The Sociology category has 542 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 7,644 ratings. The most-rated is Blink.
Velvet Elvis
Summary
"We have to test everything. I thank God for anybody anywhere who is pointing people to the mysteries of God. But those people would all tell you to think long and hard about what they are saying and doing and creating. Test it. Probe it. Do that to this book. Don't swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. "Just because I'm a Christian and I'm trying to articulate a Christian worldview, doesn't mean I've got it nailed. I'm contributing to the discussion. God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?" —Rob Bell
©2005 Rob Bell (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers
Heavens on Earth
Summary
In his most ambitious work yet, Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans' belief in life after death, focusing on recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality by radical life extentionists, extropians, transhumanists, cryonicists, and mind uploaders, along with utopians who have attempted to create heaven on earth. For millennia, religions have concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife, the place where souls go after the death of the physical body. Religious leaders have toiled to make sense of this place that a surprising 74 percent of Americans believe exists but from which no one has ever returned to report what it is really like. Heavens on Earth concludes with an uplifting paean to purpose and progress and what we can do in the here and now, whether or not there is a hereafter.
©2018 Dr. Michael Shermer (P)2018 Dr. Michael Shermer
What Made Maddy Run
Summary
The heartbreaking story of college athlete Madison Holleran, whose life and death by suicide reveal the struggle of young people suffering from mental illness today in this number one New York Times Sports and Fitness best seller. If you scrolled through the Instagram feed of 19-year-old Maddy Holleran, you would see a perfect life: a freshman at an Ivy League school, recruited for the track team, who was also beautiful, popular, and fiercely intelligent. This was a girl who succeeded at everything she tried, and who was only getting started. But when Maddy began her long-awaited college career, her parents noticed something changed. Previously indefatigable Maddy became withdrawn, and her thoughts centered on how she could change her life. In spite of thousands of hours of practice and study, she contemplated transferring from the school that had once been her dream. When Maddy's dad, Jim, dropped her off for the first day of spring semester, she held him a second longer than usual. That would be the last time Jim would see his daughter. What Made Maddy Run began as a piece that Kate Fagan, a columnist for espnW, wrote about Maddy's life. What started as a profile of a successful young athlete whose life ended in suicide became so much larger when Fagan started to hear from other college athletes also struggling with mental illness. This is the story of Maddy Holleran's life, and her struggle with depression, which also reveals the mounting pressures young people - and college athletes in particular - face to be perfect, especially in an age of relentless connectivity and social media saturation.
©2017 Kate Fagan (P)2017 Hachette Audio
The Birth Order Book
Summary
Firstborn? Only child? Middle child? Baby of the family? Find out what it means to you, your relationships, and your career. Do you realize that of the first 23 astronauts in space, 21 were firstborns and the other two were the only child in their family? Are you aware that many successful entrepreneurs are middle children? Is it any surprise that most comedians are the youngest child in their family? It's all about birth order. Birth order powerfully influences who you are, whom you marry, the job you choose, and the kind of parent you are. And Dr. Kevin Leman's The Birth Order Book will help you understand yourself, get along better with others, overcome ingrained tendencies you never thought you could get rid of, and be more successful in the workplace. This revised and updated audio edition of Dr. Leman's classic book includes more than 30 years of experience and research, current examples, and fascinating stories to show how birth order impacts your life. Thousands of people have unlocked the secrets of birth order already. Shouldn't you be one of them?
©2009 Kevin Leman (P)2009 Oasis
The Upside of Your Dark Side
Summary
In The Upside of Your Dark Side, two pioneering researchers in the field of psychology show that while mindfulness, kindness, and positivity can take us far, they cannot take us all the way. Sometimes, they can even hold us back. Emotions like anger, anxiety, or doubt might be uncomfortable, but it turns out that they are also incredibly useful.
