If I had to recommend just one audiobook this year, which one would it be? In What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies, Tim Urban tackles the perplexing question of why, despite technological advancements, society seems to lack wisdom. He introduces the concept of the 'Ladder of Thinking,' where high-rung thinking embraces truth and open-mindedness, contrasting with low-rung thinking's rigidity. The book challenges readers to examine their own thought processes and societal norms, offering insights into political extremism, social justice, and the power of individual and collective ..read more

Do you need practical advice on identifying dysfunctional family patterns? Or choosing the best path to breaking the cycle and living your life your way? Nedra Glover Tawwab is a licensed therapist, writer, and speaker based in North Carolina. With over a decade of experience in mental health, she specializes in working with individuals and couples on relationships, boundaries, and healing from trauma. Connect with Audiobook Reviews in 5 · Twitter: @janna_ca · Facebook · Audiobook Reviews in Five Minutes website · Goodreads Audio production by The Podcast Distillery Co. Episode music: Caprese ..read more

When was the last time you listened to an audiobook that combined history, memoir, and rock music? This audiobook represents storytelling at its finest, combined with exceptional editing and production quality and woven with intimate reinterpretations of some of U2’s most iconic and poignant songs, produced by Bono and The Edge.. Connect with Audiobook Reviews in 5 · Facebook · Audiobook Reviews in Five Minutes website · Goodreads Audio production by The Podcast Distillery Co. Episode music: Caprese by Blue Dot Sessions ..read more

Subscribe to the Access Ideas podcast on all podcast streaming platforms. You can expect ad-free, entertaining and informative episodes on a variety of topics throughout 2022. ** What drives our fascination with the fictional Roy family? HBO's Succession follows the dysfunctional owners of Waystar RoyCo, a global media and entertainment conglomerate, who are fighting for control of the company amid uncertainty about the health of the family's patriarch, Logan Roy (Brian Cox). Succession's ringtone-worthy musical theme, stellar writing, and acting make it an obvious winner. This episode of ..read more

This episode is also available on the Access Ideas podcast. What makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? A good life? The authors of The Good Life promise the answer may be closer than you realize! Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz are the director and associate director of The Grant Study, also known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies ever done, beginning in 1938 and continuing up to the present. The study initially followed the lives of two groups of men: one group of socially disadvantaged men (inner-city Boston boys from working ..read more

Looking for a gripping TRUE story that's impossible to put down? In his 15-hour audiobook published in April 2021, Keefe captures a family saga that spans the twentieth century and leads up to 2020. Members of the Sackler family founded Purdue Pharma, the infamous maker of OxyContin, a prescription drug that has fuelled an opioid epidemic across North America for the last twenty years. Patrick Radden Keefe’s investigative journalism about the Sackler family has a history, too; he first published his findings in a 2017 New Yorker article, The Family That Built an Empire of Pain.  Connect w ..read more

Are you an ideas enthusiast or collector? Our new podcast, Access Ideas, expands on a few familiar areas of interest and explores questions you didn’t know you had, such as can Jane Austen novels serve as escapist fantasy, why is sleep science so controversial, and what drives our obsession with HBO’s Succession? You can expect ad-free, entertaining and informative episodes on a variety of topics throughout 2022. Join me, your host Janna, for the first episodes of Access Ideas starting January 19, 2022 – you can access our episodes completely free on all major podcast streaming services.  ..read more

My favourite audiobook of 2021! Oliver Burkeman is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking (2012) and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done (2011), a collection of columns for the Guardian newspaper. Four Thousand Weeks is about making the most of our radically finite lives in a world of impossible demands, relentless distraction and political insanity (and 'productivity techniques' that mainly just make everyone feel busier). “This is the most important book ever written about time management. Oliver Burkeman offers a searing ..read more

One of my top audiobook listens for 2021. Dr Judson Brewer is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Brown University. As an addiction psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for treating addictions, Dr. Jud has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including both in-person and app-based treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety (Eat Right Now, Unwinding Anxiety and Craving to Quit). Based on the success of these programs in the lab, he co-founded MindSciences, Inc. to create app-based digital therapeutic versions of these pro ..read more

“This is one of the most important books that will be published in 2021. The Covid vaccine will soon free humanity from a biological pandemic, and this book, if widely read, could free humanity from an equally deadly scourge—high conflict.” — Jonathan Haidt, Social psychologist, Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business, and author CThe Coddling of the American Mind Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist and a New York Times bestselling author. She’s spent her career trying to make sense of complicated human mysteries, from what happens to our brains ..read more