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.
Natural Causes
Summary
Best-selling author of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich explores how we are killing ourselves to live longer, not better. A razor-sharp polemic that offers an entirely new understanding of our bodies, ourselves, and our place in the universe, Natural Causes describes how we overprepare and worry way too much about what is inevitable. One by one, Ehrenreich topples the shibboleths that guide our attempts to live a long, healthy life - from the importance of preventive medical screenings to the concepts of wellness and mindfulness, from dietary fads to fitness culture. But Natural Causes goes deeper - into the fundamental unreliability of our bodies and even our "mind-bodies", to use the fashionable term. Starting with the mysterious and seldom-acknowledged tendency of our own immune cells to promote deadly cancers, Ehrenreich looks into the cellular basis of aging and shows how little control we actually have over it. We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies, our minds, and even over the manner of our deaths. But the latest science shows that the microscopic subunits of our bodies make their own "decisions", and not always in our favor. We may buy expensive antiaging products or cosmetic surgery, get preventive screenings and eat more kale, or throw ourselves into meditation and spirituality. But all these things offer only the illusion of control. How to live well, even joyously, while accepting our mortality - that is the vitally important philosophical challenge of this book. Drawing on varied sources, from personal experience and sociological trends to pop culture and current scientific literature, Natural Causes examines the ways in which we obsess over death, our bodies, and our health. Both funny and caustic, Ehrenreich then tackles the seemingly unsolvable problem of how we might better prepare ourselves for the end - while still reveling in the lives that remain to us.
©2018 Barbara Ehrenreich (P)2018 Hachette Audio
Achtung Baby
Summary
This audiobook provides an entertaining, enlightening look at the art of raising self-reliant, independent children based on one American mom's experiences in Germany When Sara Zaske moved from Oregon to Berlin with her husband and toddler, she knew the transition would be challenging, especially when she became pregnant with her second child. She was surprised to discover that German parents give their children a great deal of freedom - much more than Americans. In Berlin, kids walk to school by themselves, ride the subway alone, cut food with sharp knives, and even play with fire. German parents did not share her fears, and their children were thriving. Was she doing the opposite of what she intended, which was to raise capable children? Why was parenting culture so different in the States? Through her own family's often funny experiences as well as interviews with other parents, teachers, and experts, Zaske shares the many unexpected parenting lessons she learned from living in Germany. Achtung Baby reveals that today's Germans know something that American parents don't (or have perhaps forgotten) about raising kids with selbstandigkeit (self-reliance) and provides practical examples American parents can use to give their own children the freedom they need to grow into responsible, independent adults. This instructive audiobook is perfect for new parents and anyone else interested in how different cultures approach child-rearing.
©2017 Sara Zaske (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
I Miss You When I Blink
Summary
Acclaimed essayist and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott presents a charmingly relatable and wise memoir in essays about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on her successful life’s to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the list - and herself. Mary Laura Philpott thought she’d cracked the code: Always be right, and you’ll always be happy. But once she’d completed her life’s to-do list (job, spouse, house, babies - check!), she found that instead of feeling content and successful, she felt anxious. Lost. Stuck in a daily grind of overflowing calendars, grueling small talk, and sprawling traffic. She’d done everything “right”, but she felt all wrong. What’s the worse failure, she wondered: smiling and staying the course or blowing it all up and running away? And are those the only options? In this memoir in essays full of spot-on observations about home, work, and creative life, Philpott takes on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood with wit and heart. She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises don’t happen just once or only at midlife; reassures us that small, recurring personal reinventions are both normal and necessary; and advises that if you’re going to faint, you should get low to the ground first. Most of all, Philpott shows that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life, you don’t have to burn it all down and set off on a transcontinental hike (unless you want to, of course). You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are, who you’re not, and where you belong. Who among us isn’t trying to do that? Like a pep talk from a sister, I Miss You When I Blink is the funny, poignant, and deeply affecting audiobook you’ll want to share with all your friends, as you learn what Philpott has figured out along the way: that multiple things can be true of us at once - and that sometimes doing things wrong is the way to do life right.
©2019 Mary Laura Philpott (P)2019 Simon & Schuster
Why Have Kids?
