The Social Sciences category has 3,302 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 32,502 ratings. The most-rated is Homo Deus.
Cassandra Speaks
Summary
What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her? What if women had been the storytellers? Elizabeth Lesser believes that if women’s voices had been equally heard and respected throughout history, humankind would have followed different hero myths and guiding stories - stories that value caretaking, champion compassion, and elevate communication over vengeance and violence. Cassandra Speaks is about the stories we tell and how those stories become the culture. It’s about the stories we still blindly cling to, and the ones that cling to us: the origin tales, the guiding myths, the religious parables, the literature and films and fairy tales passed down through the centuries about women and men, power and war, sex and love, and the values we live by. Stories written mostly by men with lessons and laws for all of humanity. We have outgrown so many of them, and still they endure. This book is about what happens when women are the storytellers too - when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what it means to be human. Lesser has walked two main paths in her life - the spiritual path and the feminist one - paths that sometimes cross but sometimes feel at cross-purposes. Cassandra Speaks is her extraordinary merging of the two. The best-selling author of Broken Open and Marrow, Lesser is a beloved spiritual writer, as well as a leading feminist thinker. In this book, she gives equal voice to the cool water of her meditative self and the fire of her feminist self. With her trademark gifts of both humor and insight, she offers a vision that transcends the either/or ideologies on both sides of the gender debate. Brilliantly structured into three distinct parts, Part One explores how history is carried forward through the stories a culture tells and values, and what we can do to balance the scales. Part Two looks at women and power and expands what it means to be courageous, daring, and strong. And Part Three offers “A Toolbox for Inner Strength”. Lesser argues that change in the culture starts with inner change, and that no one - woman or man - is immune to the corrupting influence of power. She provides inner tools to help us be both strong-willed and kind-hearted. Cassandra Speaks is a beautifully balanced synthesis of storytelling, memoir, and cultural observation. Women, men, and all people will find themselves in this book, and will come away strengthened, opened, and ready to work together to create a better world for all people.
©2020 Elizabeth Lesser (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
Untrue
Summary
From the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Primates of Park Avenue, a bold, timely reconsideration of female infidelity that will upend everything you thought you knew about women and sex. What do straight, married female revelers at an all-women's sex club in LA have in common with nomadic pastoralists in Namibia who bear children by men not their husbands? Like women worldwide, they crave sexual variety, novelty, and excitement. In ancient Greek tragedies, Netflix series, tabloids, and pop songs, we've long portrayed such cheating women as dangerous and damaged. We love to hate women who are untrue. But who are they really? And why, in this age of female empowerment, do we continue to judge them so harshly? In Untrue, feminist author and cultural critic Wednesday Martin takes us on a bold, fascinating journey to reveal the unexpected evolutionary legacy and social realities that drive female faithlessness, while laying bare our motivations to contain women who step out. Blending accessible social science and interviews with sex researchers, anthropologists, and real women from all walks of life, Untrue challenges our deepest assumptions about ourselves, monogamy, and the women we think we know. From recent data suggesting women may struggle more than men with sexual exclusivity to the revolutionary idea that females of many species evolved to be "promiscuous" to Martin's trenchant assertion that female sexual autonomy is the ultimate metric of gender equality, Untrue will change the way you think about women and sex forever.
©2018 Wednesday Martin (P)2018 Hachette Audio
The Greatest
Summary
Audie Award, Autobiography/Memoir, 2017. In his own words, the heavyweight champion of the world pulls no punches as he chronicles the battles he faced in and out of the ring in this fascinating memoir edited by Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Toni Morrison. Growing up in the South, surrounded by racial bigotry and discrimination, Ali fought not just for a living, but also for respect and rewards far more precious than money or glory. He was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the BBC. Ali redefined what it meant to be an athlete by giving hope to millions around the world and inspiring us all to fight for what is important to us. This is a multifaceted portrait of Muhammad Ali only he could render: sports legend, unapologetic anti-war advocate, outrageous showman and gracious goodwill ambassador, fighter, lover, poet, and provocateur, and an irresistible force to be reckoned with. Who better to tell the tale than the man who went the distance living it?
