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Short audiobooks you can enjoy in one sitting

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Features

You’re never going to finish your to-do list – and that’s fine

A BBC Radio 4 collection

Oliver Burkeman: Epidemics of Modern Life

Oliver Burkeman's guides to leading a better life in an age of confusion 
 
Journalist and author Oliver Burkeman is well-known for his long-running Guardian column, 'How to Change Your Life', and has written three bestselling books on happiness, productivity and time management. In this radio collection, he looks at four central ills of modernity - busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity and the decline of nuance. Talking to a range of experts, he discovers how these problems became so widespread, and how we can go about tackling them. 
 
In Addicted to Busy (first broadcast as Oliver Burkeman is Busy), Oliver explores why we all feel so busy nowadays, asking whether we've talked ourselves into feeling overwhelmed, and if our problem might not be lack of time, but lack of bandwidth. Could the solution lie not in working harder, but in indulging in a little idleness? 
 
The Power of Negative Thinking sees Oliver examining the virtues of negativity. Asking why 'thinking yourself happy' can so often have the opposite effect, he probes the ways in which negative visualisation can achieve positive results; considers the phenomenon of hedonic adaptation; ponders whether workplace fun is ever a good idea; and wonders whether confronting our own mortality could make us happier. And in a special one-off episode, The Impostor's Survival Guide, he inquires why so many of us spend our working lives feeling like a fraud. Where do these feelings come from, and what can be done about them? 
 
In Why Are We So Angry?, Oliver attempts to understand why we are frequently so full of fury. Explaining how anger gave humans an evolutionary edge, he divulges how companies today profit from our outrage; investigates how anger can be essential for social change; learns how to manage rage in a healthy way; and asks if the future will become ever more angry, or if there's a point where our anger will finally break. 
 
Finally, in The Death of Nuance, he looks at how nuance is vanishing from public discourse. He discovers that our brains are wired for snap decisions, and that language can limit our capacity for nuanced thought - depending on how we choose to use it. He also considers how to open minds through moderation; explores how society has become polarised across political divides and reveals how to restore nuance and evolve our thinking in a changing world. 
 
Production credits 
Presented by Oliver Burkeman 
Produced by Peter McManus 
 
Addicted to Busy: Why Life Has Got So Hectic first broadcast as Oliver Burkeman is Busy, BBC Radio 4, 12-16 September 2016 
With Maria Popova, Tony Crabbe, Jonathan Gershuny, Brigid Schulte, Stephanie Brown, Dan Ariely, David Drever and his team, Eldar Shafir, Mark Cropley, Andrew Smart, Tom Hodgkinson 
 
The Power of Negative Thinking first broadcast BBC Radio 4, 21-25 November 2016 
With Gabriele Oettingen, Russ Harris, Jim Trodden, Derrick Jensen, Peter Congdon, Carol Barraclough, Kelsang Zamling, Kiera Lawlor, Ian Bogost, Marcus Coates, Josefine Speyer, Rebecca Green 
 
Why Are We So Angry? first broadcast BBC Radio 4, 17 October-14 November 2018 
With Ryan Martin, Aaron Sell, Maya Tamir, Mark Vernon, Charlie Beckett, Molly Crockett, Tobias Rose-Stockwell, Martin Boyce, Brett Ford, Martha C. Nussbaum 
 
The Death of Nuance first broadcast BBC Radio 4, 28 December 2020-1 January 2021 
With Kevin Dutton, Susan Neiman, Tim Lomas, Naomi Baron, Damon Linker, Daniel Ravner, Robert B. Talisse, Poppy Noor, Richard Holloway 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Embrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count.

Four Thousand Weeks

**The instant Sunday Times bestseller** 
 
What if you tried to stop doing everything, so you could finally get round to what counts? 
 
Rejecting the futile modern obsession with 'getting everything done,' Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing rather than denying their limitations. 
 
Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman sets out to realign our relationship with time - and in doing so, to liberate us from its tyranny. 
 
