The Gratitude Diaries

How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life

By: Janice Kaplan

Narrated by: Janice Kaplan

Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's Summary

In this inspiring memoir backed by pioneering research, Janice Kaplan spends a year living gratefully and gains a fresh outlook that transforms her marriage, family life, work, health, and everyday experience.

On New Year's Eve, journalist and former Parade editor-in-chief Janice Kaplan makes a promise to be grateful and look on the bright side of whatever happens. She realizes that how she feels over the next months will have less to do with the events that occur than her own attitude and perspective. Getting advice at every turn from psychologists, academics, doctors, and philosophers, she brings listeners on a smart and witty journey to discover the value of appreciating what you have.

Relying on both amusing personal experiences and extensive research, Kaplan explores how gratitude can transform every aspect of life, including marriage and friendship, money and ambition, and health and fitness. She learns how appreciating your spouse changes the neurons of your brain and why saying thanks helps CEOs succeed. Through extensive interviews with experts and lively conversations with real people, including celebrities like Matt Damon, Daniel Craig, and Jerry Seinfeld, Kaplan discovers the role of gratitude in everything from our sense of fulfillment to our children's happiness.

With warmth, humor, and appealing insight, Janice's journey will empower listeners to think positively and start living their own best years ever.

©2015 Janice Kaplan (P)2015 Penguin Audio

Disappointing

An unfortunately superficial treatment of a profound topic. Her talk of her vacation home, trips to Europe, and large bank accounts made it unrelatable. I would have liked a little more grit and acknowledgement that it isn't always so easy to look on the bright side.

Disappointing and Self-Indulgent

I was excited for this book because I keep a gratitude journal and believe in its benefits. The pattern of the writing - sentence, sentence, corny one liner "joke," sentence, sentence, corny one liner "joke" - grew extremely tiresome.

The book was self-indulgent at times and just distasteful at others (mentioning a woman who tragically lost her 3 young children and then the author segueing into losing her job was in offensive - especially since she and her husband are both clearly very wealthy and she had living children).

When the author got into gratitude and her struggle to lose 10 pounds I almost quit the book (she didn't even interview a registered dietitian nutritionist as an expert on the topic).

There were a few gems but overall I was just grateful the book was over and could start a new one.

Good information, painfully self important.

I think this book gets the basic gyst of gratitude yet lacks the depth of understanding science is brining into light.

A thick veneer of self important, hoity toityness covers this book. Stop talking about how fancy you eat out all the time, and how many important people you know! It doesn't drive your point farther. If anything it cheapens the delivery.

Again, good info, painful to listen to. Simple, contrived writing.

Also... Heartmath, the "experimental" device with the red and freen indic
ator lights is the EmWave by Heartmath in Boulder Creek. You couldn't have mentioned this?

Apply her strategy and you will see and feel a difference

Apply her strategy and you will see and feel a difference. Write daily in your own gratitude. Relate and organize

Great book of ideas and perspectives on the power

Great book of ideas and perspectives about the power, beauty and elasting effect of grattitude.

I’m pretty positive but …

I’m pretty positive but WOW! I like that that it covered all areas of our lives. She used both scientific and anecdotal evidence to show the power of gratitude

Entertaining and Enlightening

I found her writing to be full of real life experiences that I could relate to and learn from.

Greatful for this book!!!

I loved listening to this so much. I would recommend this book to all my family and friends. I have started my own Gratitude Diary and have started to write down all that I'm grateful for.

excellent

light-hearted read with a strong lead by example. Great narration by the author. Made me more grateful, and aware of gratitude. Thanks for sharing (:

Boring read

Tried it twice and just can’t get inspired by this book. Delivery very monotonous and content very basic