©1975 Muhammad Ali, Herbert Muhammad, Richard Durham (P)2016 Graymalkin Media
Butcher, Baker
Summary
The horrific true story of serial kidnapper, rapist, and killer Robert Hansen’s reign of terror As oil-boom money poured into Anchorage, Alaska the city quickly became a prime destination for the seedier elements of society: prostitutes, pimps, con men, and criminals of all breeds looking to cash in. However, something even worse lurked in their midst. To all who knew him, Robert Hansen was a typical hardworking businessman, husband, and father. But hidden beneath the veneer of mild respectability was a monster whose depraved appetites could not be sated. From 1971 to 1983, Hansen was a human predator, stalking women on the edges of Anchorage society - women whose disappearances would cause scant outcry, but whose gruesome fates would shock the nation. After his arrest, Hansen confessed to 17 brutal murders, though authorities suspect there were more than 30 victims. Alaska State Trooper Walter Gilmour and writer Leland E. Hale tell the story of Hansen’s twisted depredations - from the dark urges that drove his madness to the women who died at his hand and finally to the authorities who captured and convicted the killer who came to be known as the “Butcher Baker.”
©2011 Walter Gilmour and Leland E. Hale (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
Chercher Sam
Summary
Mathieu vit dans la rue. Il l’a choisi. Ce n’est pas un aventurier, et ça n’a rien à voir avec la liberté. Est-ce qu’il s’autodétruit? Est-ce ainsi qu’il se préserve? Peu importe. Sa chienne Sam est là, qui l’aide à continuer. Mais quand elle disparaît, Mathieu doit mettre fin à son errance. Pour la retrouver, il entreprend un voyage dont les bifurcations le ramènent au secret de son passé.
©2015 Sophie Bienvenu et Le Cheval d'août (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Unf--k Your Brain
Summary
A no-nonsense and helpful guide on how to cope with a slew of mental-health issues that are hell-bent on ruining the lives of millions of people worldwide Our brains do their best to help us out, but every so often they can be real assholes - having meltdowns, getting addicted to things, or shutting down completely at the worst possible moments. Your brain knows it's not good to do these things, but it can't help it sometimes - especially if it's obsessing about trauma it can't overcome. That's where this life-changing book comes in. With humor, patience, science, and lots of good-ole swearing, Dr. Faith explains what's going on in your skull, and talks you through the process of retraining your brain to respond appropriately to the non-emergencies of everyday life, and to deal effectively with old, or newly acquired, traumas (particularly post-traumatic stress disorder).
©2017 Faith G. Harper (P)2017 Microcosm Publishing
13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do
Summary
International best-selling author and leading global expert on mental strength Amy Morin turns her focus to feminism, explaining what it means - and what it takes - to be a mentally strong woman in the age of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. The emergence of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have awakened society and encouraged women to find their voice and claim their power. But to do this, women must learn to improve their own mental strength. Contending with a host of difficult issues - from sexual assault on college campuses, to equal pay and pay gaps, to mastering different negotiation styles - demands psychological toughness. In this crucial audiobook, prominent psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker Amy Morin gives women the techniques to build mental muscle - and just as important, she teaches them what not to do. What does it mean to be a mentally strong woman? Delving into critical issues like sexism, social media, social comparison, and social pressure, Amy addresses this question and offers thoughtful, intelligent advice, practical tips, and specific strategies and combines them with personal experiences, stories from former patients, and both well-known and untold examples from women from across industries and pop culture. Throughout, she explores the areas women - and society at large - must focus on to become (and remain) mentally strong. Amy reveals that healthy, mentally tough women don’t insist on perfection; they don’t compare themselves to other people; they don’t see vulnerability as a weakness; they don’t let self-doubt stop them from reaching their goals. Wise, grounded, and essential, 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don’t Do can help every woman flourish - and ultimately improve our society as well.
©2019 Amy Morin (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
Redefining Realness
Summary
With unflinching honesty and moving prose, Janet Mock relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering listeners accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population. Though undoubtedly an account of one woman's quest for self at all costs, Redefining Realness is a powerful vision of possibility and self-realization, pushing us all toward greater acceptance of one another - and of ourselves - showing as never before how to be unapologetic and real.
©2014 Janet Mock (P)2015 Tantor
Fifteen Days
Summary
Long before she made her first trip to Afghanistan as an embedded reporter for The Globe and Mail, Christie Blatchford was already one of Canada's most respected and eagerly read journalists. Her vivid prose, her unmistakable voice, her ability to connect emotionally with her subjects and readers, her hard-won and hard-nosed skills as a reporter had already established her as a household name. But with her many reports from Afghanistan, and in dozens of interviews with the returned members of the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and others back at home, she found the subject she was born to tackle. Her reporting of the conflict and her deeply empathetic observations of the men and women who wear the maple leaf are words for the ages, fit to stand alongside the nation's best writing on war. It is a testament to Christie Blatchford's skills and integrity that along with the admiration of her readers, she won the respect and trust of the soldiers. They share breathtakingly honest accounts of their desire to serve, their willingness to confront fear and danger in the battlefield, their loyalty towards each other and the heartbreak occasioned by the loss of one of their own. Grounded in insights gained over the course of three trips to Afghanistan in 2006, and drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews not only with the servicemen and -women with whom she shared so much, but with their commanders and family members as well, Christie Blatchford creates a detailed, complex and deeply affecting picture of military life in the 21st century.