Embrace your limits. Change your life. Discover how to make your four thousand weeks count in 2024. 
 
'Life is finite. You don't have to fit everything in... Read this book and wake up to a new way of thinking and living' Emma Gannon 
 
'Every sentence is riven with gold' Chris Evans 
 
'Comforting, fascinating, engaging, inspiring and useful' Marian Keyes

This book is wonderful. Instead of offering new tips on how to cram more into your day, it questions why we feel the need to ... My favourite kind of book is this one ... it examines the human struggle with intelligence, wisdom, humour and humility.

Perfectly pitched somewhere between practical self-help book and philosophical quest ... as with all the best quests, its many pleasures don't require a fast-forward button, but happen along the way

Life is finite. You don't have to fit everything in. Enjoy your life. Breathe out. Read this book and wake up to a new way of thinking and living

Emma Gannon, author of The Multi-Hyphen Method

A wonderfully honest book, Four Thousand Weeks is a much-needed reality check on our culture's crazy assumptions around work, productivity and living a meaningful life

Mark Manson, bestselling author of Everything is F*cked and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

His book will challenge and amuse you. And it may even spur you on to change your life. At the very least reading it would be a good use of one of your four thousand weeks

I loved this book - it's a celebration of all that is most human: a deep dive into the value and potency of our finitude. Where we might buckle under pressure and uncertainty, Oliver quietly restores our centre of gravity within. You'll emerge from his writing fortified by wonder

A beautiful, uplifting read. Reading Oliver Burkeman, I feel my shoulders relax and my mouth curl into a smile of admiration. Witty, modest and refreshingly sane

Robert Webb, author of How Not to Be a Boy

Comforting, fascinating, engaging, inspiring and USEFUL, actually genuinely useful

Oliver Burkeman provides an important and insightful reassessment of productivity. The drive to get more done can become an excuse to avoid figuring out what we actually want to accomplish. Only by confronting this latter question can we unlock a calmer, more meaningful, more resilient approach to organizing our time

Cal Newport, bestselling author of A World Without Email and Deep Work

We all know our time is limited. What we don't know - but what Oliver Burkeman is here to teach us - is that our control over that time is also limited. This profound (and often hilarious) book will prompt you to rethink your worship of efficiency, reject the cult of busyness, and reconfigure your life around what truly matters

Daniel H. Pink, author of When, Drive, and To Sell is Human

This is the most important book ever written about time management. Oliver Burkeman offers a searing indictment of productivity hacking and profound insights on how to make the best use of our scarcest, most precious resource. His writing will challenge you to rethink many of your beliefs about getting things done-and you'll be wiser because of it

Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of WorkLife

I have long loved Oliver Burkeman's wise and witty journalism that both interrogates and elevates the 'self-help' realm-revealing its possibilities for absurdity while honoring the deeper human impulses that it meets. Four Thousand Weeks is a splendid offering in that spirit. This book is at once sobering and refreshing on all that is truly at stake in what we blithely refer to as 'time management.' It invites nothing less than a new relationship with time-and with life itself

Four Thousand Weeks is a book to read and re-read, to absorb and reflect on. Compassionate, funny and wise, it has not left my mind since I read it. The modern world teaches us to pretend to be immortal-this book is a dip in the cold, clear waters of reality, returning us refreshed and alive

Peppered with good stories... Subtle, provocative and multi-layered... Offers many wise pointers to a happier, less stress-filled life, with none of the usual smug banalities of the self-help genre... Happy days!