For instance:
Anger fuels creativity
Guilt sparks improvement
Self-doubt enhances performance
Selfishness increases courage
Mindlessness leads to better decisions
The key lies in what the authors call "emotional agility," the ability to access our full range of emotions - not just the "good" ones - in order to respond most effectively to whatever situation we might encounter. Drawing on years of scientific research and a wide array of real-life examples including sports, the military, parenting, education, romance, business, and more, The Upside of Your Dark Side is a refreshing reality check that shows us how we can truly maximize our potential.
©2014 Todd B. Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Recorded by arrangement with Hudson Street Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, a Penguin Random House Company
Drop the Ball
Summary
A bold and inspiring memoir and manifesto from a renowned voice in the women's leadership movement who shows women how to cultivate the single skill they really need in order to thrive: the ability to let go. Once the poster girl for doing it all, after she had her first child, Tiffany Dufu struggled to accomplish everything she thought she needed to in order to succeed. Like so many driven and talented women who have been brought up to believe that to have it all they must do it all, Dufu began to feel that achieving her career and personal goals was an impossibility. Eventually she discovered the solution: letting go. In Drop the Ball, Dufu recounts how she learned to reevaluate expectations, shrink her to-do list, and meaningfully engage the assistance of others - freeing the space she needed to flourish at work and to develop deeper, more meaningful relationships at home. Even though women are half the workforce, they still represent only 18 percent of the highest level leaders. The reasons are obvious: Just as women reach middle management, they are also starting families. Mounting responsibilities at work and home leave them with no bandwidth to do what will most lead to their success. Offering new perspective on why the women's leadership movement has stalled, and packed with actionable advice, Tiffany Dufu's Drop the Ball urges women to embrace imperfection and to expect less of themselves and more from others - only then can they focus on what they truly care about, devote the necessary energy to achieving their real goals, and create the type of rich, rewarding life we all desire.
©2017 Tiffany Dufu (P)2017 Macmillan Audio
On Grief and Grieving
Summary
Shortly before her death in 2004, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler, her collaborator, completed the manuscript for this, her final book. On Grief and Grieving is a fitting completion to her work. Thirty-six years and 16 books ago, Kübler-Ross' groundbreaking On Death and Dying changed the way we talk about the end of life. Now On Grief and Grieving will profoundly influence the way we experience the process of grief. On Death and Dying began as a theoretical book, an interdisciplinary study of our fear of death and our inevitable acceptance of it. It introduced the world to the now-famous five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. On Grief and Grieving applies these stages to the process of grieving and weaves together theory, inspiration, and practical advice, all based on Kübler-Ross' and Kessler's professional and personal experiences, and is filled with brief, topic-driven stories. It includes sections on sadness, hauntings, dreams, coping, children, healing, isolation, and even the subject of sex during grief. "I know death is close", Kübler-Ross says at the end of the book, "but not quite yet. I lie here like so many people over the years, in a bed surrounded by flowers and looking out a big window.... I now know that the purpose of my life is more than these stages.... It is not just about the life lost but also the life lived." In one of their final writing sessions, Kübler-Ross told Kessler, "The last nine years have taught me patience, and the weaker and more bed-bound I become, the more I'm learning about receiving love." On Grief and Grieving is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's final legacy, one that brings her life's work profoundly full circle.
©2005 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler (P)2018 Simon & Schuster
The New Rules of Marriage
Summary
In his extraordinary new audiobook, Terrence Real, distinguished therapist and best-selling author, presents a long overdue message that women need to hear: You aren't crazy. You're right! Women have changed in the last 25 years. They have become more powerful, independent, self-confident, and happy. Yet men remain irresponsible and emotionally detached. They don't know how to respond to frustrated partners who just want their mates to show up and grow up. Enter the good news: In this revolutionary audiobook, Real offers women a set of effective tools with which they can create the truly intimate relationships they desire and deserve. He guides you through the process of relationship repair with exercises that you can do alone or with your partner. We have never wanted so much from our relationships as we do today. More than any other generation, we yearn for our mates to be lifelong friends and lovers. The New Rules of Marriage shows us how to fulfill this courageous and uncompromising new vision.