©2008 Christie Blatchford (P)2011 Audible, Inc.
Mate
Summary
The numeber-one best-selling pioneer of "fratire" and a leading evolutionary psychologist team up to create the dating book for guys. Whether they conducted their research in life or in the lab, experts Tucker Max and Dr. Geoffrey Miller have spent the last 20-plus years learning what women really want from their men, why they want it, and how men can deliver those qualities. The short answer: Become the best version of yourself possible, then show it off. It sounds simple, but it's not. If it were, Tinder would just be the stuff you use to start a fire. Becoming your best self requires honesty, self-awareness, hard work, and a little help. Through their website and podcasts, Max and Miller have already helped over one million guys take their first steps toward Miss Right. They have collected all of their findings in Mate, an evidence-driven, seriously funny playbook that will teach you to become a more sexually attractive and romantically successful man, the right way: No "seduction techniques" No moralizing No bullshit Just honest, straightforward talk about the most ethical, effective way to pursue the win-win relationships you want with the women who are best for you. Much of what they've discovered will surprise you, some of it will not, but all of it is important and often misunderstood. So listen up, and stop being stupid! PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2015 Tucker Max and Geoffrey Miller PhD (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Hit Makers
Summary
Nothing "goes viral". If you think a popular movie, song, or app came out of nowhere to become a word-of-mouth success in today's crowded media environment, you're missing the real story. Each blockbuster has a secret history - of power, influence, dark broadcasters, and passionate cults that turn some new products into cultural phenomena. Even the most brilliant ideas wither in obscurity if they fail to connect with the right network, and the consumers that matter most aren't the early adopters but rather their friends, followers, and imitators - the audience of your audience. In his groundbreaking investigation, Atlantic senior editor Derek Thompson uncovers the hidden psychology of why we like what we like and reveals the economics of cultural markets that invisibly shape our lives. Shattering the sentimental myths of hit making that dominate pop culture and business, Thompson shows quality is insufficient for success, nobody has "good taste", and some of the most popular products in history were one bad break away from utter failure. It may be a new world, but there are some enduring truths to what audiences and consumers want. People love a familiar surprise: a product that is bold yet sneakily recognizable. All businesses, artists, and people looking to promote themselves and their work want to know what makes some works so successful while others disappear. Hit Makers is a magical mystery tour through the last century of pop culture blockbusters and the most valuable currency of the 21st century - people's attention. From the dawn of impressionist art to the future of Facebook, from Etsy designers to the origin of Star Wars, Derek Thompson leaves no pet rock unturned to tell the fascinating story of how culture happens and why things become popular. In Hit Makers, Derek Thompson investigates: The secret link between ESPN's sticky programming and the The Weeknd's catchy choruses Why Facebook is the world's most important modern newspaper How advertising critics predicted Donald Trump The fifth grader who accidentally launched "Rock Around the Clock", the biggest hit in rock and roll history How Barack Obama and his speechwriters think of themselves as songwriters How Disney conquered the world - but the future of hits belongs to savvy amateurs and individuals The French collector who accidentally created the Impressionist canon Quantitative evidence that the biggest music hits aren't always the best Why almost all Hollywood blockbusters are sequels, reboots, and adaptations Why one year - 1991 - is responsible for the way pop music sounds today Why another year - 1932 - created the business model of film
©2017 Derek Thompson (P)2017 Penguin Audio
Playing Big
Summary
A groundbreaking women's leadership expert and popular conference speaker gives women the practical skills to voice and implement the changes they want to see - in themselves and in the world. In her coaching and programs for women, Tara Mohr saw how women were "playing small" in their lives and careers, were frustrated by it, and wanted to "play bigger". She has devised a proven way for them to achieve their dreams by playing big from the inside out. Mohr's work helping women play bigger has earned acclaim from the likes of Maria Shriver and Jillian Michaels, and has been featured on the Today show, CNN, and a host of other media outlets. Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In gave many women new awareness about what kinds of changes they need to make to become more successful; yet most women need help implementing them. In the tradition of Brené Brown's Daring Greatly, Playing Big provides real, practical tools to help women quiet self-doubt, identify their callings, "unhook" from praise and criticism, unlearn counterproductive good girl habits, and begin taking bold action. While not all women aspire to end up in the corner office, every woman aspires to something. Playing Big fills a major gap among women's career books; it isn't just for corporate women. The audiobook offers tools to help every woman play bigger - whether she's an executive, community volunteer, artist, or stay-at-home mom. Thousands of women across the country have been transformed by Mohr's program, and now this book makes the ideas and practices available to everyone who is ready to play big.
