TOP AUDIOBOOKS: FOR 'YOU' TIME
Listen to a sample:
The Unexpected Joy of Being Single
Written and Read By: Catherine Gray
Single in your late 20s or, hold the phone, in your 30s or beyond? Oh hi! You’re in the right place.
Over a third of us are now single. With the single camp growing at 10 times the rate of the actual population, it is now the norm to be single well into our 30s – the average marriage age for women is 35 and 37 for men. But nobody seems to have told society, rom-com makers, songwriters, marriage-hungry mothers, ‘tick-tock’ uncles, our mates or us that.
Cue: single anxiety. Love addiction. Spending hours scrolling through dating apps. Being inconsolable when he/she doesn’t text. Humming ‘Here Comes the Bride’ when they do.
Catherine Gray went through all of this. And then some. She took a whole year off dating to get her love-hooked head straight. How do we chill our boots about our single status? Detach from ‘all the good ones are gone!’ panic? And deprogramme from urgent, red, heart-shaped societal pressure to find your ‘other half’*?
We know intellectually that single is far preferable to panic-settling, yet we forget that almost constantly. Why? Psychologists and neuroscientists tell us? Let’s start the reverse brainwash and locate our happily-single sanity for good. Are you in?
*Spoiler: you’re already a whole person.
Listen to a sample:
Calm the F**k Down
Written and Read By: Sarah Knight
The latest no-f**ks-given guide from New York Times best-selling author of the international sensation The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k, Get Your Sh*t Together and You Do You.
Do you waste time overthinking things you can’t do anything about?
Do you freak out when things don’t go to plan?
Does anxiety get in the way of you living your best life?
When life hands you a big fat f**king lemon, Calm the F**k Down gives you practical ways to manage the situation, not to mention your anxiety about the situation. One hundred percent practical and 0 percent Pollyanna-ish, this is a book that acknowledges all the bad shit that can and probably will happen to you – from breakups and breakdowns to floods, family feuds and France running out of butter – and shows you what you can realistically do about it so you can get on with your life, stop worrying and wallowing and start bouncing back.
Think of Calm the F**k Down as the friend who, instead of reassuring you that ‘everything’s going to be okay’, actually shows you how to make it so.
Listen to a sample:
Eat It Anyway
Written and Read By: Laura Dennison and Eve Simmons
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” Virginia Woolf.
The definition of ‘healthy eating’ has been chewed up, spat out and re-digested enough times to make Joe Public give up and seek out their nearest branch of McDonald’s. Our mindless obsession with eating ‘right’ is such that we’re now more concerned about what our Instagram followers think of a poorly lit picture of our dinner than we are of its effect on our own palate. Or, indeed, our happiness. We seem to be living in a time where we no longer eat with our hearts, emotions or heritage – but with what our waistlines (and followers) in mind.
Not Plant Based are on a mission to help you love food again. The principle is very simple: eat what you like and don’t worry about it. It’s a menu that’s especially delicious, ‘guilt-free’ and requires a hell of a lot less money spent in health food shops. Throughout the book, Laura and Eve call on experts to debunk myths and provide a balanced exploration of our attitude towards food, with some delicious recipes thrown in along the way. They discuss their own experiences of eating disorders and offer personal tips and coping mechanisms to help rid you of anxiety linked to food. No one is saying healthy eating is bad; there is simply a lot of misleading information out there. More to the point, food is so much more in the grand scheme of life than health: it’s family, friends, enjoyment and memories.
So go on, take a bite out of Eat It Anyway and learn to love your food all over again. It’s SO mouth-wateringly good – we bet you’ll be back for seconds.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Listen to a sample:
Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work
Written and Read By: Rupert Sheldrake
By the author of The Science Delusion, a detailed account of how science can authenticate spirituality.
To go beyond is to move into a higher state of consciousness, to a place of bliss, greater understanding, love, and deep connectedness, a realm where we finally find life’s meaning – experiences for which all spiritual seekers seek. Dr Rupert Sheldrake, writing as both a scientist and a spiritual explorer, looks at seven spiritual practices that are personally transformative and have scientifically measurable effects.
He combines the latest scientific research with his extensive knowledge of mystical traditions around the world to show how we may tune in to more-than-human realms of consciousness through psychedelics, such as ayahuasca, and by taking cannabis. He also shows how everyday activities can have mystical dimensions, including sports and learning from animals. He discusses traditional religious practices such as fasting, prayer and the celebration of festivals and holy days.
Why do these practices work? Are their effects all inside brains and essentially illusory? Or can we really make contact with forms of consciousness greater than our own?
We are in the midst of a spiritual revival. This book is an essential guide.
Listen to a sample:
Eat, Drink, Run.
Written and Read By: Bryony Gordon
The new hilarious and inspirational memoir from Sunday Times number one best-selling author Bryony Gordon.
