Attention: A Love Story

By: Casey Schwartz

Narrated by: Casey Schwartz

Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

“A rich inquiry into what it means to pay (and maintain) attention in a world increasingly permeated with distraction and interference.” (Publisher’s Weekly)

Combining expert storytelling with genuine self-scrutiny, Casey Schwartz details the decade she spend taking Adderall to help her pay attention (or so she thought) and then considers the role of attention in defining our lives as it has been understood by thinkers such as William James, David Foster Wallace, and Simone Weil. From our craving for distraction to our craving for a cure, from Silicon Valley consultants and psychedelic researchers to the findings of trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté, Schwartz takes us on an eye-opening tour of the modern landscape of attention.

Blending memoir, biography, and original reporting, Schwarz examines her attempts to preserve her authentic life and decide what is most important in it. Attention: A Love Story will resonate with listeners who want to determine their own minds, away from the siren call of their screens.

©2020 Casey Schwartz (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Casey Schwartz’s new book, out in April, is helping me reevaluate my relationship with screens at a moment when I’ve never been more dependent on them ... Closing the laptop, putting the phone in the other room, and curling up with this book has been the best part of my day."—Vanity Fair

"Attention: A Love Story had me rapt. Casey Schwartz is a formidable reporter, a rigorous researcher and a true artist of prose. She makes complicated information easily understood and elevates seemingly simple observations to a richer plain of meaning. More than that, though (and this is the toughest job in the business) she is an honest broker when it comes to telling her own story. Unflinching yet never confessional, this book took me to uncomfortable places but always in the most capable hands. It’s the finest of its kind I’ve read in ages."—Meghan Daum, author of The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars

“An extraordinary and moving treatment of that most ineffable of topics: our own attention and how we spend it. Schwartz has successfully mixed her own experiences with Tom Wolfe-like journalism to create an utterly engaging read."—Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants

Honest and informative

She includes attention research along with her personal experiences. It was a relatable story regardless if you take Adderall.

A captivating story of attention

An important thought-provoking book for anyone interested in paying attention to how and why we pay attention. Thank you, Casey for sharing your stories.

I wanted to love this story

I heard Casey Schwartz being interviewed on Gretchen Rubin's Happier podcast and I was so taken with her and the topic that I immediately purchased her book and started listening.
I was riveted from the first stories of Schwartz being offered Adderall (her love story) and then continuing to abuse it (sometimes taking it 6 or more times a day) to the point that she was having hospital visits and health repercussions. Her stories about coming off Adderall after being on it for 12 years were very powerful. I started recommending it to everyone that had a connection to ADD or ADHD or Adderall. I thought it held so much promise.
But then it really fizzled. The rest of the book, beyond her personal story is a loose set of stories that I struggled to find connections with her original topic. She writes chapter after chapter about "influential thinkers" including William James, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, David Foster Wallace, Michael Pollock, Simone Wei. She goes to psychedelic conferences and an ayahuasca retreat in South America. For a book "about attention" the book meanders too much. There are too many stories that held only loose connections to attention. Many of the "influential thinkers" she focused on committed suicide. She talks about love as both a distraction from attention and then later as the ultimate "attention". I wish she'd expounded on that a bit more.
She writes with disdain about the evil companies like "Google" that work to win our attention. I'm no more impressed with them as villains than I am with companies whose goal it is to make money. There was some research in the first 3rd about attention, as well as case studies about the efficacy of medications to help with ADD/ ADHD (spoiler alert--the subjects all think that they are much better and clearer, but they cannot perform tasks with more efficiency or speed. Nor do the people around them notice a perceptible difference.)
And lastly, Casey should have gotten a professional narrator. Although her voice has some nice qualities, she takes a downturn at the end of each phrase which felt dragging to me. (less)