©2014 Tara Mohr (P)2014 Penguin Audio
If Women Rose Rooted
Summary
This is the second edition of a uniquely empowering, international word-of-mouth best seller about wild landscapes, female mythology, and the challenges facing modern women. It is a book for any woman who has ever lost her way and who sees a wasteland at the heart of modern existence and longs to live a more authentic, rooted life once again.
©2016 Sharon Blackie (P)2017 Tantor
Everything's Trash, but It's Okay
Summary
Entertainment Weekly, "Fall's 20 Must-Reads" (2018) Essence, "Fall 2018 Guide to All Things Funny" Bustle, "18 New Nonfiction Books to Know in October 2018" "Robinson offers deft cultural criticism and hilarious personal anecdotes that will make readers laugh, cringe, and cry. Everything may indeed be trash but writing like this reminds us that we're gonna make it through all the terrible things with honesty, laughter, and faith." (Roxane Gay, New York Times best-selling author) New York Times best-selling author and star of 2 Dope Queens Phoebe Robinson is back with a hilarious and timely essay collection on gender, race, dating, and the Dumpster fire that is our world. Written in her trademark unfiltered and witty style, Robinson's latest collection is a call to arms. Outfitted with on-point pop culture references, these essays tackle a wide range of topics: giving feminism a tough-love talk on intersectionality, telling society's beauty standards to kick rocks, and calling foul on our culture's obsession with work. Robinson also gets personal, exploring money problems she's hidden from her parents, how dating is mainly a warmed-over bowl of hot mess, and, definitely most important, meeting Bono not once, but twice. She's struggled with being a woman with a political mind and a woman with an ever-changing jeans size. She knows about trash because she sees it every day - and because she's seen roughly 100,000 hours of reality TV and zero hours of Schindler's List. With the intimate voice of a new best friend, Everything's Trash, But It's Okay is a candid perspective for a generation that has had the rug pulled out from under it too many times to count.
©2018 Phoebe Robinson (P)2018 Penguin Audio
The World of Lore: Monstrous Creatures
Summary
A fascinating, beautifully illustrated guide to the monsters that are part of our collective psyche, featuring stories from the Lore podcast - now a streaming television series - including “They Made a Tonic, ,“Passed Notes”, and “Unboxed", as well as rare material. They live in shadows - deep in the forest, late in the night, in the dark recesses of our minds. They’re spoken of in stories and superstitions, relics of an unenlightened age, old wives’ tales, passed down through generations. Yet no matter how wary and jaded we have become, as individuals or as a society, a part of us remains vulnerable to them: werewolves and wendigos, poltergeists and vampires, angry elves and vengeful spirits. In this volume, the host of the hit podcast Lore serves as a guide on a fascinating journey through the history of these terrifying creatures, exploring not only the legends but what they tell us about ourselves. Aaron Mahnke invites us to the desolate Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where the notorious winged, red-eyed Jersey Devil dwells. He delves into harrowing accounts of cannibalism - some officially documented, others the stuff of speculation...perhaps. He visits the dimly lit rooms where séances take place, the European villages where gremlins make mischief, even Key West, Florida, home of a haunted doll named Robert. In a world of “emotional vampires” and “zombie malls”, the monsters of folklore have become both a part of our language and a part of our collective psyche. Whether these beasts and bogeymen are real or just a reflection of our primal fears, we know, on some level, that not every mystery has been explained and that the unknown still holds the power to strike fear deep in our hearts and souls. As Aaron Mahnke reminds us, sometimes the truth is even scarier than the lore. The World of Lore series includes: Monstrous Creatures Wicked Mortals Dreadful Places
©2017 Aaron Mahnke (P)2017 Random House Audio
Fry's English Delight (Series 3)
Summary
National treasure and renowned wit Stephen Fry explores the highways and byways of the English language in these celebrated programmes. In each episode, Fry explores the oddities and celebrates the curiosities of the language we use. His love of words is indulged with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity at all times. From puns and metaphors to clichés and gibberish, this famously witty, incisive and engaging series explores the joys of the English language.