Summary
In Why Have Kids?, Valenti explores these controversial questions through on-the-ground reporting, startling new research, and her own unique experiences as a mom. She moves beyond the black and white “mommy wars” over natural parenting, discipline, and work-life balance to explore a more nuanced reality: one filled with ambivalence, joy, guilt, and exhaustion. Would-be parents must navigate the decision to have children amidst a daunting combination of cultural expectations and hard facts. And new parents find themselves struggling to reconcile their elation with the often exhausting, confusing, and expensive business of child care. When researchers for a 2010 Pew study asked parents why they decided to have their first child, nearly 90 percent answered, for “the joy of having children”. Yet nearly every study in the last 10 years shows a marked decline in the life satisfaction of those with kids. Valenti explores this disconnect between parents’ hopes and the day-to-day reality of raising children - revealing all the ways mothers and fathers are quietly struggling. A must-listen for parents as well as those considering starting a family, Why Have Kids? is an explosive addition to the conversation about modern parenthood.
©2012 Jessica Valenti (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Friday Night Lights
Summary
The 25th anniversary edition of the number-one New York Times best seller and Sports Illustrated's best football book of all time, with a new afterword by the author Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa - the winningest high school football team in Texas history. Socially and racially divided, Odessa isn't known to be a place big on dreams, but every Friday night from September to December, when the Panthers play football, dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, H. G. Bissinger unforgettably captures a season in the life of Odessa and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires - and sometimes shatters - the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms.
©1990 H. G. Bissinger (P)2015 Recorded Books
Answering Jihad
Summary
From New York Times best-selling author and former Muslim Nabeel Qureshi comes this personal, challenging, and respectful answer to the many questions surrounding jihad, the rise of ISIS, and Islamic terrorism. San Bernardino was the most lethal terror attack on American soil since 9/11, and it came on the heels of a coordinated assault on Paris. There is no question that innocents were slaughtered in the name of Allah and in the way of jihad, but do the terrorists' actions actually reflect the religion of Islam? The answer to this question is more pressing than ever as waves of Muslim refugees arrive in the West, seeking shelter from the violent ideology of ISIS. Setting aside speculations and competing voices, what really is jihad? How are we to understand jihad in relation to our Muslim neighbors and friends? Why is there such a surge of Islamist terrorism in the world today, and how are we to respond? In Answering Jihad, best-selling author Nabeel Qureshi (Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus) answers these questions from the perspective of a former Muslim who is deeply concerned for both his Muslim family and his American homeland.
©2016 Nabeel Quereshi (P)2016 Zondervan
This View of Life
Summary
It is widely understood that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won’t be truly complete until it is applied more broadly - to everything associated with the words “human,” “culture,” and “policy.” In a series of engaging and insightful examples - from the breeding of hens to the timing of cataract surgeries to the organization of an automobile plant - Wilson shows how an evolutionary worldview provides a practical tool kit for understanding not only genetic evolution but also the fast-paced changes that are having an impact on our world and ourselves. What emerges is an incredibly empowering argument: If we can become wise managers of evolutionary processes, we can solve the problems of our age at all scales - from the efficacy of our groups to our well-being as individuals to our stewardship of the planet Earth. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 David Sloan Wilson (P)2019 Random House Audio
An Invisible Thread
Summary
This inspirational New York Times best seller chronicles the lifelong friendship between a busy sales executive and a disadvantaged young boy and how both of their lives were changed by what began as one small gesture of kindness. “A straightforward tale of kindness and paying it forward in 1980s New York...an uplifting reminder that small gestures matter.” (Kirkus Reviews) Stopping was never part of the plan.... She was a successful ad sales rep in Manhattan. He was a homeless 11-year-old panhandler on the street. He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But then something stopped her in her tracks, and she went back. And she continued to go back, again and again. They met up nearly every week for years and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades. Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it. Some may call it spirit. Some may call it heart. It drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread. And whatever it is, it binds us still.
©2011 Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski. All rights reserved. (P)2019 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Seven Daughters of Eve
Summary
One of the most dramatic stories of genetic discovery since James Watson's The Double Helix - a work whose scientific and cultural reverberations will be discussed for years to come. In 1994 Professor Bryan Sykes, a leading world authority on DNA and human evolution, was called in to examine the frozen remains of a man trapped in glacial ice in northern Italy. News of both the Ice Man's discovery and his age, which was put at over 5,000 years, fascinated scientists and newspapers throughout the world. But what made Sykes's story particularly revelatory was his successful identification of a genetic descendant of the Ice Man, a woman living in Great Britain today. How was Sykes able to locate a living relative of a man who died thousands of years ago? In The Seven Daughters of Eve, he gives us a firsthand account of his research into a remarkable gene, which passes undiluted from generation to generation through the maternal line. After plotting thousands of DNA sequences from all over the world, Sykes found that they clustered around a handful of distinct groups. Among Europeans and North American Caucasians, there are, in fact, only seven.
