Natural Causes

By: Barbara Ehrenreich

Narrated by: Joyce Bean

Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Erasmus Prize winner, 2018

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

Critic reviews

"Ehrenreich's sharp and fearless take on mortality privileges joy over juice fasts and argues that, regardless of how many hours we spend in the gym, death wins out. An incisive, clear-eyed polemic, NATURAL CAUSES relaxes into the realization that the grim reaper is considerably less grim than a life spent in terror of a fate that awaits us all."—Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Evicted

"...[A] provocative, informative, hilarious, and deeply moving book. A must read."—Arlie Hochschild, New York Times bestselling author of Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

"Throughout the text, [Ehrenreich] employs the erudition that earned her degree, the social consciousness that has long informed her writing, and the compassion that endears her to her many fans...A powerful text that floods the mind with illumination—and with agonizing questions."—Kirkus (starred review)

If you are OLD, it’s a must read

Wouldn’t you prefer that your obituary says “died of natural causes” than any other specific disease that you spent the last 10 years of your life trying to be certain you did or did not have?

This book will give you a better understanding of American healthcare and then virtually in the other book that I’ve come across. Unfortunately what you learn isn’t necessarily going to make you feel better. But it might make your final 5-25 years a better life.

Barbara Ehrenreich is really mad at ... something!

Barbara Ehrenreich is such an engaging writer, provocative and insightful. But she's grown very angry at somebody or something, and it's next to impossible to figure out whom or what. She doesn't like the whole "wellness" thing, but she's a gym rat. She rails against taxes on cigarettes and seems to want us all to smoke, or something, especially if we're poor - can't really tell. She doesn't want us to extend our lives if it means we have to eat right and exercise, but it's OK to live longer if we can eat lots of chocolate cake, or something.
She points out that some people do all the right things and still get cancer or drop dead of a heart attack. Life makes no guarantees and apparently not a whole lot of sense to her. Then you die. So ... what? She still does good works and contributes in ways most of us can only hope of doing; I'm just not sure why she went on this particular rant.
I'll ignore Ms. Ehrenreich's Natural Causes for now and keep exercising as best I can, eating right as best I can, and enjoying and contributing as best I can. And I hope she cheers up.

The end's the best part. Didn't have to be so long

A tad preachy and comtemptuous throughout the front and middle of the book, but the emperical pantheo-animist ending was inspired.

vibrant

as an older person with cancer I appreciated many of the insights and perspectives in this book, especially it's positive sense of an animate, vibrant universe, one we are born out of and die back into, naturally

Just Plain Wrong.

Half way through now and I will finish out of hopeful curiosity, but I'm currently astonished at the ends she's going to to prove her point. For example, she's absolutely clear mindfulness programs (aka meditation apps) have nearly no medical efficacy. That's simply not so. She's cherry picking studies to make her arguments. It's also astonishing how she condemns all forms of elitism while she herself lays that out with remarkably aloof and cutting snark. It's disappointing since her previous work has been on point and important.

Barbara Ehrenreich is brilliant!

This book is riddled with food for thought! This text challenges the American standard of health care and modern perceptions of fitness! I have already purchased two other books that I cannot wait to start listening to! I recommend this great listen to anyone in the health care profession!

a Powerful statement

Barbara Ehrenreich's research and conclusions are startling, provoking, and significant. I listened, argued, attempted to understand and questioned, waiting to learn what she would conclude. her book has opened possibilities and leaves me with a different understanding of body, mind and nature, and the desire to follow research in this field. The narrator is excellent, the book is read with a strong tone that matches the words, and her diction is clear.

Cranky

The book makes many sound points and I wasn't at odds with the content, but I was put off by the mocking tone towards those ideas and people the author disagreed with. Part of this was the narrator who used a haughty voice throughout. I would probably pass on both the author and narrator in the future.

A book worth reading again

I feel like this is a book I would like to read every five years as with age I believe I would appreciate something new each time.

All over the place and a tad cynical

From medicalization to microphages to exercise and smoking. Mostly things the author is personally angry about. I find some points insightful. But with 1.5 hours left I decided against listening further.