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.
On Death and Dying
Summary
The world-famous best seller that brought new insight, hope and understanding to millions now available on CD! Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross created her classic seminal work, On Death and Dying, to offer us a new perspective on the terminally ill. It is not a psychoanalytic study, nor is it a "how-to" manual for managing death. Rather, it refocuses on the patient as a human being and a teacher, in the hope that we will learn from him or her about the final stages of life. On Death and Dying examines the attitudes of the dying and the factors that contribute to society's anxiety over death. It closely looks at the five stages of death - denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - and how the dying and living deal with them. In addition, this program offers multi-voice readings of some of the most revealing interviews Dr. Kübler-Ross conducted with her patients. By hearing some of the most intimate and sensitive feelings expressed by those men and women, it is hoped that we may learn more about death and lessen our own anxieties about the natural course of our lives. At its heart, On Death and Dying is a truly remarkable program about communication - offering insight on how to talk with and listen to the terminally ill, and truly hear their fears, hopes, angers, and anxieties.
©1969 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (P)1991, 2000, 2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC
Dignity
Summary
The desire for dignity is universal and powerful. It is a motivating force behind all human interaction - in families, in communities, in the business world, and in relationships at the international level. When dignity is violated, the response is likely to involve aggression, even violence, hatred, and vengeance. On the other hand, when people treat one another with dignity, they become more connected and are able to create more meaningful relationships. Surprisingly, most people have little understanding of dignity, observes Donna Hicks in this important book. Drawing on her extensive experience in international conflict resolution and on insights from evolutionary biology, psychology, and neuroscience, the author explains what the elements of dignity are, how to recognize dignity violations, how to respond when we are not treated with dignity, how dignity can restore a broken relationship, why leaders must understand the concept of dignity, and more. Hicks shows that by choosing dignity as a way of life, we open the way to greater peace within ourselves and to a safer and more humane world for all.
©2011 Donna Hicks (P)2016 Tantor
That Good Night
Summary
“A profound exploration of what it means for all of us to live - and to die - with dignity and purpose.” (People) “Visceral and lyrical.” (The Atlantic) As the American-born daughter of immigrants, Dr. Sunita Puri knew from a young age that the gulf between her parents' experiences and her own was impossible to bridge, save for two elements: medicine and spirituality. Between days spent waiting for her mother, an anesthesiologist, to exit the OR, and evenings spent in conversation with her parents about their faith, Puri witnessed the tension between medicine's impulse to preserve life at all costs and a spiritual embrace of life's temporality. And it was that tension that eventually drew Puri, a passionate but unsatisfied medical student, to palliative medicine - a new specialty attempting to translate the border between medical intervention and quality-of-life care. Interweaving evocative stories of Puri's family and the patients she cares for, That Good Night is a stunning meditation on impermanence and the role of medicine in helping us to live and die well, arming listeners with information that will transform how we communicate with our doctors about what matters most to us.
©2019 Sunita Puri (P)2019 Penguin Audio
The Importance of Being Little
Summary
A bold challenge to the conventional wisdom about early childhood, with a pragmatic program to encourage parents and teachers to rethink how and where young children learn best by taking the child's eye view of the learning environment
Parents of young children today are embattled: Pick the "wrong" preschool and your child won't get into the "right" college. But our fears are misplaced, according to Yale early childhood expert Erika Christakis. Children are powerful and inventive; and the tools to reimagine their learning environment are right in front of our eyes.
Children are hardwired to learn in any setting, but they don't get the support they need when "learning" is defined by strict lessons and dodgy metrics that devalue children's intelligence while placing unfit requirements on their developing brains. We have confused schooling with learning, and we have altered the very habitat young children occupy. The race for successful outcomes has blinded us to how young children actually process the world, acquire skills, and grow, says Christakis, who powerfully defends the preschool years as a life stage of inherent value and not merely as preparation for a demanding or uncertain future.
In her path-breaking book, Christakis explores what it's like to be a young child in America today, in a world designed by and for adults. With school-testing mandates run amok, playfulness squeezed, and young children increasingly pathologized for old-fashioned behaviors like daydreaming and clumsiness, it's easy to miss what's important about the crucial years of three to six, and the kind of guidance preschoolers really need. Christakis provides a forensic and far-reaching analysis of today's whole system of early learning, exploring pedagogy, history, science, policy, and politics. She also offers a wealth of proven strategies about what to do to reimagine the learning environment to suit the child's real, but often invisible, needs. The ideas range from accommodating children's sense of time, to decluttering classrooms, to learning how to better observe and listen as children express themselves in pictures and words.
