
Briefly Perfectly Human
Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End
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Narrated by:
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Alua Arthur
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By:
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Alua Arthur
About this listen
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | Named a New York Times' Staff Favorite Book of 2024 and a Boston Globe Best Book of 2024
A deeply transformative memoir that reframes how we think about death and how it can help us lead better, more fulfilling and authentic lives, from America’s most visible death doula.
""A truly unique, inspiring perspective on the time we have, what we do with it, and how we let go of this world.... There is no one I'd trust more to guide me through an understanding of death, and how it informs life."" — Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Mad Honey and The Book of Two Ways
""Briefly Perfectly Human is a beautiful, raw, light-bringing experience. Alua's voice is shimmering, singular, and pulses with humor, vulnerability, insight, and refreshing candor.... Be prepared for it to grab you, hold you tight, and raise the roof on the power of human connection."" — Tembi Locke, author of From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home
For her clients and everyone who has been inspired by her humanity, Alua Arthur is a friend at the end of the world. As our country’s leading death doula, she’s spreading a transformative message: thinking about your death—whether imminent or not—will breathe wild, new potential into your life.
Warm, generous, and funny AF, Alua supports and helps manage end-of-life care on many levels. The business matters, medical directives, memorial planning; but also honoring the quiet moments, when monitors are beeping and loved ones have stepped out to get some air—or maybe not shown up at all—and her clients become deeply contemplative and want to talk. Aching, unfinished business often emerges. Alua has been present for thousands of these sacred moments—when regrets, fears, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally said aloud. When this happens, Alua focuses her attention at the pulsing center of her clients’ anguish and creates space for them, and sometimes their loved ones, to find peace.
This has had a profound effect on Alua, who was already no stranger to death’s periphery. Her family fled a murderous coup d’état in Ghana in the 1980s. She has suffered major, debilitating depressions. And her dear friend and brother-in-law died of lymphoma. Advocating for him in his final months is what led Alua to her life’s calling. She knows firsthand the power of bearing witness and telling the truth about life’s painful complexities, because they do not disappear when you look the other way. They wait for you.
Briefly Perfectly Human is a life-changing, soul-gathering debut, by a writer whose empathy, tenderness, and wisdom shimmers on the page. Alua Arthur combines intimate storytelling with a passionate appeal for loving, courageous end-of-life care—what she calls “death embrace.” Hers is a powerful testament to getting in touch with something deeper in our lives, by embracing the fact of our own mortality. “Hold that truth in your mind,” Alua says, “and wondrous things will begin to grow around it.”
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Story
In Out Cold, science writer Phil Jaekl chronicles the underappreciated story of human innovation with cold, from Ancient Egypt, where it was used to treat skin irritations, to 18th-century London, where scientists used it in their first explorations of suspended animation. Throughout history, physicians have used cold to innovate life extension, enable distant space missions, and explore consciousness.
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layers of "wows"
- By michele and david on 01-03-25
By: Phil Jaekl
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The Book of Beautiful Questions
- The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead
- By: Warren Berger
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Book of Beautiful Questions, Berger shares illuminating stories and compelling research on the power of inquiry. Drawn from the insights and expertise of psychologists, innovators, effective leaders and some of the world's foremost creative thinkers, he presents the essential questions readers need to make the best choices when it truly counts, with a particular focus in four key areas: decision-making, creativity, leadership and relationships.
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Where's the Beef
- By Tintin on 03-03-19
By: Warren Berger
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Loved and Missed
- By: Susie Boyt
- Narrated by: Polly Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts fall short. After someone dies of an overdose in Eleanor's apartment, Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her.
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Well written memoir that pulls at your heart strings.
- By Anonymous User on 01-03-25
By: Susie Boyt
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The Last Neanderthal
- A Novel
- By: Claire Cameron
- Narrated by: Lisa Stathoplos, Casey Turner
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Forty thousand years in the past, the last family of Neanderthals roams the earth. After a crushingly hard winter, their numbers are low, but Girl, the oldest daughter, is just coming of age, and her family is determined to travel to the annual meeting place and find her a mate. But the unforgiving landscape takes its toll, and Girl is left alone to care for Runt, a foundling of unknown origin. As Girl and Runt face the coming winter storms, Girl realizes she has one final chance to save her people, even if it means sacrificing part of herself.