Four Thousand Weeks is full of such sage and sane advice, delivered with dry wit and a benevolent tone. I didn't wish back any of the time I spent reading it

Every so often you read a book that so profoundly shifts your thinking that you feel indebted with gratitude to the author. Utterly brilliant

So easy to read that I finished it in one sitting... I'll probably never organise my time so well again

I seldom read self-help books, but Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks is in a class of its own

Research Professional News, *Books of the Year*

A compelling argument for why we should be doing less and doing it better... This comforting, calm book is filled with sensible, practical ideas

Burkeman offers practical solutions to problems that might otherwise seem too monolithic to disassemble

Oliver Burkeman's Guardian feature was called "This Column Will Change Your Life". The wisdom of this book could do the same

[A] brilliant, comforting time-management guide

10 experts show you how to be more mindful, calm and focused

The Here and Now

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
Survive and thrive in uncertain times by listening to the insights and inspirational ideas of world-leading experts on staying calm, focused and in control, brought to you by Penguin. 
 
Too much time on your hands? Too busy to think? Too tired to do anything? Too anxious? 
Life as we know it presents us all with different challenges - whether it's the anxiety of loneliness or the stress of being cooped up with the kids 24/7, working at all hours from home or finding yourself unable to fill the long hours of each day. 
 
By listening to The Here and Now you'll discover how to master the difficult art of living in the moment. Combining the expertise of some of Penguin's most trusted authors, this audio collection of practical wisdom and calming advice will help keep you grounded during these uncertain times. 
 
· Let Chloe Madeley advise you on exercising at home. 
· Allow The Mindfulness Project to reconnect you with nature. 
· Banish anxiety with Chloe Brotheridge. 
· Sophie Fletcher's advice will help keep your family (and yourself) calm and connected. 
· Follow Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis' advice as they redefine what a successful career means. 
· Listen to Dr Amir Khan's advice on how to achieve better sleep results. 
· Let Rukmini Iyer introduce you to the joys of cooking. 
· Learn from Sara Milne Rowe how to adjust your habits for positive change.. 
 
Incorporating guided walks, meditation exercises, workout routines and so much more, this enriching, affirming guide will help each of us realign how we are living right now to make every moment the very best it can be, and develop habits and strategies that will last a lifetime. 
 
(P) Penguin Audio 2020

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
Too much time? Too busy? Too tired? Too anxious? 
 
Listen to The Here and Now and discover how to master the art of living in the moment. 
 
Combining the expertise of some of Penguin's most trusted authors, this audio anthology of practical wisdom and calming advice helps you stay grounded during these uncertain times. Listeners will learn the joys of orientating themselves in the natural world, embracing the unknown, listening to their body, and finding time for themselves and their careers. 
 
Incorporating guided walks, meditation exercises, mindful movements and more, this enriching, affirming guide will realign how we live to make every moment our very best.

and how it can be a powerful route to joy, success and satisfaction

The Power of Negative Thinking

To achieve any major life goal, conventional wisdom tells us we must think positively. Picture yourself delivering the perfect presentation and it shall be so; envisage the ideal job interview and it will go well; imagine yourself sprinting first across the finish line and you will romp home as champion. While these strategies sound compelling, they have been shown to backfire. 
 
Oliver Burkeman explores why people are often more successful - as are organisations, armies and governments - when they focus on reasons they are likely to fail; asks where happiness comes from, and whether we look for it in the wrong places; explores a phenomenon that has come to be called 'fungineering' – attempts to boost happiness in the workplace; and confronts what many of us see as the most negative of all experiences: death. 
 
In a special one off episode, The Impostor's Survival Guide, Oliver Burkeman explores why so many of us spend our working lives feeling like impostors on the brink of being found out. Where do these feelings come from and are we alone? Oliver talks to individuals who've reached the top of their field whether in the arts, business or medicine about how they all feel like impostors from time to time. He'll also examine the latest research that suggests its more prevalent than ever. What's changed about how we live and work today that leaves so many of us with these feelings. And what can be done about them? Is just admitting to one another that we all feel same way enough?

Oliver Burkeman explores the virtues of negativity and shows how it can be a surprisingly powerful route to joy, success and satisfaction

And what is it doing to the world?

Why Are We So Angry?

Why is everyone so angry nowadays, and what is it doing to the world?

