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  The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 422min

  In the spirit of Alvin Tofflers' Future Shock, a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. Whether were buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions - both big and small - have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. We assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice - the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish - becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice--from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs--has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Ken Kliban. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/002410/bk_adbl_002410_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The West End Ghost Book: A Ghostly Gallivant Through London's Haunted Heartland , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 172min

  Whether a visitor to, or a native of, the great and ancient metropolis of London, the listener will be drawn in by this book's strange and sometimes horrendous tales about this global melting pot of a city. It discusses in detail some of the demons, ghosts, and life-essence stealers who inhabit London's netherworld and call it their home. This book's tales of hauntings and terror deal exclusively with that hugely haunted area of London known as the West End which has the famous Piccadilly Circus at its centre. In it, listeners will find spine-chilling stories about hideous and malevolent tree-hanging soul stealers, a ghostly duchess with a very important message and other fascinating tales about the West End's many restless souls who are doomed to haunt forever, the place of their tragic and often violent deaths. Paradoxically, as with life, so with ghost stories, and there is indeed nothing new under the sun with respect to the hauntings visited. Many, if not all these stories have been told and retold by interpreters of the spirit world over many decades, if not centuries. My specific aim here, apart from telling these stories in what I hope is a new, entertaining, and instructive way, is to contrast and compare the different versions of them that have been written over the years. In doing this I hope to enable listeners to consider, discuss, and maybe even investigate the stories for themselves, as they examine their history, their contradictions, and their facts, or the lack of them. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Time Winters. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/084996/bk_acx0_084996_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The Most Good You Can Do (eBook, ePUB)

  An argument for putting sentiment aside and maximizing the practical impact of our donated dollars: "Powerful, provocative" (Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times). Peter Singer's books and ideas have been disturbing our complacency ever since the appearance of Animal Liberation. Now he directs our attention to a challenging new movement in which his own ideas have played a crucial role: effective altruism. Effective altruism is built upon the simple but profoundly unsettling idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the "most good you can do." Such a life requires a rigorously unsentimental view of charitable giving: to be a worthy recipient of our support, an organization must be able to demonstrate that it will do more good with our money or our time than other options open to us. Singer introduces us to an array of remarkable people who are restructuring their lives in accordance with these ideas, and shows how, paradoxically, living altruistically often leads to greater personal fulfillment than living for oneself. Doing the Most Good develops the challenges Singer has made, in the New York Times and Washington Post, to those who donate to the arts, and to charities focused on helping our fellow citizens, rather than those for whom we can do the most good. Effective altruists are extending our knowledge of the possibilities of living less selfishly, and of allowing reason, rather than emotion, to determine how we live. Doing the Most Good offers new hope for our ability to tackle the world's most pressing problems.

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  The Fate of Progress in British Romanticism (eBook, PDF)

  What did Romantic writers mean when they wrote about "progress" and "perfection"? This book shows how Romantic writers inventively responded to familiar ideas about political progress which they inherited from the eighteenth century. Whereas earlier writers such as Voltaire and John Millar likened improvements in political institutions to the progress of the sciences or refinement of manners, the novelists, poets, and political theorists examined in this book reimagined politically progressive thinking in multiple genres. While embracing a commitment to optimistic improvement-increasing freedom, equality, and protection from injury-they also cultivated increasingly visible and volatile energies of religious and political dissent. Earlier narratives of progress tended not only to edit and fictionalize history but also to agglomerate different modes of knowledge and practice in their quest to describe and prescribe uniform cultural improvement. But romantic writers seize on internal division and take it less as an occasion for anxiety, exclusion, or erasure, and more as an impetus to rethink the groundwork of progress itself. Political entities, from Percy Shelley's plans for political reform to Charlotte Smith's motley associations of strangers in The Banished Man, are progressive because they advance some version of collective utility or common good. But they simultaneously stake a claim to progress only insofar as they paradoxically solicit contending vantage points on the criteria for the very public benefit which they passionately pursue. The "majestic edifices" of Wordsworth's imagined university in The Prelude embrace members who are "republican or pious," not to mention the recalcitrant "enthusiast" who is the poet himself.

