The author's conversational performance makes it easy to engage with the research and personal vignettes she's assembled for this informative audio. The friendly accessibility of her voice brings warmth and humanity to the scientific findings she summarizes. She says unhappiness during the middle years is part of our evolutionary wiring--a time when almost all of us adjust our ambitions, reconcile our disappointments, and take a fresh look at what's important. If we look for the opportunities within us and around us, she says, we can find ways to use our accumulated knowledge, improve our fluid intelligence, and enjoy the riches to be had in loving, supportive relationships. Her poignant stories, in particular, and the heartfelt wisdom they illustrate, make this a relevant and inspirational audio.
Pub Date: March 15, 2016
Duration: 11 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780399566691
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Griffiths narrates her poetic memoir, marked by two traumatic life events, with precision. Griffiths' emotive narration takes measure of the joys and sorrows she experiences in tender moments spent with her best friend, Kamilah Aisha Moon, a talented poet, as they share a deep connection and support each other's work. Despair comes on "the best and worst day" of her life, when Aisha dies on the same day that Griffiths weds author Salman Rushdie. Despite her own marital bliss, Griffiths is consumed by an overwhelming grief, and it has only begun to subside a year later when Rushdie is stabbed, nearly fatally. Again, Griffiths is plunged into depression. This story of love and loss is as strong in emotion as it is in poignant imagery and lyricism.
Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
Duration: 8 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217176441
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Only author Roy Wood Jr. could have imbued this narration with such empathy as he unflinchingly tells his life story, a cautionary tale for his newborn son. The comedian and actor recounts his complicated relationship with his own, mostly absent, father--a civil rights leader and respected radio announcer with another family who never divorced Wood's mother. She forced her estranged husband to take her and Wood Jr. in after a misadventure by young Roy. Wood Sr. dispensed wisdom and advice to hundreds but was judgmental and aloof to the one person who needed him most, his son. Even so, Wood Jr. learned what to do and not to do from his father and the other men who floated in and out of his life.
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
Duration: 8 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217165780
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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