Original photography includes cover art by Allan Amato as well as special gatefold art sure to delight fans
Purchase the vinyl here
“Amanda has a direct line with her audience—a lifeline for them and for her, the
codependency all truly great performers surrender to…she’s capable of anything, incapable of telling anything but the truth.”—Bono
Imagine standing on a box in the middle of a busy city, dressed as a white-faced bride, and silently using your eyes to ask people for money. Or touring Europe in a punk cabaret band, and finding a place to sleep each night by reaching out to strangers on Twitter. For Amanda Palmer, actions like these have gone beyond satisfying her basic needs for food and shelter—they’ve taught her how to turn strangers into friends, build communities, and discover her own giving impulses.
In THE ART OF ASKING (available for the first time on vinyl), Amanda—who rose to fame as the lead singer for the acclaimed band The Dresden Dolls and now performs as a solo artist who embraces (and explodes) traditional frameworks for music, theater, and art—expands upon her popular TED talk to reveal how those of us without thousands of Twitter followers and adoring fans can learn to ask. As Amanda writes in the book’s introduction:
“Asking is, in itself, the fundamental building block of any relationship. Constantly and usually indirectly, often wordlessly, we ask each other—our bosses, our spouses, our friends, our employees—in order to build and maintain our relationships with one another.
Will you help me?
Can I trust you?
Are you going to screw me over?
Are you suuuure I can trust you?
And so often, underneath it all, all of these questions originate in our basic, human longing to know:
Do you love me?”
Effective but sincere, THE ART OF ASKING has the power to bring together the movement Amanda has begun, and the potential to become a handbook for creative people or any of us who just want to learn to ask for what we need without shame. Listen to an audio excerpt here. The vinyl also features the songs “Bigger on the Inside” and “Ukulele Anthem.”
Additional Praise for THE ART OF ASKING
“To read Amanda Palmer’s remarkable memoir about asking and giving is to tumble headlong into her world…Then, gradually, as you read along, a doorway opens up in your heart, and you realize, ‘I want to live in a world exactly like hers.’ God willing, this book will show us all how to do it.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of EAT PRAY LOVE and THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS
“This is the kind of book that makes you want to call the author up at midnight to whisper, ‘My God. I thought I was the only one.’”
—Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of LET’S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED
“Amanda Palmer joyfully shows a generation how to change their lives.”
—Caitlin Moran, author of HOW TO BE A WOMAN and HOW TO BUILD A GIRL
About Hachette Book Group
Hachette Book Group is a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the third-largest trade and educational publisher in the world. Hachette Audio is a publisher of a variety of popular genres in audio form, which matches HBG material with talented actors, composers, and producers to find its fullest expression. Their audiobooks are primarily based on material published in print and online by Grand Central Publishing, Little, Brown & Company, FaithWords, Center Street, Orbit, JIMMY Patterson, Hachette Books, Black Dog & Leventhal, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Perseus, and have been recognized for the highest quality of content and production with numerous GRAMMY, Audie, Listen Up! And Earphone awards. Unabridged and abridged titles are available on CD and as digital downloads.
Hachette Book Group
@HachetteAudio
Hachette Audio Press Contact: Megan Fitzpatrick
megan.fitzpatrick@hbgusa.com
212.364.1329
About Wax Audio Group
Wax Audio Group is an independent record label and brand offshoot of the Wax Record Fair (established in partnership with Capitol Music Group in 2015) who specializes in unique vinyl releases for book, music, and lifestyle retail. Wax Audio Group is a brand unit of the WAX family of companies, established in cooperation with Think Indie to produce and distribute unique audio productions for fans of the vinyl format.
Wax Audio Group
@WaxAudioGroup
Wax Audio Group Press Contact: Daniel Gill
Daniel@forcefieldpr.com
818.331.0830