With her strong foundation in the study of child development and early education and her own in-the-trenches classroom experience, Christakis peels back the mystery of early childhood, revealing a place that's rich with possibility. Her message is energizing and reassuring: Parents have more power (and more knowledge) than they think they do, and young children are inherently creative and will flourish, if we can learn new ways to support them and restore their vital learning habitat.
©2016 Erika Christakis (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye
Summary
Each year about eight million Americans suffer the death of someone close to them. Now, for those who face the challenges of sudden death, there is a hand to hold. Written by two women who have experienced sudden loss, this updated edition of the best-selling bereavement classic will touch, comfort, uplift and console. Authors Brook Noel and Pamela D. Blair, Ph.D., offer a comforting hand to hold for those who are grieving the sudden death of a loved one. Featured on ABC World News, Friends, and many other shows, this book acts as a touchstone of sanity through difficult times. I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye covers such difficult topics as the first few weeks, suicide, death of a child, children and grief, funerals and rituals, physical effects, homicide and depression. With new material covering the unique circumstances of loss, men and women's grieving styles, religion and faith, myths and misunderstandings, I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye reflects the shifting face of grief. This book has offered solace to over 80,000 people, ranging from seniors to teenagers and from the newly bereaved to those who lost a loved one years ago. Individuals engulfed by the immediate aftermath will find a special chapter covering the first few weeks. Tapping their personal histories and drawing on numerous interviews, authors Brook Noel and Pamela D. Blair, Ph.D., explore unexpected death and its role in the cycle of life. I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye provides survivors with a rock-steady anchor from which to weather the storm of pain and begin to rebuild their lives.
©2000 Brook Noel and Pamela D. Blair, Ph.D. (P)2012 Tantor
The Art of Cruelty
Summary
Today both reality and entertainment crowd our fields of vision with brutal imagery. The pervasiveness of images of torture, horror, and war has all but demolished the 20th-century hope that such imagery might shock us into a less alienated state, or aid in the creation of a just social order. What to do now? When to look, when to turn away? Genre-busting author Maggie Nelson brilliantly navigates this contemporary predicament, with an eye to the question of whether or not focusing on representations of cruelty makes us cruel. In a journey through high and low culture (Kafka to reality TV), the visual to the verbal (Paul McCarthy to Brian Evenson), and the apolitical to the political (Francis Bacon to Kara Walker), Nelson offers a model of how one might balance strong ethical convictions with an equally strong appreciation for work that tests the limits of taste, taboo, and permissibility.
©2011 Maggie Nelson (P)2017 Tantor
The Happy Teacher Habits
Summary
What do daffodils, baseball announcing, and Tina Fey have to do with teaching? As it turns out, a lot. In The Happy Teacher Habits, Michael Linsin guides you through 11 little-known habits of the happiest, most effective teachers on Earth. Based on the latest research, and drawing on experts from the worlds of business, marketing, sports, entertainment, music, and medicine, you will learn simple, actionable strategies that will eliminate your teaching stress, supercharge your ability to motivate and inspire your students, and empower you to really love your job. This is no ordinary teaching audiobook. It is a success roadmap through an educational system that is becoming increasingly harder to navigate. It will expose the falsehoods and misinformation teachers are bombarded with every day, and reveal the secrets to what really matters in creating a happy and fulfilling career.
©2016 Michael Linsin (P)2017 Michael Linsin
Bright-sided
Summary
Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-sided is a sharp-witted knockdown of America's love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism. Americans are a "positive" people - cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity. In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal 19th-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to "prosper" you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of "positive psychology" and the "science of happiness." Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes - like mortgage defaults - contributed directly to the current economic crisis. With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America's penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out "negative" thoughts. On a national level, it's brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best - poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.
©2009 Barbara Ehrenreich (P)2009 Macmillan Audio
Surviving the Death of a Sibling
Summary
When T. J. Wray lost her 43-year-old brother, her grief was deep and enduring and, she soon discovered, not fully acknowledged. Despite the longevity of adult sibling relationships, surviving siblings are often made to feel as if their grief is somehow unwarranted. After all, when an adult sibling dies, he or she often leaves behind parents, a spouse, and even children - all of whom suffer a more socially recognized type of loss. Based on the author's own experiences, as well as those of many others, Surviving the Death of a Sibling helps adults who have lost a brother or sister to realize that they are not alone in their struggle. Just as important, it teaches them to understand the unique stages of their grieving process, offering practical and prescriptive advice for dealing with each stage.
