Bright-sided
How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
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Narrated by:
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Kate Reading
About this listen
Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-sided is a sharp-witted knockdown of America's love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism
Americans are a "positive" people—cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity.
In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to "prosper" you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of "positive psychology" and the "science of happiness." Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes—like mortgage defaults—contributed directly to the current economic crisis.
With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America's penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out "negative" thoughts. On a national level, it's brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best—poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.
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Liberal essayist Barbara Ehrenreich has been cranking out a fresh book on some aspect of the follies and failings in American social justice every few years since 1969. Twenty books later, she brings us this gem addressing the perils of positive thinking. Named a "Voice of the Century" by AudioFile magazine, Kate Reading has given voice to well over a hundred books and is one of Audible's featured narrators. This is Reading's first time at bat with Ehrenreich's work, and predictably, she knocks it out of the park.
The majority of Ehrenreich's books tend to focus on a large institution or systemic national problem, such as health care or concerns of the middle class. Bright-sided tackles the increasingly fashionable idea that "the power of positive thinking" can guide Americans through any type of crisis. Unlike some of her previous work, this book aligns all of Ehrenreich's interests and brings each facet of her expertise to bear on one very nebulous and fluffy opponent. Across this shady and shifting psychological battlefield, Reading keeps up every step of the way. Her tone is terrifically authoritative and methodical in the opening chapters where Ehrenreich uses her degree in microbiology to knock down the pseudoscientific studies and rationales for promoting optimism one by one. Reading softens the critical edge without getting overly syrupy when Ehrenreich moves into her more personal anecdotes about struggling to defeat breast cancer without the aid of cheerfulness.
Where both author and narrator really shine is the second half of the book, which attacks the three-headed zombie of academic, religious, and economic blindness created by this new culture of "optimism at all costs". Reading's witty account of Ehrenreich's reluctant participation in a set of terrifyingly solipsistic corporate motivation seminars is laugh-out-loud funny. Her sly report of the author's attempt to interview one of the most renowned psychologists in the positive thinking industry and her indignant take on the author's visitation to an evangelical mega-church will leave your blood boiling. After all the piling up of mortgage defaults and other assorted hardships that stem from too much happy talk and not enough material consideration, Ehrenreich's call to vigilant realism is as inevitable as it is refreshing. Kate Reading's crafty rendering of Ehrenreich's latest myth-busting book is sure to lift the spirits of all who feel guilty for finding little to smile about in these uncertain times. Megan Volpert
Critic reviews
“Kate Reading handles her latest refreshingly askance look at like in America with a nuanced, meticulous narration that ensures listeners will miss none of Ehrenreich's acerbic humor or commonsense look at our penchant for delusion...Reading's skillful performance makes it all a positive pleasure to take in.” —AudioFile, Earphones Award Winner
“Gleefully pops the positive-thinking bubble. . . Amazingly, she'll make you laugh, albeit ruefully, as she presents how society's relentless focus on being upbeat has eroded our ability to ask--and heed--the kind of uncomfortable questions that could have fended off economic disaster.” —FastCompany.com
“Ehrenreich's examination of the history of positive thinking is a tour de force of well-tempered snark, culminating in a persuasive indictment of the bright-siders as the culprits in our current financial mess.” —The Washington Post
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- By: John Tierney, Roy F. Baumeister
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Why are we devastated by a word of criticism even when it’s mixed with lavish praise? Because our brains are wired to focus on the bad. This negativity effect explains things great and small: why countries blunder into disastrous wars, why couples divorce, why people flub job interviews, how schools fail students, why football coaches stupidly punt on fourth down. All day long, the power of bad governs people’s moods, drives marketing campaigns, and dominates news and politics.
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Another outstanding social psychology book!