©2001 Bryan Skyes (P)2017 Tantor
Gomorrah
Summary
A groundbreaking major best seller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal. Known by insiders as "the System," the Camorra affects cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast and is the deciding factor in why Campania, for instance, has the highest murder rate in all of Europe and why cancer levels there have skyrocketed in recent years. Saviano tells of huge cargoes of Chinese goods that are shipped to Naples and then quickly distributed unchecked across Europe. He investigates the Camorra's control of thousands of Chinese factories contracted to manufacture fashion goods, legally and illegally, for distribution around the world, and relates the chilling details of how the abusive handling of toxic waste is causing devastating pollution not only for Naples but also China and Somalia. In pursuit of his subject, Saviano worked as an assistant at a Chinese textile manufacturer, as a waiter at a Camorra wedding, and on a construction site. A native of the region, he recalls seeing his first murder at the age of 14 and how his own father, a doctor, suffered a brutal beating for trying to aid an 18-year-old victim who had been left for dead in the street. Gomorrah is a bold and important work of investigative writing that holds global significance, one heroic young man's impassioned story of a place under the rule of a murderous organization.
©2006 Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., Milan (P)2007 Tantor
Single Asiatic Male Seeks Ride or Die Chick
Summary
What does it mean to say “I love you” in the digital age? Fresh off the Boat author and host of Viceland’s Huang’s World Eddie Huang swipes right and meets his perfect match in this short tale of “shooting your shot.” Julie, 28, Chicago. All Eddie had were her photos - her green eyes and her wayward posture. Who made the first move doesn’t matter...or does it? Off jump, he could tell she was bad news and a great catch. But how to bring it to the real world? That’s what a whirlwind vacation in St. Barth’s is for. Follow along as one man tries to turn his supreme confidence and complete vulnerability into three little words. Single Asiatic Male Seeks Ride or Die Chick is part of The Real Thing, a collection of moving, hilarious, and big-hearted essays on the modern realities of friendship, romance, commitment, and love. Each story can be listened to in a single sitting.
©2018 Eddie Huang (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Becoming Wise
Summary
“I’ve come to understand the cumulative dialogue of my work as a kind of cartography of wisdom about our emerging world. This book is a map in words to important territory we all are on now together.” Over the 13 years that Krista Tippett has hosted her award-winning and nationally beloved radio program and podcast, first under the title Speaking of Faith and now as On Being, the heart of her work has been to shine a light on the most extraordinary voices on the great questions of meaning for our time, people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate but searching conversation. In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind, into what it means to be human. The book is a master class in living, individually and collectively, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of a teaching faculty. Wisdom emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once - definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other, Tippett says. And this book is much more than a call to personal growth. It is a grounded and ultimately hopeful vision of human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and in Becoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid. One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. Called enlightenment, called transcendence, often called nothing because it is beyond language, it is a state whose gifts can be described in many ways - nourishing, edifying, redemptive - as can its celebrants: courageous, tender, adventurous, curious. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett's teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, some of the most powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it even better.
©2016 Krista Tippett (P)2016 Penguin Audio
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Summary
World renowned scientist Carl Sagan and acclaimed author Ann Druyan have written a Roots for the human species, a lucid and riveting account of how humans got to be the way we are. It shows with humor and drama that many of our key traits - self-awareness, technology, family ties, submission to authority, hatred for those a little different from ourselves, reason, and ethics - are rooted in the deep past, and illuminated by our kinship with other animals. Astonishing in its scope, brilliant in its insights, and absolutely compelling, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a triumph of popular science.
©1992 Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Citizen
Summary
Claudia Rankine's bold new audiobook recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV - everywhere, all the time. The cumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship.
©2014 Claudia Rankine (P)2015 Tantor
How to Be Married
Summary
Everyone tells you marriage is hard, but no one tells you what to do about it. At age 34 Jo Piazza got her romantic-comedy ending when she met the man of her dreams on a boat in the Galápagos Islands and was engaged three months later. But before long Jo found herself riddled with questions. How do you make a marriage work in a world where you no longer need to be married? How does an independent, strong-willed feminist become someone's partner - all the time? In the tradition of writers such as Nora Ephron and Elizabeth Gilbert, award-winning journalist and nationally best-selling author Jo Piazza writes a provocative memoir of a real first year of marriage that will forever change the way we look at matrimony. A travel editor constantly on the move, Jo journeys to 20 countries on five continents to figure out what modern marriage means. Throughout this stunning, funny, warm, and wise personal narrative, she gleans wisdom from matrilineal tribeswomen, French ladies who lunch, Orthodox Jewish moms, Swedish stay-at-home dads, polygamous warriors, and Dutch prostitutes. Written with refreshing candor, elegant prose, astute reporting, and hilarious insight into the human psyche, How to Be Married offers an honest portrait of an utterly charming couple. When life throws more at them than they ever expected - a terrifying health diagnosis, sick parents to care for, unemployment - they ultimately create a fresh understanding of what it means to be equal partners during the good and bad times. Through their journey, they reveal a framework that will help the rest of us keep our marriages strong, from engagement into the newlywed years and beyond.