©2007 Terrence Real (P)2007 Random House Inc.
Invisible Influence
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author of Contagious explores the subtle, secret influences that affect the decisions we make - from what we buy to the careers we choose to what we eat - in this fascinating and groundbreaking work. If you're like most people, you think that your choices and behaviors are driven by your individual personal tastes and opinions. You wear a certain jacket because you like the way it looks. You picked a particular career because you found it interesting. The notion that our choices are driven by our own personal thoughts and opinions is patently obvious. Right? Wrong. Without our realizing it, other people's behavior has a huge influence on everything we do at every moment of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous occasion. Even strangers have startling impacts on our judgments and decisions: Our attitudes toward a welfare policy shift if we're told it is supported by Democrats versus Republicans (even though the policy is the same in both cases). But social influence doesn't just lead us to do the same things as others. In some cases we conform or imitate others around us. But in other cases we diverge or avoid particular choices or behaviors because other people are doing them. We stop listening to a band because they go mainstream. We skip buying the minivan because we don't want to look like a soccer mom. In his surprising and compelling Invisible Influence, Jonah Berger integrates research and thinking from business, psychology, and social science to focus on the subtle, invisible influences behind our choices as individuals. By understanding how social influence works, we can decide when to resist and when to embrace it - and how we can use this knowledge to make better-informed decisions and exercise more control over our own behavior.
©2016 Jonah Berger (P)2016 Simon & Schuster
Ghostland
Summary
One of NPR’s Great Reads of 2016 “A lively assemblage and smart analysis of dozens of haunting stories...absorbing...[and] intellectually intriguing.” (The New York Times Book Review) From the author of The Unidentified, an intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes listeners on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places - and deep into the dark side of our history. Colin Dickey is on the trail of America's ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes", Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as "the most haunted mansion in America" or "the most haunted prison"; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget. With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living - how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made - and why those changes are made - Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.
©2016 Colin Dickey (P)2016 Penguin Audio
The All-or-Nothing Marriage
Summary
"After years of debate and inquiry, the key to a great marriage remained shrouded in mystery. Until now...." (Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success) Eli J. Finkel's insightful and ground-breaking investigation of marriage clearly shows that the best marriages today are better than the best marriages of earlier eras. Indeed, they are the best marriages the world has ever known. He presents his findings here for the first time in this lucid, inspiring guide to modern marital bliss. The All-or-Nothing Marriage reverse engineers fulfilling marriages - from the "traditional" to the utterly nontraditional - and shows how any marriage can be better. The primary functions of marriage from 1620 to 1850 were food, shelter, and protection from violence; from 1850 to 1965, the purpose revolved around love and companionship. But today, a new kind of marraige has emerged, one oriented toward self-discovery, self-esteem, and personal growth. Finkel combines cutting-edge scientific research with practical advice; he considers paths to better communication and responsiveness; he offers guidance on when to recalibrate our expectations; and he even introduces a set of must-try "lovehacks". This is a book for the newlywed to the empy nester, for those thinking about getting married or remarried, and for anyone looking for illuminating advice that will make a real difference to getting the most out of marriage today. Includes a PDF of Supplemental Images and Graphics PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2017 Eli J. Finkel (P)2017 Penguin Audio
Confessions of a Funeral Director
Summary
A sixth-generation funeral director and writer of the popular "must read" (Time magazine) blog Confessions of a Funeral Director reflects on mortality and the powerful lessons death holds for every one of us in this compassionate and thoughtful spiritual memoir that combines the humor and insight of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with the poignancy and brevity of When Breath Becomes Air. Death. It happens to everyone, yet most of us don't want to talk about this final chapter of existence. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde intimately understands this reticence and fear. The son of an undertaker, he hesitated to embrace the legacy of running his family's business. Yet he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones profoundly changed his faith and his perspective on death - and life itself. "Yes, death can be bad. Yes, death can be negative," he acknowledges, "but it can also be beautiful. And that alternate narrative needs to be discussed". In Confessions of a Funeral Director, he talks about his experiences and pushes back against the death-negative ethos of our culture, opening a thoughtful, poignant conversation to help us see the end of life in a positive and liberating way. In the wry, compassionate, and honest voice that has charmed his growing legions of blog readers, Wilde offers an intimate look inside his business, offering information on unspoken practices around death such as the embalming process, beautiful and memorable stories about families in the wake of death, and, most importantly, a fresh and wise perspective on how embracing death can allow us to embrace life. Confessions of a Funeral Director is the story of one man learning how death illuminates and deepens the meaning of existence - insights that can help us all pursue and cherish full, rich lives.