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  The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Inspire and Define Our Nation , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 607min

  Howard Fineman is one of our best-known and most trusted political journalists. Mixing vivid scenes and figures from the campaign trail with forays into 400 years of American history, Fineman shows that every debate, from our nation's founding to the present day, is rooted in one of 13 arguments that - thankfully - defy resolution. In an enlightening book that cuts through the din and makes sense of the headlines, Fineman captures the essential issues that have always compelled healthy and heated debate - and must continue to do so in order for us to prosper in the 21st century. The Thirteen American Arguments run the gamut, from issues of individual identity to our country's role in the world, including: Who is a Person? The Declaration of Independence says "everyone", but it took a Civil War and the Civil Rights and other movements to make that a reality. Presently, what about human embryos and "unlawful enemy combatants"? Who is an American? Only a nation of immigrants could argue so much about who should become one. There is currently added urgency when terrorists are at large in the world and twelve million "undocumented" aliens are in the country. The Role of Faith. No country is more legally secular yet more avowedly prayerful. From Thomas Jefferson to Terri Schiavo, we can never quite decide where God fits in government. Presidential Power. In a democracy, leadership is all the more difficult - and, paradoxically, all the more essential. From George Washington to George W. Bush, we have always asked: How much power should a president have? America in the World. Uniquely, we perpetually ask ourselves whether we have a moral obligation to change the world - or, alternatively, whether we must try to change it to survive in it. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Scott Sowers. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/rand/001426/bk_rand_001426_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Thriving After Your Stroke: Rebuilding the Mind and Body to Create a Meaningful Life , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 391min

  Each of us lives on the thin line between chaos and order. Having a stroke thrusts you and the family who loves you into a magnitude of chaos unlike anything you have previously experienced. The trauma of the medical emergency may seem to turn your life upside-down as you are forced to yield control to a cadre of new care specialists, and when the dust settles you may find that a portion of your brain has turned to ashes. It may take years to put the chaos behind you and find your way back to the balance of that thin line.Thriving After Stroke teaches the way out of that excruciating situation. It lays out the principle of the adaptive spiral, which shows the importance of making every day a little better than the day before. Within this book, you will find a road map to restore order to your life, gain resiliency, and tap the power of nature and recreation to help you and your family realize your highest quality of life. There is hope for you and your loved ones to once again live your lives wholeheartedly and to regain the happiness and peace that you long to attain. In time, you can achieve balance and fulfillment in multiple aspects of your life.Whether you’ve endured stroke, depression, cancer, heart disease, or any of the other traumas the human body is susceptible to, there is hope. These conditions, which cause suffering, struggles, and even death, paradoxically also offer the opportunity to be shaped positively by experience and through choices made. This book speaks to broad and basic truths that apply to each of us we pass through hardship and strife. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: John N. Gully. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/196549/bk_acx0_196549_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in the Seventies , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 621min

  How lucky I was, arriving in New York just as everything was about to go to hell. That would be in the autumn of 1972, when a very young and green James Wolcott arrived from Maryland, full of literary dreams, equipped with a letter of introduction from Norman Mailer, and having no idea what was about to hit him. Landing at a time of accelerating municipal squalor and, paradoxically, gathering cultural energy in all spheres as "Downtown" became a category of art and life unto itself, he embarked upon his sentimental education, seventies New York style. This portrait of a critic as a young man is also a rollicking, acutely observant portrayal of a legendary time and place. Wolcott was taken up by fabled film critic Pauline Kael as one of her "Paulettes" and witnessed the immensely vital film culture of the period. He became an early observer-participant in the nascent punk scene at CBGB, mixing with Patti Smith, Lester Bangs, and Tom Verlaine. As a Village Voice writer he got an eyeful of the literary scene when such giants as Mailer, Gore Vidal, and George Plimpton strode the earth, and writing really mattered. A beguiling mixture of Kafka Was the Rage and Please Kill Me, this memoir is a sharp-eyed rendering, at once intimate and shrewdly distanced, of a fabled milieu captured just before it slips into myth. Mixing grit and glitter in just the right proportions, suffused with affection for the talented and sometimes half-crazed denizens of the scene, it will make listeners long for a time when you really could get mugged around here. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Jeff Woodman. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/011735/bk_adbl_011735_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Devoured: From Chicken Wings to Kale Smoothies - How What We Eat Defines Who We Are , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 747min