Why is everyone so angry nowadays, and what is it doing to the world? 
 
In the developed world we live in a blessed epoch, a time and a place where life has never been better. Infant mortality has been all but abolished, we have greater personal choice than ever before, we have access to technology that would have been seen as the stuff of science fiction little more than a decade ago. We are safer and wealthier than at any time in human history. So why are we so damn angry about everything? 
 
On-line, in the street, in the ballot box, anger is the most dominant public emotion of our age. So what are we so angry about, and how is our anger shaping our world? We know the issues that people seem to be angry about - the iniquities of globalisation, diversity, democratic disconnect - but why has anger become our default emotion when responding to the state of the world- and what is anger doing to the world we live in? 
 
Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning feature writer for the Guardian. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’, and has reported from London, Washington and New York.

Why life has got so hectic

Addicted to Busy

Oliver Burkeman explores why people feel so busy today.

There's a ritual of the modern workplace - one you've heard and most likely indulged in yourself. It's the call and response we go through when you ask a workmate how they're doing: "Busy!" "So busy." It is pretty obviously a boast disguised as a complaint. And our simultaneously grim and half chuckled reply comes as a kind of congratulation: "Ha, better than the opposite." When did we start doing that? 
 
As if he didn't have enough to do, Oliver Burkeman explores this epidemic of busyness to reveal that it may not be what it at first seems. He asks if we are talking ourselves into feeling overwhelmed with busyness, and if our problem with busyness is not that we do not have the time but rather we literally do not have the head space. He questions whether people have become addicted to busy, either because it makes them feel like heroes fighting the odds, or because problems can be avoided by never sitting still. 
 
Finally, he examines whether the solution to busyness is perhaps not to work harder and organise ourselves, but to indulge in a little idleness. 
 
Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning feature writer for the Guardian. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’, and has reported from London, Washington and New York. 
 
Produced by Peter McManus. 
This programme was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as 'Oliver Burkeman Is Busy.'

Oliver Burkeman

A BBC Radio 4 Series

Oliver Burkeman examines the insidious way in which convenience has warped our existence 
 
Bestselling author Oliver Burkeman is well known for his books and radio programmes exploring how we can lead meaningful and productive lives in an age of overwhelm. This time, he brings his keen sense of the ridiculous to bear on our obsession with convenience, looking at the hidden pitfalls of a life of ease. 
 
Over the past 20 years, the on-demand industry has flourished, promising to solve our problems, save us time and spare us from tedious, time-consuming tasks. But, in attempting to excise mundane experiences, we've inadvertently ended up getting rid of many things that are actually necessary for our well-being. Having everything delivered denies us the chance to interact with other people, leaving us lonelier. Services such as Apple Pay encourage us to make pointless purchases, meaning we're less likely to have spare cash to give to someone begging on the street. And our demands for immediacy and instant gratification have made us lazier and more impatient. 
 
In these five episodes, Oliver attempts to assess the consequences of our reliance on convenience. Helping him are a wealth of authors and thinkers, including Kat Rosenfield, Julian Baggini, Jonathan Rowson, Mark Manson and Coco Krumme. He asks how our sense of belonging is undermined by frictionless travel and effortless digital communication; spends time with the gig economy workers who pick up the tab to smooth our path; delves into the spiritual and psychological implications of convenience; and explains how, since moving from Brooklyn to rural Yorkshire, he has come to love his less convenient life. 
 
Throughout, Oliver shows how convenience culture has made our lives subtly worse - and how, by resisting its temptations at least some of the time, we could become happier, healthier and more fulfilled individuals. 
 
Production credits 
Presented by Oliver Burkeman 
Produced by Peter McManus 
Executive Producer: Heather Kane-Darling 
With Kat Rosenfield, Julian Baggini, Jonathan Rowson, Mark Manson, Craig Lambert, Coco Krumme 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 May-2 June 2023 
 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

Oliver Burkeman

Oliver Burkeman’s Inconvenient Truth

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