©2003 T. J. Wray; foreword copyright 2003 by Dr. Earl Thompson (P)2016 Tantor
The Wisest One in the Room
Summary
Renowned psychologists describe the most useful insights from social psychology that can help make you "wise" - wise about why people behave the way they do, and wise about how to use that knowledge in understanding and influencing the people in your life. When faced with a challenge, we often turn to those we trust for words of wisdom. Friends, relatives, and colleagues - someone with the best advice about how to boost sales, the most useful insights into raising children, or the sharpest take on an ongoing conflict. In The Wisest One in the Room, renowned social psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Lee Ross ask, Why? What do these people know? What are the foundations of their wisdom? And, as professors and researchers who specialize in the study of human behavior, they wonder: What general principles of human psychology are they drawing on to reach these conclusions? They begin by noting that wisdom, unlike intelligence, demands some insight into people - their hopes, fears, passions, and drives. It's true for the executive running a Fortune 500 company, the candidate seeking public office, the artist trying to create work that will speak to the ages, or the single parent trying to get a child through the tumultuous adolescent years. To be wise, they maintain, one must be psych-wise.
©2015 Thomas Gilovich and Lee Ross (P)2015 Recorded Books
Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus
Summary
Digital technology was supposed to usher in a new age of distributed prosperity, but so far it has been used to put industrial capitalism on steroids. It's not technology's fault but that of an extractive, growth-driven economic operating system that has reached the limits of its ability to serve anyone, rich or poor, human or corporate. Robots threaten our jobs while algorithms drain our portfolios. But there must be a better response to the lopsided returns of the digital economy than to throw rocks at the shuttle buses carrying Google employees to their jobs, as protesters did in December 2013. In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed media scholar and technology author Douglas Rushkoff calls on us to abandon the monopolist, winner-takes-all values we are unwittingly embedding into the digital economy and to embrace the more distributed possibilities of these platforms. He shows how we can optimize every aspect of the economy - from central currency and debt to corporations and labor - to create sustainable prosperity for business and people alike.
©2016 Douglas Rushkoff (P)2016 Penguin Audio
The Mismeasure of Man
Summary
When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits. Yet the idea of of biology as destiny dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined. In this edition, Stephen Jay Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book's claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, "a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social woes."
©1981 Stephen Jay Gould, Renewed 1996 by Stephen Jay Gould (P)2011 Tantor
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Summary
In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction.
©1997 David Foster Wallace (P)2012 Hachette Audio
Summary: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
Summary
In the book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling manages to achieve the unexpected and completely alter the way in which we view the world. What exactly is "factfulness?" Factfulness is a new thinking habit that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to challenges and opportunities of the future. It is the stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. Like a healthy diet and regular exercise, it can and should become part of people’s daily lives. Start to practice it, and you will make better decisions, stay alert to real dangers and possibilities, and avoid being constantly stressed about the wrong things. Learn how to fight your own personal bias, and get a more realistic perspective on the world around you. Factfulness will make you better understand the world we live in. IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a book summary of Factfulness by Hans Rosling and not the original book. It takes the average person 58.5 minutes to read 10,000 words. For the price of a coffee and a time investment of roughly two percen of your day, I believe the wisdom in this book to be well worth it's value. This book allows you to skip to the nuggets of wisdom and actionable content in a very easily absorbed, accessible way including key takeaways at the end of each chapter. This book summarizes the original in detail, to help people effectively understand, articulate, and imbibe the original work by Rosling. This book is not meant to replace the original book but to serve as a companion to it. Amplify your knowledge in a simple, efficient manner. Take action, get your copy today!
©2018 Rob Farrington (P)2018 Rob Farrington
Stay or Go
Summary
Committing to a long-term relationship is a big deal - especially if you have doubts. With a focus on common sense over emotion, world-renowned sex and relationship therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer offers straight-up advice on whether you should stick it out or cut your losses and move on. In Stay or Go, Dr. Ruth divides troubled couplings into three "flavors": Dark Toxic (run!), Rocky Road (rough patch ahead), and Merely Troubled (it's worth the effort). She knows relationships are rarely black and white - there's always the bad with the good - so here she helps you determine where the scales in your relationship are tipping. Delving into everything from communicating to financial stresses, parenting pressures to long-distance relationships, she helps you to understand your romantic expectations - reasonable and unreasonable - what you can do to save a relationship, and how and when you should say goodbye. And it all comes with the wit and wisdom that has made Dr. Ruth the one to turn to for putting your life together once and for all.