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The story is wonderful, the narration is HORRIBLE.
- By Traci on 04-30-17
By: Claire Cameron
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Knocking on Heaven's Door
- The Path to a Better Way of Death
- By: Katy Butler
- Narrated by: Katy Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Like so many of us, award-winning writer Katy Butler always assumed her aging parents would experience healthy, active retirements before dying peacefully at home. Then her father suffered a stroke that left him incapable of easily finishing a sentence or showering without assistance. Her mother was thrust into full-time caregiving, and Katy became one of the 24 million Americans who help care for aging parents. In an effort to correct a minor and non - life threatening heart arrhythmia, doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker.
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A better way to narrate a book about death?
- By MAUREEN on 10-21-13
By: Katy Butler
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Adventures in Opting Out
- A Field Guide to Leading an Intentional Life
- By: Cait Flanders
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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We all follow our own path in life. At least, that's what we're told. In reality, many of us either do what is expected of us, or follow the invisible but well-worn paths that lead to what is culturally acceptable. For some, those paths are fine - even great. But they leave some of us feeling disconnected from ourselves and what we really want. When that discomfort finally outweighs the fear of trying something new, we're ready to opt out.
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Oh, the deep shame of being a failure at travel
- By NMwritergal on 05-27-21
By: Cait Flanders
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Everyday MAGIC
- The Joy of Not Being Everything and Still Being More than Enough
- By: Mattie James
- Narrated by: Mattie James
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Today we are all stretching ourselves more than ever to live up to life’s seemingly endless demands, so why do we still feel we are less than enough? Mattie James— mother, influencer, and CEO—believes that living a beautiful life amidst the chaos and pressures is possible. All it takes is a little everyday MAGIC.
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Grounding book
- By Bree on 12-22-22
By: Mattie James
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The Power of the Downstate
- Recharge Your Life Using Your Body's Own Restorative Systems
- By: Sara C. Mednick PhD
- Narrated by: Sara C. Mednick PhD
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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If you’re like most people, the relentless daily grind of go-go-go, do-do-do, can run down your energy and deplete your resources. While most of us find our lives full of “Upstate” moments that rev up our stress engines, it doesn’t have to be this way. World-renowned sleep researcher Sara C. Mednick, PhD, shows us how we can access the most replenishing and repairing aspects of sleep through activities and moments that happen during our day by diving into our “Downstate”.
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Game Changer
- By MES on 01-22-23
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Inner Mastery, Outer Impact
- How Your Five Core Energies Hold the Key to Success
- By: Hitendra Wadhwa PhD
- Narrated by: Hitendra Wadhwa PhD
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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It seems that our drives for Outer and Inner Success are destined to clash. But perhaps that’s only because we’ve been searching for success in the wrong places. Through extensive scientific research and masterful storytelling about exemplary figures and everyday heroes drawn from Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa’s class at Columbia Business School and client workshops at Mentora Institute—listeners arrive at timeless principles of success in life and leadership. Empowered by your Five Core Energies, you discover how to create outer impact from a place of inner mastery.
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A soulful passage
- By Steven Morris on 06-26-24
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Diary of a Death Doula
- 25 Lessons the Dying Teach Us About the Afterlife
- By: Debra Diamond PhD
- Narrated by: Kim Niemi
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In Diary of a Death Doula, psychic medium and near-death experience researcher Debra Diamond presents the story of life as a hospice "Death Doula," revealing 25 critical life lessons from those at the threshold of the afterlife, and those who have already crossed over, ultimately revealing a new way of understanding death.
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Insightful and wonderful stories
- By RobininBryan on 09-02-22
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In the Mouth of the Wolf
- A Murder, a Cover-Up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press
- By: Katherine Corcoran
- Narrated by: Gigi Saul Guerrero
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Regina Martínez was no stranger to retaliation. A journalist out of Mexico’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, Regina's stories for the magazine Proceso laid out the corruption and abuse underlying Mexican politics. She was barred from press conferences, and copies of Proceso often disappeared before they made the newsstands. In 2012, shortly after Proceso published an article on corruption and two Veracruz politicians, and the magazine went missing once again, she was bludgeoned to death in her bathroom. The message was clear: No journalist in Mexico was safe.
