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Solitude
- In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World
- Narrated by: Kerry Shale
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
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Solitude
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Publisher's summary
Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Solitude by Michael Harris, read by Kerry Shale.
Solitude is a rapidly vanishing experience. Our society now embraces sharing like never before: time alone is being forced out of our lives by the constant pings of smartphones and prods of social media. But what if being alone still has something to offer us - something we have forgotten but that we still desperately need?
In Solitude, award-winning author Michael Harris examines why being alone matters now more than ever before. He reflects on the paradoxical feeling of isolation that emerges from being constantly connected - and on how learning the beauty of solitude can help us escape it. After all, it is when we are alone that we realise the greatest truths about ourselves. Being alone - really alone - could be the only antidote to the frenzy of our digital age.
Rich with stories about the transformative power of solitude, and drawing on the research of the world's leading neuroscientists and behavioural psychologists, Solitude offers a timely and profound exploration of how to be alone - and why it matters for us all.
Critic reviews
"I came away from this book a better human being. Michael Harris's take on existence is calm, unique, and makes one's soul feel good." (Douglas Coupland)
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By: Clive Thompson
-
Finding Your Way in a Wild New World
- Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want
- By: Martha Beck
- Narrated by: Heather Henderson
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 421
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 355
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 361
Many people feel called to help others and change the world, but they just don’t know how to fulfill their potential. They have the creativity and passion, but often get lost, not knowing how to direct their energies. Now, popular life coach Martha Beck shows how readers can find their calling in service and healing - while realizing their destiny. With a sparkling, compassionate, and often irreverent style, Beck draws from a combination of ancient wisdom and modern science to help readers consciously embrace vital skills that may be embedded in our DNA and are now made accessible again.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow! This is a fun book!
- By m on 08-25-12
By: Martha Beck
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The Life We're Looking For
- Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World
- By: Andy Crouch
- Narrated by: Andy Crouch
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
Our greatest need is to be recognized—to be seen, loved, and embedded in rich relationships with those around us. But for the last century, we’ve displaced that need with the ease of technology. We’ve dreamed of mastery without relationship (what the premodern world called magic) and abundance without dependence (what Jesus called Mammon). Yet even before a pandemic disrupted that quest, we felt threatened and strangely out of place: lonely, anxious, bored amid endless options, oddly disconnected amid infinite connections.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Way too much scripture
- By Lee Nettles on 05-11-22
By: Andy Crouch
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At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,048
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 922
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 916
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
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4 out of 5 stars
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Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
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The Geography of Genius
- A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley
- By: Eric Weiner
- Narrated by: Eric Weiner
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 488
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 425
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 423
In The Geography of Genius, acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. He explores the history of places, like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley, to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Very, very disappointing
- By Tamara Greer on 06-08-16
By: Eric Weiner
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Maphead
- Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks
- By: Ken Jennings
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 229
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 191
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Story4 out of 5 stars 191
It comes as no surprise that, as a kid, Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings slept with a bulky Hammond world atlas by his pillow every night. Maphead recounts his lifelong love affair with geography and explores why maps have always been so fascinating to him and to fellow enthusiasts everywhere.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Romp through Maps
- By Lynn on 01-27-12
By: Ken Jennings
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The Enchanted Hour
- The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction
- By: Meghan Cox Gurdon
- Narrated by: Meghan Cox Gurdon
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 242
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 213
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Story5 out of 5 stars 210
A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful, and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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advice to take to heart
- By Brian on 04-30-20
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Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 145
Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
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Walking
- One Step at a Time
- By: Erling Kagge, Becky L. Crook - translator
- Narrated by: Atli Gunnarsson
- Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
A lyrical account of an activity that is essential for our sanity, equilibrium, and well-being, from the author of Silence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A delightful and essential book
- By Yogans on 05-02-19
By: Erling Kagge, and others
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Thinking Machines
- The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Gus Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
When most of us think about artificial intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that artificial intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Mostly platitudes with no depth
- By Gary on 03-24-17
By: Luke Dormehl
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Turned On
- Science, Sex and Robots
- By: Kate Devlin
- Narrated by: Kate Devlin
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Sexual activity is central to our very existence; it shapes how we think, how we act and how we live. With advances in technology come machines that may one day think independently. What will happen to us when we form close relationships with these intelligent systems? Sex robots are here and here to stay, and more are coming. This audiobook explores how the emerging and future development of sexual companion robots might affect us and the society in which we live. It explores the social changes arising from emerging technologies and our relationships with the machines that may someday care for us and about us.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Nuanced, Smart, and Compassionate
- By Karen on 01-20-19
By: Kate Devlin
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The Fire Seekers
- The Babel Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Richard Farr
- Narrated by: Scott Merriman
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4 out of 5 stars 160
An undeciphered language in Crete. A rash of mysterious disappearances, from Bolivia to Japan. An ancient warning at the ruins of Babel. And a new spiritual leader, who claims that human history as we understand it is about to come to an end.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A fresh story!
- By AB on 02-08-15
By: Richard Farr
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The Secret History of Kindness
- Learning from How Dogs Learn
- By: Melissa Holbrook Pierson
- Narrated by: Ann Osmond
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
An intimate, surprising look at man's best friend and what the leading philosophies of dog training teach us about ourselves. Years back, Melissa Holbrook Pierson brought home a border collie named Mercy, without a clue of how to get her to behave. Stunned after hiring a trainer whose immediate rapport with Mercy seemed magical, Pierson began delving into the techniques of positive reinforcement.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Warning: praises ABA done to autistic people
- By Rosslyn on 03-09-16
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Speak
- A Novel
- By: Louisa Hall
- Narrated by: Suzan Crowley, Christopher Ashman, Adrienne Rusk, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 84
In a narrative that spans geography and time, from the Atlantic Ocean in the 17th century to a correctional institute in Texas in the near future, and told from the perspectives of five very different characters, Speak considers what it means to be human and what it means to be less than fully alive.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Like nothing else
- By Anonymous User on 06-22-17
By: Louisa Hall
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You Are Now Less Dumb
- How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself
- By: David McRaney
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,654
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,454
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,448
You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality - except we’re not. But that's okay, because our delusions keep us sane. Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of 15 more ways we fool ourselves every day. This smart and highly entertaining audiobook will be wowing listeners for years to come.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not a lot of guidance
- By A. Yoshida on 02-08-14
By: David McRaney
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Known and Strange Things
- Essays
- By: Teju Cole
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
With this collection of more than 50 pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. Minute after minute, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W. G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Book that Teaches and Shares
- By Carolyn J. on 10-08-17
By: Teju Cole
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The Shallows
- What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
- By: Nicholas Carr
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,418
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,116
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,106
Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.
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3 out of 5 stars
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It is not consistant, so it is frustrating.
- By Adam Shields on 08-03-12
By: Nicholas Carr