©2017 Caleb Wilde (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Creative Schools
Summary
Ken Robinson is one of the world's most influential voices in education, and his 2006 TED Talk on the subject is the most viewed in the organization's history. Now, the internationally recognized leader on creativity and human potential focuses on one of the most critical issues of our time: how to transform the nation's troubled educational system. At a time when standardized testing businesses are raking in huge profits, when many schools are struggling, and students and educators everywhere are suffering under the strain, Robinson points the way forward. He argues for an end to our outmoded industrial educational system and proposes a highly personalized, organic approach that draws on today's unprecedented technological and professional resources to engage all students, develop their love of learning, and enable them to face the real challenges of the 21st century. Filled with anecdotes, case histories, and groundbreaking research, Creative Schools will inspire teachers, parents, and policy makers alike to rethink the real nature and purpose of education.
©2015 Ken Robinson (P)2015 Tantor
Kids These Days
Summary
Named one of Fall 2017's most anticipated books by New York magazine, Publishers Weekly, Nylon, and LitHub Everyone knows "what's wrong with millennials". Glenn Beck says we've been ruined by "participation trophies". Simon Sinek says we have low self-esteem. An Australian millionaire says millennials could all afford homes if we'd just give up avocado toast. Thanks, millionaire. This millennial is here to prove them all wrong. "The best, most comprehensive work of social and economic analysis about our benighted generation." (Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens) "The kind of brilliantly simple idea that instantly clarifies an entire area of culture."(William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep) Millennials have been stereotyped as lazy, entitled, narcissistic, and immature. We've gotten so used to sloppy generational analysis filled with dumb clichés about young people that we've lost sight of what really unites millennials. Namely: We are the most educated and hardworking generation in American history. We poured historic and insane amounts of time and money into preparing ourselves for the 21st century labor market. We have been taught to consider working for free (homework, internships) a privilege for our own benefit. We are poorer, more medicated, and more precariously employed than our parents, grandparents, even our great-grandparents, with less of a social safety net to boot. Kids These Days is about why. In brilliant, crackling prose, early Wall Street occupier Malcolm Harris gets mercilessly real about our maligned birth cohort. Examining trends like runaway student debt, the rise of the intern, mass incarceration, social media, and more, Harris gives us a portrait of what it means to be young in America today that will wake you up and piss you off. Millennials were the first generation raised explicitly as investments, Harris argues, and in Kids These Days, he dares us to confront and take charge of the consequences now that we are grown up.
©2017 Malcolm Harris (P)2017 Hachette Audio
The Starfish and the Spider
Summary
If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg, it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. What's the hidden power behind the success of Wikipedia, craigslist, and Skype? What do eBay and General Electric have in common with the abolitionist and women's rights movements? What fundamental choice put General Motors and Toyota on vastly different paths? How could winning a Supreme Court case be the biggest mistake MGM could have made? After five years of ground-breaking research, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom share some unexpected answers, gripping stories, and a tapestry of unlikely connections. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy and top-down leadership, and revolutionary "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships. The Starfish and the Spider explores what happens when starfish take on spiders (such as the music industry vs. Napster, Kazaa, and the P2P services that followed). It reveals how established companies and institutions, from IBM to Intuit to the U.S. government, are also learning how to incorporate starfish principles to achieve success. This audiobook explores: How the Apaches fended off the powerful Spanish army for 200 years The power of a simple circle The importance of catalysts who have an uncanny ability to bring people together How the Internet has become a breeding ground for leaderless organizations How Alcoholics Anonymous has reached untold millions with only a shared ideology and without a leader The Starfish and the Spider is that rare book that will change how you understand the world around you.
