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, off...
Dec 18, 2023•8 min•Season 1Ep. 103
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 Check us out on Feedspot's Best Canada Non-Fiction Podcasts list! Audio...
Aug 29, 2023•8 min•Season 1Ep. 102
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 Minu...
Apr 27, 2023•8 min•Season 1Ep. 101
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 live...
Feb 07, 2023•7 min•Season 1Ep. 100
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 ringto...
Jan 18, 2022•19 min
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 1...
Jan 03, 2022•1 min•Season 1Ep. 99
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). “Th...
Dec 28, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 98
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...
Dec 21, 2021•8 min•Season 1Ep. 97
“ 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’...
Dec 14, 2021•8 min•Season 1Ep. 96
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...
Dec 07, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 95
One of my top audiobook listens for 2021. Gates identifies the Five Grand Challenges of climate change as manufacturing (31%), electricity (27%), agriculture (19%), transportation (16%), and buildings (7%). Since there’s no single solution for any of these sectors, Gates proposes we speed up the cycle of innovation and attract a mix of private and public investment that is more risk tolerant than we’re used to seeing in order to reach net zero emissions by 2050. What you can do to fight climate ...
Nov 30, 2021•8 min•Season 1Ep. 94
“Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever…” Ultimately, stories have emotional power over us, and great stories stay with us for a lifetime. Haig’s charming style made this listen impossible to put down. And, although it covers some heavy subject matter, The Midnight Library is an easy listen beautifully narrated by British actress Carey Mulligan, who brings Nora’s character to life in so many different contexts. Matt Haig is an author for chi...
Nov 23, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 94
One of my top audiobook listens for 2021! One Goodreads reviewer gave this book three stars out of five, criticizing it as a “Love Letter to Listening” (but lacking tips of how to listen better). This same rationale is exactly why I’m giving this title five out of five stars. The fact is, most of us know perfectly well what listening skills are, but we’re not practicing good listening habits because we don’t value listening enough, author Kate Murphy is passionately determined to change that. Pi...
Nov 16, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 93
Fiona Hill is director of the Center on the United States and Europe, and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. Growing up in England’s coal-mining country, Fiona Hill knew that she was in a forgotten place. The last of the local mines had closed, businesses were shuttering, and despair was etched in the faces around her. Her father told her to get out—to go to London, or Europe, or America. “There is nothing for you here, pet,” he said. Hill managed to go fur...
Nov 09, 2021•6 min•Season 1Ep. 92
Dr. Jane Goodall DBE is an ethologist and environmentalist. From infancy she was fascinated by animal behavior, and in 1957 at 23 years old, she met the famous paleoanthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey while she was visiting a friend in Kenya. Impressed by her passion for animals, he offered her the chance to be the first person to study chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, in the wild. And so three years later Jane traveled from England to what is now Tanzania and, equipped with only a noteboo...
Nov 02, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 91
One of my top audiobook listens for 2021! Think Again is a 21st Century reboot of Enlightenment ideas, celebrating skepticism and science. Adam Grant’s balance of storytelling and statistics is fascinating, but what makes this listen fun is how Grant challenges us to explore our own tendencies and guides us in how to practice rethinking our beliefs. How often do you think again? Take the quiz: https://www.adamgrant.net/quizzes/think-again-quiz/ ** Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and...
Oct 26, 2021•8 min•Season 1Ep. 90
Can the audiobook format add something of value to classic literature? Leo Tolstoy's epic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature and famously begins with the line “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31188265-anna-karenina Connect with Audiobook Reviews in 5: · Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audiobook_reviews_podcast/ · Twitter: @janna_ca · Facebook: https://www.fac...
Oct 19, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 89
One of my top audiobook listens for 2021! All of us have experienced unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a breakup, or a job loss. These experiences can be deeply lonely and confusing. I’m reviewing this book because I’m thinking of all the people I know living through what may feel like one of the most difficult winters of our lifetimes. Katherine May is a New York Times bestselling author; she previously published The Electricity of Every Living Thing, he...
Oct 12, 2021•6 min•Season 1Ep. 88
Professor David Nutt is a neuropsychopharmacologist and researcher at Imperial College London. In 2009, he was infamously dismissed from his role as Chair of the United Kingdom’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The reason was his public stance that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause. Most controversial of all was his claim that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than LSD, ecstasy or cannabis. So you might expect him to be a proh...
