This post was originally published on Audible.com.
Did you know that it’s someone’s actual day job to engineer the pyrotechnics for KISS’s electric guitars? Or that a woman in Australia runs a small business cleaning up after the very worst things that can happen to you? Or that, at the Tower of London, a Yeoman Warder is duty-sworn to feed the ravens their favorite snack of biscuits soaked in blood?? As part of my own (mostly normal) job as memoir editor, I rounded up some of the most fascinating listens about the weirdest professions.
Occupation: Funeral Director
Custodians of some of the most unusual stories from embarrassing to deeply poignant to bizarre, undertakers bare all in this special body of work about the dearly departed and the challenges of dealing with their loved ones.
Occupation: Ravenmaster
Local legend holds that the city will fall if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London. As the Ravenmaster, Christopher Skaife keeps the ravens happy and the city standing.
Occupation: Forgery Artist
What do you do when you're a down-on-your-luck biographer? If you're Lee Israel, you start using your talents to forge literary letters and become a criminal mastermind.
Occupation: Ad Copywriter
Sell a half a can of soup as a whole can of soup, write about tampons but do not offend, and make cottage cheese a delicious treat. At one point, Yvonne Durant (now an Audible Editor) was one of the few Black copywriters in advertising. In her memoir, she shares some of her tasks and experiences.
Occupation: Trauma Cleaner
Although it's impossible to sum up Sandra Krasnostein's job in just a few words, here's a start: Her small business cleans up after the very worst things that can happen to you.
This audiobook is fascinatingly read by the author, Chris Hadfield.
Back on the earth after three spaceflights, Chris Hadfield's captivating memoir An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth reveals extraordinary stories from his life as an astronaut, and shows how to make the impossible a reality.
Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4,000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield's success – and survival – is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst – and enjoy every moment of it.
In An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes listeners deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement – and happiness. His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don't visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff.
You might never be able to build a robot, pilot a spacecraft, make a music video or perform basic surgery in zero gravity like Col. Hadfield. But his vivid and refreshing insights will teach you how to think like an astronaut, and will change, completely, the way you view life on Earth – especially your own.