©2017 Jo Piazza (P)2017 Random House Audio
Blue Mind
Summary
A landmark book by marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols on the remarkable effects of water on our health and well-being. Why are we drawn to the ocean each summer? Why does being near water set our minds and bodies at ease? In Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols revolutionizes how we think about these questions, revealing the remarkable truth about the benefits of being in, on, under, or simply near water. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with compelling personal stories from top athletes, leading scientists, military veterans, and gifted artists, he shows how proximity to water can improve performance, increase calm, diminish anxiety, and increase professional success. Blue Mind not only illustrates the crucial importance of our connection to water - it provides a paradigm shifting "blueprint" for a better life on this Blue Marble we call home.
©2014 Wallace J. Nichols (P)2014 Hachette Audio
The Narcissism Epidemic
Summary
Narcissism - an inflated view of the self - is everywhere. Public figures say it's what makes them stray from their wives. Parents teach it by dressing children in T-shirts that say "Princess". Teenagers and young adults hone it on Facebook, and celebrity newsmakers have elevated it to an art form. And it's what's making people depressed, lonely, and buried under piles of debt. Dr. Jean M. Twenge focuses on the pernicious spread of narcissism in today's culture, which has repercussions for every age group and class. Dr. Twenge joins forces with Dr. W. Keith Campbell, a nationally recognized expert on narcissism, to explore this new plague. Together, they provide an eye-opening exposition of the alarming rise of narcissism and its catastrophic effects at every level of society.
©2009 Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell (P)2014 Tantor
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 powerful, independent, self-confident, and happy. Yet many 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 relationship that 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 Books on Tape
It's Not You
Summary
“Why am I still single?” If you’re single and searching, there’s no end to other people’s explanations, excuses, and criticism explaining why you haven’t found a partner: “You’re too picky. Just find a good-enough guy and you’ll be fine.” “You’re too desperate. If men think you need them, they’ll run scared.” “You’re too independent. Smart, ambitious women always have a harder time finding mates.” “You have low self-esteem. You can’t love someone else until you’ve learned to love yourself.” “You’re too needy. You can’t be happy in a relationship until you’ve learned to be happy on your own.” Based on her popular Modern Love column, Sara Eckel’s It’s Not You challenges these myths, encouraging singletons to stop picking apart their personalities and to start tapping into their own wisdom about who and what is right for them. Supported by the latest psychological and sociological research, as well as interviews with people who have experienced longtime singledom, Eckel creates a strong and empowering argument to understand and accept that there’s no one reason why you’re single - you just are.
©2014 Sara Eckel (P)2016 Novel Audio Inc.
Think Like an Architect
Summary
The design of cities and buildings affects the quality of our lives. Making the built environment useful, safe, comfortable, efficient, and as beautiful as possible is a universal quest. We dream about how we might live, work, and play. From these dreams come some 95 percent of all private and public buildings; professional architects design only about five percent of the built environment. While much of what non-architects build is beautiful and useful, the ugliness and inconveniences that blight many urban areas demonstrate that an understanding of good architectural design is vital for creating livable buildings and public spaces. To help promote this understanding among non-architects, as well as among those considering architecture as a profession, award-winning architect and professor Hal Box explains the process of making architecture from concept to completed building, using real-life examples to illustrate the principles involved in designing buildings that enhance the quality of life for those who live with them. Box believes that everyone should be involved in making architecture and has organized this book as a series of letters to friends and students about the process of creating architecture. He describes what architecture should be and do, how to look at and appreciate good buildings, and how to understand the design process, work with an architect, or become an architect. He also provides an overview of architectural history. For those involved in building projects, Box offers practical guidance about what goes into constructing a building, from the first view of the site to the finished building. For students thinking of becoming architects, he describes an architect's typical training and career path. And for the wide public audience interested in architecture and the built environment, Box addresses how architecture relates to the city, where the art of architecture is headed, and why good architecture matters.
©2007 University of Texas Press (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks