Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switch
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingThe Gift
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreA modern classic cherished by many of the greatest artists of our time, The Gift is a brilliant, life-changing defense of the value of creative labor.
Drawing on examples from folklore and literature, history and tribal customs, economics and modern copyright law, Lewis Hyde demonstrates how our society—governed by the marketplace—is poorly equipped to determine the worth of artists’ work. He shows us that another way is possible: the alternative economy of the gift, which allows creations and ideas to circulate freely, rather than hoarding them as commodities.
Illuminating and transformative, The Gift is a triumph of originality and insight—an essential audiobook for anyone who has ever given or received a work of art.
Lewis Hyde was born in Boston and studied at the Universities of Minnesota and Iowa. In addition to The Gift, he is the author of This Error Is the Sign of Love, a book of poems; Trickster Makes This World; and Common as Air. He has also published two volumes of translations of Vicente Aleixandre’s poetry and is the editor of On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg and The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau. A MacArthur Fellow and former director of creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde teaches at Kenyon College, where he is the Richard L. Thomas Professor in Creative Writing.
Stephen Bowlby, a lifelong performer and filmmaker, loves bringing ideas to life in ways that entertain, inviting both action and reflection. With a career in writing, directing, and film editing, he infuses his narration with a strong sense of story.
Reviews
“A classic…If you want to write, paint, sing, compose, act, or make films, read The Gift.”
“No one who is invested in any kind of art can read The Gift and remain unchanged.”
Expand reviews