- By Wayne on 01-06-20
By: John Tierney, and others
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A Bigger Prize
- How We Can Do Better Than the Competition
- By: Margaret Heffernan
- Narrated by: Margaret Heffernan
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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From the cranberry bogs of Massachusetts to the classrooms of Singapore and Finland, from tiny start-ups to global engineering firms and beloved American organizations like Ocean Spray, Eileen Fisher, Gore, and Boston Scientific, Heffernan discovers ways of living and working that foster creativity, spark innovation, reinforce our social fabric, and feel so much better than winning.
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Margaret Heffernan is brilliant!
- By Eric Willingham on 06-09-16
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Originals
- How Non-Conformists Move the World
- By: Adam Grant, Sheryl Sandberg - foreword
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Susan Denaker
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?
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Interesting, but not science
- By Lloyd Fassett on 03-14-16
By: Adam Grant, and others
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Bait and Switch
- The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
- By: Barbara Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America's ailing middle class what she did for the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the world of the white-collar unemployed.
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A terrible book - princess Barbara goes undercover
- By Peter on 11-07-05
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Grit to Great
- How Perseverance, Passion, and Pluck Take You from Ordinary to Extraordinary
- By: Linda Kaplan Thaler, Robin Koval
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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It is not native intelligence or natural talent that makes people excel, say Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval - it's old-fashioned sweat equity and hard work. And that claim is backed up by new research from MacArthur Fellowship Award winner and University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth, among others. Not everyone is blessed with exceptional intelligence, or wins the gene lottery. But the good news is that you can excel beyond your wildest dreams in your career and your personal life - success is within your grasp - through the right attitude and determination.
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Expected more
- By Shaun Guerrero on 12-28-15
By: Linda Kaplan Thaler, and others
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Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks
- One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity
- By: August Turak
- Narrated by: August Turak
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In addition to his work as an entrepreneur, corporate executive, and consultant, for the last 16 years August Turak worked alongside the Trappist monks of Mepkin Abbey, watching firsthand as they undertook new enterprises and sustained an incredibly successful business practice. Service and selflessness are at the heart of this 1,500-year-old monastic tradition’s remarkable business success, an ancient though immensely relevant economic model that preserves what is positive and productive about capitalism while transcending its ethical limitations and internal contradictions.
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Succeed in Business without Losing your Soul
- By Susie on 07-10-14
By: August Turak
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Thoughts Are Things
- Turning Your Idea Into Realities, The Think and Grow Rich® series
- By: Bob Proctor, Greg S. Reid
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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You've learned the principles in Napoleon Hill's classic Think and Grow Rich - now give them STICKABILITY! The path to personal and professional success is not a one-way street. Most people encounter setbacks and obstacles that threaten to derail them from their chosen route. The most successful people, however, adhere to their principles and goals, capitalizing on hidden opportunities, even in the face of what many would consider unconquerable obstacles. To coin a new word - these people have STICKABILITY!
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This book has changed my life.
- By Tammy Ward on 07-06-19
By: Bob Proctor, and others
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Success and Luck
- Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy
- By: Robert H. Frank
- Narrated by: Robert H. Frank
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine.
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Not what is advertised
- By Andre on 04-18-17
By: Robert H. Frank
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Lead with Humility
- 12 Leadership Lessons from Pope Francis
- By: Jeffrey A. Krames
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When Fortune announced its list of the World’s Greatest Leaders, the top spot was awarded - not to a captain of industry - but to the new pontiff. In the year since his election, Pope Francis earned that accolade - and more. He has achieved the remarkable: breathed life into an aging institution, reinvigorated a global base, and created real hope for the future.How did a man who spent his life laboring in slums far from the Vatican manage to do this and so quickly?
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Disjointed.
- By Richard K. on 03-10-17
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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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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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Not a lot of guidance
- By A. Yoshida on 02-08-14
By: David McRaney
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Crazy Like Us
- The Globalization of the American Psyche
- By: Ethan Watters
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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America has been the world leader in generating new mental health treatments and modern theories of the human psyche. We export our psychopharmaceuticals packaged with the certainty that our biomedical knowledge will relieve the suffering and stigma of mental illness. We categorize disorders, thereby defining mental illness and health, and then parade these seemingly scientific certainties in front of the world.