Oct 05, 2021•9 min•Season 1Ep. 87
Karl Deisseroth has spent his life researching the human mind, both as a renowned clinical psychiatrist and as a researcher creating and developing the revolutionary field of optogenetics, which uses light to help decipher the brain’s workings. Projections is promoted as a work that combines his knowledge of the brain’s inner circuitry with a deep empathy for his patients in order to examine what mental illness reveals about the human mind and the origin of human feelings. Huberman Lab podcast: ...
Sep 28, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 86
Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy Edward Slingerland makes a bold claim in his new book in that overall and over the course of history, alcohol has produced net positive benefits for both individuals and cultures, or our taste for it would have been eliminated by genetic or cultural evolution (given its heavy costs). We would not have civilization without intoxication, because alcohol provides the necessary lubrication to our complex social needs. In Slingerland’s word...
Sep 21, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 85
Things I learned from Falling is promoted as a memoir by Claire Nelson, who shares how she fell over 25 feet after wandering off the trail in a deserted corner of Joshua Tree Park. The fall shattered her pelvis, rendering her immobile. She lay in a canyon for the next four days, exposed to the relentless California sun. Her rescuers had not expected to find her alive. What the publisher promotion does not say, is that Nelson didn’t tell anyone she was going hiking in the desert, and although she...
Sep 14, 2021•10 min•Season 1Ep. 84
Anna Lembke is the medical director of Stanford Addiction Medicine, program director for the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding research in mental illness, for excellence in teaching, and for clinical innovation in treatment. A clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries in prestigious outlets such as T...
Sep 07, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Matt Haig is an author for children and adults. His memoir, Reasons to Stay Alive, was a number one bestseller, staying in the British top ten for 46 weeks. His children’s book A Boy Called Christmas was a runaway hit and is translated in over 40 languages. It is being made into a film starring Maggie Smith, Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent and The Guardian called it an ‘instant classic’. His novels for adults include the award-winning How To Stop Time, The Radleys, The Humans, and the number one...
Aug 31, 2021•6 min•Season 1Ep. 82
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 ev...
Aug 24, 2021•6 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. Pollan’s 2021 book, This is Your Mind on Plants , features three essays about opium, caffeine and mescaline, with a covid-era introduction, highlighting Pollan’s increasing appreciation for plants during pandemic life. If you’re a fan of Pollan’s writing like I am, you’ll not...
Aug 17, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Self-help references on social media seem to be more popular these days, especially as many of us seek to move forward from pandemic life to something new and not quite back to normal. Perhaps it’s that more of us are self-conscious as we venture out into public life, and maybe it’s also that the pandemic gave many of us time to think about our mental health. Today’s episode compares two very popular audiobooks published this year, linked through Goodreads, below: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain...
Aug 03, 2021•13 min•Season 1Ep. 79
The Last Call Killer preyed upon gay men in New York in the ‘80s and ‘90s and had all the hallmarks of the most notorious serial killers. Yet because of the sexuality of his victims, New York City’s high murder rates, and the AIDS epidemic, his murders have been almost entirely forgotten. This is journalist Elon Green’s first book, and unlike some True Crime authors, Green doesn’t focus on salacious sensationalism and the killer’s notoriety. Instead, he focuses much more on the victims of crime,...
Jul 27, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 78
Suzanne Simard is a professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences and teaches at the University of British Columbia. She was born in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia in 1960. Her family were loggers, so it seemed like a natural fit for her to join a commercial logging company as she started her career. Her job was to check on seedlings planted by the company, but she noticed these were often yellowed and failed to thrive. Simard had a strong hunch that the clear-cutti...
Jul 20, 2021•8 min•Season 1Ep. 77
The Anthropocene Reviewed started out as a podcast, where bestselling author John Green tried to make sense of some of the contradictions of human life – how we can be so compassionate, and yet so cruel. So persistent, yet so quick to despair. Green says that above all, he wanted to understand the contradiction of human power; how we are too powerful in our ability to shape the climate and biodiversity, for example, and yet not powerful enough to save those we love from suffering. Goodreads: htt...
Jul 13, 2021•7 min•Season 1Ep. 76
