Murphy’s words are well served by her genial tone and gentle enthusiasm.
Kate Murphy delves into the reasons we connect with some people and don’t with others. She casts a wide net into the research of how and why we feel synchrony—why we click—with certain people, animals, and even plants and television characters. Murphy’s performance is approachable, even chatty, allowing the listener to curl up and take in the flow of stories and accessible science. People who are all doing the same thing at the same time—think rowing, dancing, or marching—often forge a deeper connection with each other. But a bad apple in the workplace really can poison the whole barrel. Murphy also joins the chorus of those concerned about the epidemic of loneliness and the echo chamber of social media.
Murphy’s words are well served by her genial tone and gentle enthusiasm.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
Duration: 7 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781250432346
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: tomorrow
Narrator Lisa Flanagan has a wonderful vocal personality--lithe with a broad palette of pitch patterns and a range of believable emotional tones. Her friendly voice works well with this lighthearted overview of how dramatically the Internet has changed the world in the past 30 years. Though being digitally connected has improved life in many ways, the author says we've lost many of the interpersonal experiences that used to sustain us. We have less privacy, don't need all those reference books, and have largely forgotten how to have vocal conversations with other people. The audiobook is entertaining nostalgia for anyone who feels incompetent navigating the World Wide Web, and a soothing reminder that those of us who miss the simplicity of the pre-Internet era are not alone.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
Duration: 5 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593418055
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Craig Brown tickled our ear with 99 GLIMPSES OF PRINCESS MARGARET, a brisk, irreverent assembly of tiny chapters that ran a satisfactory 12+ hours. For the Beatles, he adds 51 more glimpses and another eight hours, with a proportionally diluted effect. Brown himself, Kate Robbins, and Mark McGann share the narration, which is interesting, insightful, well performed, and packed with some new and a lot of old information. All of it is shaped by Brown's propensity for "easing sense into nonsense." The self-mocking Beatles are harder to deflate than a pretentious princess, but Brown's accounts of touring Beatles sites in Liverpool and his histories of Beatles contemporaries swept up--and aside--by their spectacular rise will amaze and beguile listeners.
Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
Duration: 20 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781250770127
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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