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He is a reporter...
- By Briana on 05-07-18
By: Ethan Watters
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Manufacturing Depression
- The Secret History of a Modern Disease
- By: Gary Greenberg
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Am I happy enough? This has been a pivotal question since America's inception. "Am I not happy enough because I am depressed?" is a more recent version. Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg shows how depression has been manufactured---not as an illness but as an idea about our suffering, its source, and its relief. He challenges us to look at depression in a new way.
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Modern Gonzo Tour de Force
- By S. Frank on 11-12-11
By: Gary Greenberg
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Influencer, Second Edition
- The New Science of Leading Change
- By: Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, and others
- Narrated by: Joseph Grenny
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling authors who taught the world how to have Crucial Conversations comes the new edition of Influencer, a thought-provoking book that combines the remarkable insights of behavioral scientists and business leaders with the astonishing stories of high-powered influencers from all walks of life. You'll be taught each and every step of the influence process - including robust strategies for making change inevitable in your personal life, your business, and your world.
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Very enlightening
- By Bryan Rael on 08-23-24
By: Joseph Grenny, and others
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Not what I expect from this author
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Oddly leaves out the largest phenomenon of celebration in N. America
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Nickel and Dimed
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This engrossing piece of undercover reportage has been a fixture on the New York Times best seller list since its publication. With nearly a million copies in print, Nickel and Dimed is a modern classic that deftly portrays the plight of America's working-class poor.
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Good concept, but poor execution.
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Living with a Wild God
- A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth About Everything
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In middle age, Ehrenreich came across the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence and set out to reconstruct that quest, which had taken her to the study of science and through a cataclysmic series of uncanny - or as she later learned to call them, "mystical" - experiences. A staunch atheist and rationalist, she is profoundly shaken by the implications of her life-long search. Certain to be a classic, Living with a Wild God combines intellectual rigor with a frank account of the inexplicable, in Ehrenreich's singular voice, to produce a true literary achievement.
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Ehrenreich does not believe in a wild god.
- By Thomas on 06-10-14
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Witches, Midwives & Nurses, 2nd Ed
- A History of Women Healers
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Witches, Midwives, and Nurses examines how women-led healing was delegitimized to make way for patriarchy, capitalism, and the emerging medical industry.
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Informative of the lineage of Midwives
- By Heidi on 07-26-24
By: Barbara Ehrenreich, and others
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Fear of Falling
- The Inner Life of the Middle Class
- By: Barbara Ehrenreich
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One of Barbara Ehrenreich's most classic and prophetic works, Fear of Falling closely examines the insecurities of the American middle class in an attempt to explain its turn to the right during the last two decades of the 20th century. Weaving finely-tuned expert analysis with her trademark voice, Ehrenreich traces the myths about the middle class to their roots, determines what led to the shrinking of what was once a healthy percentage of the population, and how, in its ambition and anxiety, that population has retreated from responsible leadership.
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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.
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Not what I expect from this author
- By Joanie C on 04-20-18
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Dancing in the Streets
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From best-selling social commentator and cultural historian Barbara Ehrenreich comes this fascinating exploration of one of humanity's oldest traditions: the celebration of communal joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture, showing that such mass festivities have been indigenous to the West since the ancient Greeks.
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Oddly leaves out the largest phenomenon of celebration in N. America
- By Emma Goldman on 04-20-19
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Nickel and Dimed
- On (Not) Getting By in America
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Good concept, but poor execution.
- By Marco Forcone on 08-24-04
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Living with a Wild God
- A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth About Everything
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In middle age, Ehrenreich came across the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence and set out to reconstruct that quest, which had taken her to the study of science and through a cataclysmic series of uncanny - or as she later learned to call them, "mystical" - experiences. A staunch atheist and rationalist, she is profoundly shaken by the implications of her life-long search. Certain to be a classic, Living with a Wild God combines intellectual rigor with a frank account of the inexplicable, in Ehrenreich's singular voice, to produce a true literary achievement.