  A provocative look at how and what Americans eat and why - a flavorful blend of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Salt Sugar Fat, and Freakonomics that reveals how the way we live shapes the way we eat. Food writer and Culinary Institute of America director Sophie Egan takes listeners on an eye-opening journey through the American food psyche, examining the connections between the values that define our national character - work, freedom, and progress - and our eating habits, the good and the bad. Egan explores why these values make for such an unstable and often unhealthy food culture and, paradoxically, why they also make America's cuisine so great. Egan raises a host of intriguing questions: Why does McDonald's have 107 items on its menu? Why are breakfast sandwiches, protein bars, and gluten-free anything so popular? Will bland, soulless meal replacements like Soylent revolutionize our definition of a meal? The search for answers takes her across the culinary landscape, from the prioritization of convenience over health to the unintended consequences of "perks" like free meals for employees; from the American obsession with "having it our way" to the surge of Starbucks, Chipotle, and other chains individualizing the eating experience; from high culture - artisan and organic and what exactly "natural" means - to low culture - the sale of 100 million Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos in 10 weeks. She also looks at how America's cuisine, like the nation itself, has been shaped by diverse influences from across the globe. Devoured weaves together insights from the fields of psychology, anthropology, food science, and behavioral economics as well as myriad examples from daily life to create a powerful and unique look at food in America. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Ann Richardson. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/harp/005152/bk_harp_005152_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 361min

  A solitary citizen today with a broadband connection and several inexpensive or free tools has a substantially better chance of influencing the public's perceptions of billion-dollar corporations than ever before. With a voice, a vote, and a vocation, tens of millions of Americans are involving themselves in the cultural lives of business. The "social media" of blogs, podcasts, and social networks are fusing pop culture with traditional marketing, and it's causing all manner of disruption. Citizen Marketers makes the case that the distributed, power-sharing nature of social media is a reflection of the ideals of democracy, where liberty, free speech and freedom of association are its ruling principles. As a result, positioning, message delivery and reputation management are in the hands of the populace, where anyone can be a publisher or broadcaster. For tradition-bound managers, the message is simple: Control is out of control. People are creating content about products and services, whether companies like it or not. They are the new cultural influencers. Paradoxically, the citizen marketers themselves are not your typical members of society or customer databases. That makes them either progressive or dangerous. Citizen Marketers examines and classifies the work of everyday people who build content on behalf of products, brands, companies, or people and provides a framework for working with them. More cultural guide than business or marketing book, Citizen Marketers examines the significant changes caused by social media. Citizen Marketers outlines a common architecture of participation for the everyday person as citizen marketer, entertainer, or information source. It's ideal for readers hoping to convince colleagues, coworkers, or clients about the broad and tactical changes social media are having on business, marketing, and popular culture. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Ben McConnell, Jackie Huba. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/nocr/000002/bk_nocr_000002_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Grammar for a Full Life: How the Ways We Shape a Sentence Can Limit or Enlarge Us , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 306min

  Why settle for a normal audiobook on grammar when you could learn new things about it and become your own best self at the same time?  If you’re looking for a traditional manual of rules, this much-acclaimed, groundbreaking audiobook by a cofounder of Harvard University’s Writing Center may not be the one for you. Grammar is about much more than rules: It’s about choices, too - since a thought can always be expressed correctly in multiple ways.In Grammar for a Full Life, author Lawrence Weinstein reveals how our grammatical choices either stifle or boost our:Sense of agency in lifeCreativityDepth of connection to othersAnd mindfulness..Weinstein shows that certain tweaks to a person’s grammar can bring consequential changes in his or her fulfillment and well-being. In this wonderful audiobook, he describes some 40 transformative moves that can be made with English punctuation and syntax. You’ll learn, for instance, why a greater use of active voice constructions builds assertive energy in us. You’ll discover how - paradoxically - cutting back on the “intensifiers” (exclamation marks and words like really, absolutely) heightens our awareness of the world.There is not too much about personality and life that Weinstein doesn’t see benefitting from a wiser use of grammar. In a section titled “Bonding”, even sex comes in for some grammatical attention. Even fear of death receives its own, almost lyrical section near book’s end.The farther one gets into this remarkable audiobook, the clearer it becomes that Weinstein’s wish - for both himself and us - is actualization of “the whole person”, through language.No listener should be intimidated by Weinstein's university credentials. As important an audiobook as his is, it's conversational throughout - and it's packed with numerous compelling, clear examples. You will never think of commas or possessive pronouns in t ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Lawrence Weinstein. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/230286/bk_acx0_230286_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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