The Social Animal

The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement

By: David Brooks

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

With unequaled insight and brio, David Brooks, the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bobos in Paradise, has long explored and explained the way we live. Now, with the intellectual curiosity and emotional wisdom that make his columns among the most read in the nation, Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life.This is the story of how success happens. It is told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica—how they grow, push forward, are pulled back, fail, and succeed. Distilling a vast array of information into these two vividly realized characters, Brooks illustrates a fundamental new understanding of human nature. A scientific revolution has occurred—we have learned more about the human brain in the last thirty years than we had in the previous three thousand. The unconscious mind, it turns out, is most of the mind—not a dark, vestigial place but a creative and enchanted one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm of emotions, intuitions, biases, longings, genetic predispositions, personality traits, and social norms: the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made. The natural habitat of The Social Animal. Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to school; from the “odyssey years” that have come to define young adulthood to the high walls of poverty; from the nature of attachment, love, and commitment, to the nature of effective leadership. He reveals the deeply social aspect of our very minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. Along the way, he demolishes conventional definitions of success while looking toward a culture based on trust and humility.The Social Animal is a moving and nuanced intellectual adventure, a story of achievement and a defense of progress. Impossible to put down, it is an essential book for our time, one that will have broad social impact and will change the way we see ourselves and the world.

©2011 David Brooks (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"An uncommonly brilliant blend of sociology, intellect and allegory." (Kirkus)

“Authoritative, impressively learned, and vast in scope.” (Newsweek)

“As in [Bobos in Paradise] he shows genius in sketching archetypes and coining phrases. . . . In The Social Animal Mr. Brooks surveys a stunning amount of research and cleverly connects it to everyday experience.” (The Wall Street Journal)

So Insightful I Was Moved To Tears

Never in my adult life have I listened (or read) a book that so beautifully blended prose and allegory with hard science and self-help. The synthesis is a unified theory of morality, motivation, love, character, politics, and meaning. I am not normally a person who can easily be moved to tears by a book, much less one that is really centered on discussions of Maslow's hierarchy of needs or countless studies of firing amygdala's.

Brooks has long been a favorite NYT Columnist, sharing a coherent and consistent world view without being either doctrinaire or an us-versus-them blowhard like Limbaugh on the right or Krugman on the left. This book follows two fictional characters, Harold and Erica, from birth, childhood, careers, marriage, retirement, and death, revealing how social connection (or lack thereof) drives most humanistic endeavors. This insight would not be so groundbreaking, but revealing the how and the why through the prism of the beautiful Harold and Erica love story is where Brooks excels.

As if all of this were not enough, the humor propels this book from being just "Really Good" to being "One for the Ages". A sampling:

"He’s just back from China and stopping by for a corporate board meeting on his way to a five-hundred-mile bike-a-thon to support the fight against lactose intolerance. He is asexually handsome, with a little less body fat than Michelangelo’s David. As he crosses his legs, you observe that they are immeasurably long and slender. He doesn’t really have thighs. Each leg is just one elegant calf on top of another. His voice is so calm and measured that he makes Barack Obama sound like Sam Kinison. He met his wife at the Clinton Global Initiative, where they happened to be wearing the same Doctors Without Borders support bracelets"


Buy this book! You will be immeasurably enriched.

A Sleep Inducing Awakening to Human Behavior

Where does The Social Animal rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Some excellent material gathering on the essential truths about people and human behavior. Possibly overlooked, but one element of human behavior is that listening commuters tend to nod off to a soporific voice. I can only hope all the good stuff in the book went straight to my unconscious while waiting for the lights to turn green.

David Brooks" "The Social Animal"

What did you love best about The Social Animal?

After spending too much time with crappy modern fiction of recent, the kind of book that leaves your desire for insight hanging out the window like a dog’s tongue on a hot day, I turned to David Brooks’ “The Social Animal.” Brooks follows a fictional couple from birth through life’s completed journey turning to an encyclopedic reservoir of resources to explain and enlighten the how and why we get there. The breadth of his source material is stunning from ancient texts of philosophy and theology to the most modern resources of neuroimaging and brain study. It leaves me wondering how he ever completes his day job. This is a book where every sentence is worth it. Not only does he write with the crisp precision of a surgeon, but he can step on the gas and make you laugh, winch, weep, wonder and pause as those tiny hammers in your head go clink, clink, clink with a new vision or the profound recognition that what you barely knew you now know and understand why. I hate books with promise but no payoff. This book has promise and payoff. I will not spoil this but let me end with this: in a book that is primarily discoursive and intellectual, when the journey ended, tears were streaming down my face. The final line is the point of the spear. Don’t go there first. Let him lead you there so the puncture is that much sweeter. Highly recommended. I may just start over and hear it again.

Have you listened to any of Arthur Morey’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes and he is outstanding.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Fascinating

A fascinating look at scientific research told through a fictional story. I plan to return to this book for a second listen in the coming months.

Not what I was expecting

What did you like best about The Social Animal? What did you like least?

The book tells the story of a couple throughout their lives, from birth to death. I liked being able to follow their lives throughout the book. But based on the title and description of the book, I thought this would be more of a book on dealing with social situations and how people interact with each other. In reality its a book of how two people with different backgrounds navigated through life and it appeared they were only marginally happy with how life turned out. This book is full of interesting tidbits, facts and figures about how people think, but not much is practical application. To me, this was a book of interesting trivia. I liked it overall, but wish I hadn't spent over 16 hours listening to it for what I was able to get out of it. This is the reason for the 3 stars.

Will Turn Your World Upside Down

David Brooks in The Social Animal provides the reader with a basic understanding of evolutionary psychology and its interpretation of how we develop character, are affected by our emotions, and how we interact with one another. Throughout the book, he applies insights from neuroscience to our (evolutionary) psychological tendencies. From my perspective, the book’s most valuable chapters come near the end when Brooks applies what he has presented to moral development and ethical reasoning. There is a lot here to admire and a lot to trouble anyone interested in actual and prospective human behavior. Shifting from Freudian psychology to a Darwinian/evolutionary psychology will disturb me for days. Applying that thinking to the human condition and personal living is personally revolutionary. The world will change again as this perspective takes hold. The reading of Author Morey is excellent.

Amazing

Simply amazing book! I have always waited for someone to describe life this way! It's the little details in your life that count more!

A must read!

This is a book that forces you to search your soul for your meaning in life. Based on well researched scientific studies David Brooks opens your eyes to the complexities of ourselves.

Life is about family!

"The Social Animal" inspired a state of selfs awareness and an internal drive to improve my family relationships! -Ricky O.

I loved this book

Where does The Social Animal rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

VERY high. It was a compelling combination of social behaviour explanation in the format of a novel. I found it both informative and entertaining and did not want it to end.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I burst out lauging in many occasions, smiled in even more and must say cried also.

Any additional comments?

Strongly recommended if you are interested in what makes human's tick.