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Ehrenreich does not believe in a wild god.
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Witches, Midwives & Nurses, 2nd Ed
- A History of Women Healers
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Witches, Midwives, and Nurses examines how women-led healing was delegitimized to make way for patriarchy, capitalism, and the emerging medical industry.
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Informative of the lineage of Midwives
- By Heidi on 07-26-24
By: Barbara Ehrenreich, and others
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Fear of Falling
- The Inner Life of the Middle Class
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This Land Is Their Land
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Here they are, the 2000s, and Barbara Ehrenreich's antidotes are as sardonic as they are spot-on: pet insurance for your kids; Salvation Army fashions for those who can no longer afford Wal-Mart; and boundless rage against those who have given us a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.
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I love the author, but...
- By Sara on 10-20-08
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Toxic Positivity
- Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy
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- Narrated by: Whitney Goodman LMFT
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Every day, we’re bombarded with pressure to be positive. From “good vibes only” and “life is good” memes, to endless advice, to “look on the bright side,” we’re constantly told that the key to happiness is silencing negativity wherever it crops up, in ourselves and in others. Even when faced with illness, loss, breakups, and other challenges, there’s little space for talking about our real feelings—and processing them so that we can feel better and move forward.
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Great book but painful delivery
- By Melissa on 03-13-22
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Do Nothing
- How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving
- By: Celeste Headlee
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In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost - we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile.
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I almost never leave reviews
- By keli wolfe on 03-03-22
By: Celeste Headlee
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Had I Known
- Collected Essays
- By: Barbara Ehrenreich
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- Unabridged
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A self-proclaimed "myth buster by trade," Barbara Ehrenreich has covered an extensive range of topics as a journalist and political activist, and is unafraid to dive into intellectual waters that others deem too murky. Now, Had I Known gathers the articles and excerpts from a long-ranging career that most highlight Ehrenreich's brilliance, social consciousness, and wry wit.
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Brilliant, of course
- By W. Carillion on 10-13-24
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The Antidote
- Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking
- By: Oliver Burkeman
- Narrated by: Oliver Burkeman
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The Antidote is a series of journeys among people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. What they have in common is a hunch about human psychology: that it’s our constant effort to eliminate the negative that causes us to feel so anxious, insecure, and unhappy. And that there is an alternative "negative path" to happiness and success that involves embracing the things we spend our lives trying to avoid.
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The Antidote explores the negative path.
- By Bonny on 05-15-14
By: Oliver Burkeman
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Bait and Switch
- The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
- By: Barbara Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America's ailing middle class what she did for the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the world of the white-collar unemployed.
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A terrible book - princess Barbara goes undercover
- By Peter on 11-07-05
What listeners say about Bright-sided
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Alyssa B. Goss
- 10-22-09
Balanced
I was skeptical when I heard about this book since I know first hand what stress can do to the body. However, this book isn't an argument for pessimism so much as it's a call to action in the fight against the pervasive passivity that's been seeping into our culture. The "positive attitude" rhetoric that I'm constantly confronted with at school and work has been driving me nuts for years, and now hearing someone point out all its flaws provided me with a feeling of relief and (go figure) hope.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Winston D. Jen
- 12-24-12
Norman Peale was a Charlatan; Thanks You Barbara!!
Barbara's fractally correct in every possible way here; one simply *cannot* choose to be happy. We would all be better off if we dismissed this blatant lie touted by Norman Vincent Peale. In her introduction, she addresses and clarifies the difference between hope (a natural, involuntary emotion we feel when things appear to be going our way, or, at the very least, appear to be improving) and optimism (a state of mind that can be cultivated through sufficient practice and expensive positivity seminars and/or prosperity gospel sermons). This is crucial - the positive charlatans of recent decades advocate forced optimism, not realistic, spontaneous, justified hope. This, obviously, would explain why on most happiness metrics, despite having a reputation has a "positive" country, the US scores deplorably. With an obscenely high poverty rate and prison population, this is hardly news to anyone living outside a cave. And, as Barbara astutely notes, positivity only works when it is not forced. Trying to impose happiness on oneself only leads to bitterness and a desire to rush home and switch off the Optimism Switch in one's head, for the culture of the US has been so polluted by positive thinking that many feel the only place they can be themselves (and realistic and/or pessimistic) is outside the gaze of others.
