Susanna
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Creating
- A Practical Guide to the Creative Process and How to Use It to Create Anything
- By: Robert Fritz
- Narrated by: Rosalind Fritz
- Length: 5 hrs
- Abridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 3
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 3
Whether you wish to create a work of art, a novel, a thriving business, nourishing relationships, or a deeply satisfying life, Robert Fritz, composer, artist, writer, and entrepreneur, reveals the guiding principles that can empower you to reach your goals.
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1 out of 5 stars
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P R O B L E M A T I C
- By Susanna on 08-08-24
- Creating
- A Practical Guide to the Creative Process and How to Use It to Create Anything
- By: Robert Fritz
- Narrated by: Rosalind Fritz
P R O B L E M A T I C
Reviewed: 08-08-24
While I agree with a lot of the book, I think the author has serious blind spots including not addressing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He hand waves away pursuits of psychological safety as self indulgent silliness. To be honest, it sounds like the experience with his son’s self esteem evaluation triggered him to dismiss the whole field of mental health. To be clear, yes, you can have insecurity and low self esteem and still create, but that doesn’t mean poor mental health is not a common impediment. Anyone with PTSD knows psychological safety is necessary to realize one’s full potential, not to mention, in the words of Mel Robbins: “Really well-meaning good people do really shitty things when they feel shitty about themselves.”
The author cited a study of Korean students who scored above the US on a math test, but ranked themselves lower on their own ability as evidence that one does not need to have high self regard to perform well, but the author fails to report that S Korea has the highest suicide rate of any developed nation. Can’t create if you’re dead. To be clear I am not arguing that we should be artificially inflating kids’ self esteem as boomer parents did, but the response is not to pretend psychological needs don’t exist. The answer is to help kids feel valued and safe regardless of their inevitable flaws and weaknesses. Pretending the weaknesses aren’t weaknesses serves to reinforce their importance in determining worth. Pretending their needs are irrelevant is just as, if not more, short sighted.
Also problematic was the overly confident tone of the book. Beliefs are presented without sufficient humility or acknowledgement that they may be wrong. Observations of correlations are presented as causal relationships. The author’s reasoning is (maddeningly) not subjected to the same pedantic scrutiny he holds plebeians to when they say the sky is blue: “BuT hOW dO yoU kNoW??!”. While I actually agreed with him on several of his points, the lack of an investigative tone coupled with the apparent inability to empathize with common psychological blocks that disrupt people’s ability to function raised flags for me. The narration also amplifies this tone of superiority in a really tiring way. And finally, I found the transition music to be clunky, but didn’t subtract stars for that.
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Remarkably Bright Creatures
- A Novel
- By: Shelby Van Pelt
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Michael Urie
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 52,083
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 47,774
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Story5 out of 5 stars 47,697
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hidden gem, incredible narration!
- By Christine T on 05-17-22
- Remarkably Bright Creatures
- A Novel
- By: Shelby Van Pelt
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland, Michael Urie
I feel a tad manipulated
Reviewed: 03-21-24
Oh a quirky book about a talking octopus, how fun! 14 hours later I’m SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY AT 2AM ON A WEEKNIGHT. If you have a crap ton of spare emotional bandwidth, I highly recommend!! This is a brilliant book. If you’re a sensitive sally and loss is a triggering subject for you, proceed with caution… I’m glad I found this book but wish I had been more intentional about how and when I consumed it. But seriously, such a wonderful story.
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Rich AF
- The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life
- By: Vivian Tu
- Narrated by: Vivian Tu
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 795
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 733
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 733
When Vivian Tu started working on Wall Street fresh from undergrad, all she knew was that she was making more money than she had ever seen in her life. But it wasn’t until she found a mentor of her own on the trading floor that she began to understand what wealthy people knew intuitively. Building on the lessons she learned on Wall Street about money and the markets, Vivian now offers her best personal finance tips and tricks to listeners of all ages and demographics, so that anyone can get rich, whether you grew up knowing the rules to the game or not.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good information
- By Joseph Gall on 12-28-23
Finance advice from someone who’s been to therapy!
Reviewed: 03-14-24
Approachable, funny, and smart. Covers all the basics, and while I knew a lot of the info already, the creative explanations were entertaining and she added a lot of good tips for money management I had never heard. She takes on necessary topics of economic inequality and marginalization as well as intergenerational money habits, and the roles mental health and shame play in holding us back financially. Performance-wise, the comedic timing was great. I listened to this while walking my dogs and couldn’t not keep myself from bursting out laughing at times.
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Snoop
- What Your Stuff Says About You
- By: Sam Gosling
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 319
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 126
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Story4 out of 5 stars 130
For the last 10 years, psychologist Sam Gosling has been studying how people project (and protect) their inner selves. By exploring our private worlds (desks, bedrooms, even our clothes and our cars), he shows not only how we showcase our personalities in unexpected - and unplanned - ways, but also how we create personality in the first place, communicate it to others, and interpret the world around us.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Buy the hard copy
- By Giraffffelover on 01-04-09
- Snoop
- What Your Stuff Says About You
- By: Sam Gosling
- Narrated by: David Drummond
Somewhat interesting, mostly cringy
Reviewed: 07-29-22
A few interesting tidbits but pretty creepy and never addresses privacy rights which is weird for a researcher. Also weird for someone with a phd in psychology to need to phone a friend after snooping in the medicine cabinet of a love interests to make sure the random prescription he discovered doesn’t mean she’s ~cRaZy~!!! I have 0 degrees in psychology but I’m still like wow where do we even begin unpacking that.
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Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives
- A Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth
- By: Deepak Chopra M.D., David Simon M.D., Vicki Abrams CCE IBCLC, and others
- Narrated by: Shishir Kurup
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 231
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4 out of 5 stars 157
A much-needed antidote to our modern, assembly-line approach to childbirth, this new book is designed as a guide for all who wish to participate in the wondrous process of bringing new life into the world. Its ideas derive from two sources: the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda, with its emphasis on body, mind, and spirit; and the latest Western scientific prenatal research.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book during pregnancy
- By PRR on 02-28-06
- Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives
- A Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth
- By: Deepak Chopra M.D., David Simon M.D., Vicki Abrams CCE IBCLC, IBCLC
- Narrated by: Shishir Kurup
Mansplain-y and unconcerned with accuracy
Reviewed: 07-05-20
This started to wear on me after the authors discourage women from using pharmaceuticals (blanket term) and instead advocate “natural healing” (aka needless suffering) for pregnancy symptoms. Ginger for morning sickness?? Anyone with more than very mild morning sickness knows how useless that is. This is advocated for AFTER telling mothers how bad stress is for the baby and also comparing career driven mothers to heroin addicts. But like really, how am I supposed to keep my stress down if I can’t exercise or carry out my normal life because I’m vomiting constantly or can’t sleep due to terrible heartburn? Modern medicine FTW in my opinion. Also, their claims are scientifically clumsy. They claim morning sickness has a “positive impact,” and imply that morning sickness itself prevents miscarriage. What?! Let’s say it together: Correlation is not causation! They also draw a dubious connection about noise pollution and low birth weight without mentioning the obvious socioeconomic status confounder ....but this book isn’t about accurate information, it’s about quasi-spiritual fluff. Unless you enjoy paternalistic, mansplain-y advice not concerned with nuance or empowering mothers to make the best decisions for themselves, just move on.
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