©2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. (P)2017 Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer and Pierre A. Lehu
Not for Profit
Summary
In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable and empathetic citizens. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. Drawing on the stories of troubling - and hopeful - educational developments from around the world, Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.
©2010 Princeton University Press (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Nudge
Summary
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes can make us poor and unhealthy. We often make bad decisions about education, personal finance, health care, family, and the environment. Thaler and Sunstein invite us to enter an alternative world, one that accepts that we are only human. They show that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Using colorful examples from the most important aspects of life, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful "choice architecture" can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice. Nudge offers a unique new take - from neither the left nor the right - on many hot-button issues, for individuals and governments alike. This is one of the most engaging and provocative audiobooks to come along in many years.
©2008 Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (P)2008 Gildan Media Corp
Fascinate
Summary
What triggers fascination, and how do companies, people, and ideas put those triggers to use/ Why are you captivated by some people but not by others? Why do you recall some brands yet forget the rest? In a distracted, overcrowded world, how do certain leaders, friends, and family members convince you to change your behavior? Answer: fascination, the most powerful way to influence decision-making. It's more persuasive than marketing, advertising, or any other form of communication. And it all starts with seven universal triggers: lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, power, vice, and trust. Fascination plays a role in every type of decision making, from the brands you choose to the songs you remember, from the person you marry to the employees you hire. And by activating the right triggers, you can make anything become fascinating. To explore and explain fascination's irresistible influence, Sally Hogshead looks beyond marketing, delving into behavioral and social studies, historical precedents, neurobiology and evolutionary anthropology, as well as conducting in-depth interviews and a national study of a thousand consumers, to emerge with deeply rooted patterns for why, and how, we become captivated. Hogshead reveals why the Salem witch trials began with the same fixations as those in Sex and the City. How Olympic athletes are subject to obsessions similar to those of fetishists. How a 1636 frenzy over Dutch tulip bulbs perfectly mirrors the 2006 real-estate bubble. And why a billion-dollar "Just Say No" program actually increased drug use among teens, by activating the same "forbidden fruit" syndrome as a Victoria's Secret catalog. Whether you realize it or not, you're already using the seven triggers. The question is, are you using the right triggers, in the right way, to get your desired result? This book will tell you how.
©2010 Sally Hogshead (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers
The Power of Different
Summary
A powerful and inspiring examination of the connection between the potential for great talent and conditions commonly thought to be "disabilities", revealing how the source of our struggles can be the origin of our greatest strengths. In The Power of Different, psychiatrist and best-selling author Gail Saltz examines the latest scientific discoveries, profiles famous geniuses who have been diagnosed with all manner of brain "problems" - including learning disabilities, ADD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and autism - and tells the stories of lay individuals to demonstrate how specific deficits in certain areas of the brain are directly associated with the potential for great talent. Saltz shows how the very conditions that cause people to experience difficulty at school, in social situations, at home, or at work are inextricably bound to creative, disciplinary, artistic, empathetic, and cognitive abilities. In this pioneering work, listeners will find engaging scientific research and stories from historical geniuses and everyday individuals who have not only made the most of their conditions but who have flourished because of them. They are leaning into their brain differences to: Identify areas of interest and expertise Develop workarounds Create the environments that best foster their talents Forge rewarding interpersonal relationships Enlightening and inspiring, The Power of Different proves that the unique wiring of every brain can be a source of strength and productivity and contributes to the richness of our world.
©2017 Gail Saltz (P)2017 Macmillan Audio
The Finishing School
Summary
In America's new war, the first guns in the fight are special operations forces, including the Navy SEALs, specially trained warriors who operate with precision, swiftness, and lethal force. In the constantly shifting war on terror, SEAL units - small in number, flexible, stealthy, and efficient - are more vital than ever to America's security as they take the battle to an elusive enemy around the globe. But how are Navy SEALs made? Dick Couch, author of the acclaimed Warrior Elite, follows SEALs on the ground and in the water as they undergo SEAL Tactical Training, in which they master such combat skills as precision shooting, demolitions, secure communications, parachuting, diving, and first aid. From there, the men enter operational platoons, where they subordinate their individual abilities to the mission of the group and train for special operations in specific geographic environments. Never before has a civilian writer been granted such close access to the training of America's most elite military forces. The Finishing School is essential listening for anyone who wants to know what goes into the making of America's best warriors.
©2004 SEAL productions, LTD., Foreward copyright by 2004 Robert Kerry (P)2011 Tantor