©2006 Decentralized Revolutions, LLC (P)2007 Gildan Media Corp
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty
Summary
This program is enhanced with 14 never-before-heard episodes of Dan Ariely's "Arming the Donkeys" podcast, available exclusively on this audiobook! The New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality returns with thought-provoking work to challenge our preconceptions about dishonesty and urge us to take an "honest" look at ourselves. Does the chance of getting caught affect how likely we are to cheat? How do companies pave the way for dishonesty? Does collaboration make us more honest or less so? Does religion improve our honesty? Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but, in fact, we all cheat. From Washington to Wall Street, the classroom to the workplace, unethical behavior is everywhere. None of us is immune, whether it's the white lie to head off trouble or padding our expense reports. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, award-winning, bestselling author Dan Ariely turns his unique insight and innovative research to the question of dishonesty. Generally, we assume that cheating, like most other decisions, is based on a rational cost-benefit analysis. But Ariely argues, and then demonstrates, that it's actually the irrational forces that we don't take into account that often determine whether we behave ethically or not. For every Enron or political bribe, there are countless hidden commissions, and knockoff purses. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, Ariely shows why some things are easier to lie about; how getting caught matters less than we think; and how business practices pave the way for unethical behavior, both intentionally and unintentionally. Ariely explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of us, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards. But all is not lost. Ariely also identifies what keeps us honest, pointing the way for achieving higher ethics in our everyday lives. With compelling personal and academic findings, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty will change the way we see ourselves, our actions, and others. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2012 Dan Ariely (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers
Coming Apart
Summary
From the best-selling author of Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, this startling long-lens view shows how America is coming apart at the seams that have historically joined our social classes. In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity. Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship—a divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad. The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering from erosions of family and community life that strike at the heart of the pursuit of happiness. This divergence puts the success of the American project at risk. The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America. Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He first came to national attention in 1984 with Losing Ground. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives with his wife in Burkittsville, Maryland. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2012 Cox and Murray, Inc. (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Have a Little Faith
Summary
What if our beliefs were not what divided us, but what pulled us together? In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds - two men, two faiths, two communities - that will inspire listeners everywhere. Albom's first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an 82-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy. Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor - a reformed drug dealer and convict - who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof. Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat. As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds - and indeed, between beliefs everywhere. In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor's wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.
©2009 Mitch Albom, Inc. (P)2009 Hyperion
Twelve Patients
Summary
In the spirit of Oliver Sacks Awakenings and the TV series House, Dr. Eric Manheimer's Twelve Patients is a memoir from the medical director of Bellevue Hospital that uses the plights of 12 very different patients - from dignitaries at the nearby UN, to supermax prisoners from Riker's Island, to illegal immigrants, and Wall Street tycoons - to illustrate larger societal issues. Manheimer is not only the medical director of the country's oldest public hospital, but he is also a patient. As the audiobook unfolds, he is diagnosed with cancer and is forced to wrestle with the end of his own life - even as he struggles to save the lives of others.
©2012 Eric Manheimer (P)2012 Hachette
The Wheel of Life
Summary
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD, transformed the way the world thinks about death and dying. Beginning with the groundbreaking publication of the classic psychological study On Death and Dying and continuing through her many books and her years working with terminally ill children, AIDS patients, and the elderly, Kübler-Ross brought comfort and understanding to millions coping with their own deaths or the deaths of loved ones. In The Wheel of Life, when Kübler-Ross was 71 years old and facing her own death, this world-renowned healer told the story of her extraordinary life. Having taught the world how to die well, she offered a lesson on how to live well. The Wheel of Life is an adventure of the heart - powerful, controversial, inspirational - a fitting legacy of a powerful life.
©1997 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. All rights reserved. (P)1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.