Bryony Gordon was not a runner. A loafer, a dawdler, a drinker, a smoker, yes. A runner, no. Yet somehow, as she began to recover from the emotional roller coaster of laying her life bare in her mental health memoir Mad Girl, she started to realise that getting outside, moving her body and talking to others for whom life was also an occasional challenge might actually help her.
Going for a run might not banish her sadness, but at least it might show it that she was damn well trying to beat it, which is sometimes half the battle. As she began to run farther, she started to see the limitations she had imposed on her life more clearly. Why couldn’t she be a runner? Or a bungee jumper? Or a deep sea diver? Maybe rather than sitting on the sofa watching the world go by, fulfilling your dreams was just about standing up and taking that first step. Maybe you can do it, too.
In April 2017, less than a year after she had weighed herself at over 16 stone but stepped off the scales and started training anyway, Bryony Gordon ran all 26 and 3/4 miles of the London Marathon. Here, in her new typically funny and hugely inspiring memoir, she shows us how extraordinary things can happen to us all, no matter what life throws at us, if we’re just willing to keep going.
Listen to a sample:
Start Now. Get Perfect Later.
Written and Read By: Rob Moore
From the best-selling author of Money.
Contains an hour and a half of additional content exclusive to the eBook and audiobook editions.
What are you waiting for? If you have a burning ambition, brilliant business idea or creative passion, now is the time to get going. Don’t wait around for everything to fall magically into place – get started, get going and get perfect later. It’s the fastest route to success.
Hardly anyone gets it right the first time, but many of us are crippled by indecision and fear of failure. The desire to get it right can inhibit us from getting started. In this audiobook Rob Moore, the best-selling author of Money, shows that the quickest way to perfect is starting right now and improving as you go. This audiobook will show you how to launch your business or idea, begin the next phase of your career and overcome self-doubt – right away. Get perfect later; get started NOW.
Listen to a sample:
Calm
Written and Read By: Fearne Cotton
‘Calm for me is less about thought and much more about feeling. It is a stillness that allows my lungs to expand like hot air balloons. It is an acceptance of the noise around me. It is a magic alchemy that might last a second or a whole day, where I feel relaxed yet aware; still yet dynamic; open yet protected….’
In today’s always-on world, for many of us it seems impossible to relax, take time out or mute the encircling noise. It is easy to feel trapped in this frenzied state of mind: we are surrounded by negative stories in the press, weighed down by pressures from work, family life or school and subject to constant scrutiny under the all-seeing eye of social media. As a result, mental health illnesses are on the rise in every age group, and more of us than ever before yearn for silence, peace and calm.
Calm is Fearne’s mission to find the simple things that can inch us away from stress and over to the good stuff. Including expert advice, conversations with wise friends from all walks of life, easy ideas to try, activities to complete – and the little things that have made a difference to her own sometimes bumpy life, this book is a friendly reminder that calm is a place that exists in us all: we just have to find our way back to it.
Listen to a sample:
The World's Fittest Book
Written and Read By: Ross Edgley
The Sunday Times best seller.
How to train for anything and everything, anywhere and everywhere.
The World’s Fittest Book is set to become every fitness enthusiast’s bible. Dubbed the body’s complete user guide, it will become the go-to resource for learning all you need to know about building muscle, losing fat, eating (healthy) cake and unlocking your superhuman physical potential.
Packed with workouts the author tried and tested in the pursuit of multiple world records, it’s more than a book, it’s the greatest training tool ever written! Designed for anyone who wants to make permanent and lasting changes to their food and fitness, it’s the first book to combine the teachings, tips and tricks of Olympic and world champions into one easy to follow resource.
This book will show you how it’s possible to:
- Live below 10 percent body fat with the aid of chocolate and Mayan secrets
- Add 27 percent more muscle mass, courtesy of tips from world heavyweight champions
- Increase speed by 10 percent, thanks to gold medal winning Olympic sprinters
- Squat, deadlift and bench weights you never dreamed of lifting, with the guidance of the world’s strongest men
- Improve endurance capacity by 60 percent, thanks to the knowledge of world champions in multi endurance-based sports
…all of which the author has achieved during the 10-year ‘fitness pilgrimage’ that has taken him around the globe.
Until now, there hasn’t been a book covering such an ambitious range of areas, catering for the casual fitness enthusiast seeking clarity and guidance in their own gym routine and kitchen habits as well as the seasoned sportsperson who’s hit a plateau and is searching for tips, tricks and tweaks they can make to their training and diet. This book changes that and will take you on a journey to whatever level of fitness you want to find.
This site is brought to you by Hachette UK.
© 2019 Hachette UK Limited.
Registered in England and Wales with company number 02020173.
Registered address: Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0DZ.
Read our Privacy Notice – Read our Use of Cookies