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fascinating story ruined by bad narration
- By soup cook on 12-27-22
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Blackout
- Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
- By: Sarah Hepola
- Narrated by: Sarah Hepola
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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A memoir of unblinking honesty and poignant, laugh-out-loud humor, Blackout is the story of a woman stumbling into a new kind of adventure - the sober life she never wanted. For Sarah Hepola, alcohol was "the gasoline of all adventure". She spent her evenings at cocktail parties and dark bars where she proudly stayed till last call. But there was a price. Publicly, she covered her shame with self-deprecating jokes, and her career flourished, but as the blackouts accumulated, she could no longer avoid a sinking truth.
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Blackout: A Knockout
- By W Perry Hall on 07-17-15
By: Sarah Hepola
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With the End in Mind
- Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial
- By: Kathryn Mannix
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Carling, Kathryn Mannix
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar and gentle process, death has come to be something from which we shy away, preferring to fight it desperately than to accept its inevitability. Palliative care has a long tradition in Britain, where Dr. Kathryn Mannix has practiced it for 30 years. In this book, she shares beautifully crafted stories from a lifetime of caring for the dying.
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Wonderful book!
- By Randall Roth on 01-29-18
By: Kathryn Mannix
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The Formula
- Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children
- By: Ronald F. Ferguson, Tatsha Robertson
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Formula: Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children, Harvard economist Ronald Ferguson, named in a New York Times profile as the foremost expert on the US educational "achievement gap," along with award-winning journalist Tatsha Robertson, reveal an intriguing blueprint for helping children from all types of backgrounds become successful adults.
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would recommend
- By Marcia on 02-25-20
By: Ronald F. Ferguson, and others
What listeners say about Briefly Perfectly Human
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- jessica m.
- 04-19-24
Alua’s words found their way into my heart, and grounded me in my body.
I laughed, I cried. I felt drawn towards introspection while also expanding my awareness of the universe, and all of it’s beauty. This book settled my agitation about “what’s next?” When I needed it the most.
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- MzNix
- 04-30-24
This longtime follower is grateful!
Alua Arthur shares some of the most powerful opportunities in life and death; bearing witness, holding vigil, stewardship of words. As someone who danced with cancer, I think about my death often. This book was a balm.
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- Dawn lemon
- 05-03-24
This book feels like a hug!
First of all I want to say, Amazing book! I love the book so much. I am a nurse of 27 years caring for elderly which are closer to death than most of us, this book really touched my heart. I would recommend to everyone as a caregiver and as a woman I really could relate to her feelings personally and professionally. Thank you, thank you, this book help heal parts of my heart ❤️
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Highly recommend
This is an amazing book, recommend adding it to your must read list. Simple and meaningful reading.
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- DORIS DARDANNE1
- 06-18-24
Raw, authentic, human
I simply loved this book. Read by the Author herself makes it more authentic. It’s one of the books that I will definitely re-listen soon.
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- IT IS WHAT IT IS
- 06-12-24
Perfect is right
as I sit with my dying mom, I am listening to this incredible Lady tell us this is the way to go out. she is right -
get this one for sure and read
then
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- Diane R. Marshall
- 05-23-24
A magnificent journey
This book is beautifully written, poetic, thought-provoking, and informative. You will know after the first page that
Alua Arthur is a gifted writer.
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- Cindy W. Mitchell
- 05-24-24
Authenticity
A life lived with the respect for dying as well as living your life with gusto
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- Nicole Hutto
- 05-06-24
the compassion and empathy in her voice as she read her book
this book was amazing. as a hospice nurse I was able to take out so many nuggets to use. the way she phrased some of those difficult conversations I loved and plan to put in to practice.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Timothy Johnson
- 04-26-24
A gift to be human!
Alua! Thank you! Thank you! You shared so much emotion and depth in your journey into death care and how you got there! I felt as if I had been along side you during each moment of your journey! What a powerful account of your life and how you hope your death will look! It has allowed myself to think about my own end. I appreciate you! What a gift it truly is to be human and being able to share in your story!
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