: 3 hours and 48 minutes

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

Release date: 2007-06-05

Charts
PlatformCountryChartLast RankLast Ranked At
AppleUS FlagTop Audiobooks - Travel & Adventure115September 19, 2024
AppleGB FlagTop Audiobooks - Travel & Adventure45September 19, 2024
AppleCA FlagTop Audiobooks - Travel & Adventure33September 19, 2024
AppleAU FlagTop Audiobooks - Travel & Adventure14September 19, 2024

Read by the author, this is Louis Theroux's hilarious and thought-provoking journey through weird America.

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. Along the way, Louis thinks about what drives him to spend so much time among weird people and considers whether he's learned anything about himself in the course of ten years working with them. Has he manipulated the people he's interviewed, or have they manipulated him?

From his Las Vegas base, Louis revisits the assorted dreamers and outlaws who have been his TV feeding ground. Attempting to understand a little about himself and the workings of his own mind, Louis considers questions such as: what is the difference between pathology and "normal" weirdness? Is there something particularly weird about Americans? What does it mean to be weird, or "to be yourself"? And do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us?