She shows how right-wing demagogues often cite pithy positive thinking platitudes as an attempt to blame those in perpetual poverty. And as we all know, those who fail to "will" the cancer away are never the subject of happy positive thinking books. And perhaps worst of all, positive thinking removes all motivation to improve societies and living conditions. External conditions are almost always dismissed by these gurus and charlatans.
Reading Smile or Die, I was reminded of a horribly callous sermon in Japan, where the pastor extolled the benefits of frugality and unequivocally spoke out against materialism. For his example du jour, he cited victims of the Haiti earthquake and how "happy" they were. Really? Is that the best they can do? If I lost everything and everyone I held dear in an earthquake, smiling might be the only way I could cope. It most certainly would not be a sign of happiness or satisfaction after going through such a grueling natural disaster.
Positive thinking has a horrible dark side that would lead to the instant dismissal of any doctor who prescribed positivity in lieu of radiotherapy for cancer. As anyone with any experience with the bile that Pollyannas spew forth on a daily basis, one of their implied mantras is "if you fail, it's your own fault." Spare me, please. On a personal note, I particularly enjoyed Barbara's mention of the Despair website, built around the idea of counter-optimism with its Demotivational line of posters, mugs, plaques, etc.
The author's research is impeccable. She unearths the deadly, fatalistic roots of positive thinking that came from the Calvinist branch of Christianity. Every word is enlightening and well worth reading.
Barbara ends this book with a clarion call to reason, citing some of the most cruel, heartless and ignorant consequences of positive thinking, including that of Rhonda Byrne, who claimed that tsunamis could only happen to those who are "on the same frequency as the event."
Everyone who has been deceived by positivity listen to read this book.
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- LBo28210
- 04-18-19
Different kinds of positive thinking
Glad when Barbara finally got to talking solution at the end: balanced realism. The sneering voice of the writing (and reading) seemed really bitter until then.
I think maybe she and some positive thinkers miss the importance of a stepping stone between attitude and results. ACTION. It isn't enough to plan. To paraphrase Thoreau you must also proceed in the direction of your dreams.
Choosing to wallow seems a certain downward spiral into unproductivity resulting in feeling worthless and so forth.
But good points about skeptical pessimism keeping toddlers alive.
I am grateful to the writer for helping me see a connection between some excessive greed, and megachurches and positive thinking. But I think most spiritual and psychological users of positive thinking, vs purely business users, see that everyone has the power, we are interconnected and not better than others. Some emphasize service and love more than others.
It does help me understand the baffling perspective some seem to have of blaming the poor rather than empathizing. I am glad I stuck with this challenging book.
I have been a negative harbinger in the face of economic and health "woes" and i have been the pollyanna. Preaching embracing change. I found the latter more effective to productivity and group happiness.
Asking what would Barbara have us do instead? Maybe organize and act rather than accept as uncontrollable. That is food for thought.
I loved her prior sociological books eg nickled and dimed.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joshua Coleman
- 06-28-18
Such an applicable and important book!!
I can't wait to read and listen more by this author! (More words required. Ugh!)
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- Susan
- 12-14-10
Finally an Answer to "The Secret"
At last! Someone SANE! Someone who can see the downside to being Up and Thinking Positive all the time.
I had heard Barbara's take on the "cancer survivor" issue on Book TV on CSPAN a few years ago. In the book, she goes into more detail. I agree and won't buy anything "pink" as a result.
The Secret and all the other Think Positive, Use the Universe and Magnetism to Attract, and the Name It Claim It people out there are really messing up the minds of a generation or two. It is insidious and has crept into almost every aspect of American life. It is frightening.