©2009 Testbed Audio Ltd (P)2010 Audible, Inc
Fry's English Delight (Series 2)
Summary
National treasure and renowned wit Stephen Fry explores the highways and byways of the English language in these celebrated programmes. In each episode, Fry explores the oddities and celebrates the curiosities of the language we use. His love of words is indulged with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity at all times. From puns and metaphors to clichés and gibberish, this famously witty, incisive and engaging series explores the joys of the English language.
©2009 Testbed Audio Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion
Summary
"Buck up." "Stop feeling sorry for yourself." "Don't ruin everything." When you are anxious, sad, angry, or lonely, do you hear this self-critical voice? What would happen if, instead of fighting difficult emotions, we accepted them? Over his decades of experience as a therapist and mindfulness meditation practitioner, Dr. Christopher Germer has learned a paradoxical lesson: We all want to avoid pain, but letting it in and responding compassionately to our own imperfections are essential steps on the path to healing. This wise and eloquent book illuminates the power of self-compassion and offers creative, scientifically grounded strategies for putting it into action. You'll master practical techniques for living more fully in the present moment - especially when hard-to-bear emotions arise - and for being kind to yourself when you need it the most.
©2009 The Guilford Press (P)2016 Tantor
How Innovation Works
Summary
Building on his national best seller The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley chronicles the history of innovation, and how we need to change our thinking on the subject. Innovation is the main event of the modern age, the reason we experience both dramatic improvements in our living standards and unsettling changes in our society. Forget short-term symptoms like Donald Trump and Brexit, it is innovation itself that explains them and that will itself shape the 21st century for good and ill. Yet innovation remains a mysterious process, poorly understood by policy makers and businessmen, hard to summon into existence to order, yet inevitable and inexorable when it does happen. Matt Ridley argues in this audiobook that we need to change the way we think about innovation, to see it as an incremental, bottom-up, fortuitous process that happens to society as a direct result of the human habit of exchange, rather than an orderly, top-down process developing according to a plan. Innovation is crucially different from invention because it is the turning of inventions into things of practical and affordable use to people. It speeds up in some sectors and slows down in others. It is always a collective, collaborative phenomenon, not a matter of lonely genius. It is gradual, serendipitous, recombinant, inexorable, contagious, experimental, and unpredictable. It happens mainly in just a few parts of the world at any one time. It still cannot be modelled properly by economists, but it can easily be discouraged by politicians. Far from there being too much innovation, we may be on the brink of an innovation famine. Ridley derives these and other lessons, not with abstract argument, but from telling the lively stories of scores of innovations, how they started and why they succeeded or in some cases failed. He goes back millions of years and leaps forward into the near future. Some of the innovation stories he tells are about steam engines, jet engines, search engines, airships, coffee, potatoes, vaping, vaccines, cuisine, antibiotics, mosquito nets, turbines, propellers, fertiliser, zero, computers, dogs, farming, fire, genetic engineering, gene editing, container shipping, railways, cars, safety rules, wheeled suitcases, mobile phones, corrugated iron, powered flight, chlorinated water, toilets, vacuum cleaners, shale gas, the telegraph, radio, social media, block chain, the sharing economy, artificial intelligence, fake bomb detectors, phantom games consoles, fraudulent blood tests, faddish diets, hyperloop tubes, herbicides, copyright, and even - a biological innovation - life itself.
©2020 Matt Ridley (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
When Violence Is the Answer
Summary
This book could save your life: Protect yourself from violence and learn survival skills for dangerous situations with this essential guide from a former military intelligence officer. In a civilized society, violence is rarely the answer. But when it is - it's the only answer. The sound of breaking glass downstairs in the middle of the night. The words "move and you die". The hands on your child, or the knife to your throat. In this essential new book, self-protection expert and former military intelligence officer Tim Larkin changes the way we think about violence in order to save our lives. By deconstructing our assumptions about violence - its morality, its function in modern society, how it actually works - Larkin unlocks the shackles of our own taboos and arms us with what we need to know to prevent, prepare for, and survive the unthinkable event of life-or-death violence. Through a series of harrowing true-life stories, Larkin demonstrates that violence is a tool equally effective in the hands of the "bad guy" or the "good guy"; that the person who acts first, fastest, and with the full force of their body is the one who survives; and that each and every one of us is capable of being that person when our lives are at stake. An indispensable resource, When Violence Is the Answer will remain with you long after you've finished listening, as the bedrock of your self-protection skills and knowledge.
©2017 Tim Larkin (P)2017 Hachette Audio