If you are tired of the Blame The Victim mentality of this nation, here is a book that at least explains the source of that way of thinking. Because, you see, if anything bad happens to you, it is because YOU attracted it to yourself by considering it, by not thinking positively enough, or by allowing it to happen to yourself -- according to the prevailing thought. Lost your job? Lost your home to foreclosure? Got sick? Yep, Positive Thinking will tell you it is all your own fault. Barbara Ehrenreich tells you that is all bunk! And I believe her.
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17 people found this helpful
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- D
- 02-05-12
For the Positivity Deficit
If you’ve ever read an economic forecast in the newspaper and thought it sounded suspiciously like a TV weatherman, "This is up while this is down but, all in all, the outlook is fair to good", then this book is for you.
It’s an excellent study in hegemony for anyone haunted (and alienated) by the feeling that the world they live in is a little less candy-coated than the world they’re told they live in (via media). Furthermore, Ehnrenreich’s amused but cynical take on the subject, and the humor she finds in it, is well served by Reading’s perky narration. One of my favorite finds on Audible so far.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Alan
- 02-20-10
This book changed my life
Every now and then a book will actually change how I see the world, and this book is one of those. Wonderfully written and beautifully read, it points out a way of thinking that's so ubiquitous it's hard to see. And the author doesn't hammer you with arguments--she mainly just gives the facts and lets you draw the conclusions yourself.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Deirdre Fagan
- 04-19-24
Positive thinking does not move the world
Excellent listen. I always appreciate Ehrenreich’s insights and research.
Positive thinking may help us cope with our individual situations, but it doesn’t move the world; the belief that it can lift people out of dire circumstances therefore becomes just another way to blame individuals, rather than acknowledge societal failures and institute change.
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- Kathryn
- 05-16-11
A Great Book Deserving of a Much Better Reader
Thanks goodness Barbara Erinreich is still publishing. This book is such a relief for those of us oppressed by unrelenting demands to be optimistic even when the worst outcomes are inevitable. This book is so important for people to read. The reader is really terrible, I think and that was a big disappointment.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Richard New
- 09-22-12
Important Book Well Worth The Time And Money
Would you listen to Bright-sided again? Why?
I thought the book was so good I've already listened to it three times just so I could get the many nuanced observations made by the author. The book is very 'literate' meaning she uses a higher level of vocabulary and, as an Audible book, requires some careful listening to get the details of the very rich content. I'll probably listen to it again.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Bright-sided?
If the reader (listener) pays attention, the book is excellent all the way through. It starts with an overview of positive thinking then moves into several scenarios where relentless positive thinking is force-fed to us not-so-aware citizens of American society. It starts with the author's own experience with breast cancer and her total immersion into the world of positive thinking. The narrative moves on to the 19th century origins of positive thinking and explains how positive thinking invaded the very social fabric of today. She shows us how positive thinking is so ubiquitous that we are barely aware of it's power to control and shape our individual lives up to and including entire societies.This book is truly an amazing research project and I think the author is brilliant in her analysis of the data and her conclusions. This is stuff I have never even contemplated. I accepted the positive thinking mantras in all their glorious presentations without thinking. My own brother has lung cancer and he is going through a lot of the same positive thinking exposure that the author did.
What does Kate Reading bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Kate Reading (she reads the book and that's her name) does a fantastic job of presenting the audible version of the book. Her voice is clear and pronunciation succinct. She gets the right inflection and puts emphasis where the author would want it. I think her reading of the book made a somewhat complex subject with lots of ideas, flow very nicely for the human ear to easily absorb. She's great! I will look for her name on future Audible books that I buy. She literally made the book come alive.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Mass hypnosis...how society molds its citizens.
Any additional comments?
The book is a super example of a massive research project with the data analyzed through the brain of an obviously extremely bright author, Barbara Eherenreich. Read (listen to) the book...its worth it!!
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