9781427208378
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Bright-sided audiobook

  • By: Barbara Ehrenreich
  • Narrator: Kate Reading
  • Length: 7 hours 27 minutes
  • Publisher: Macmillan Audio
  • Publish date: October 13, 2009
  • Language: English
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(7651 ratings)
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Bright-sided Audiobook Summary

Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-sided is a sharp-witted knockdown of America’s love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism

Americans are a “positive” people–cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity.

In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to “prosper” you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of “positive psychology” and the “science of happiness.” Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes–like mortgage defaults–contributed directly to the current economic crisis.

With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best–poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.

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Bright-sided Audiobook Narrator

Kate Reading is the narrator of Bright-sided audiobook that was written by Barbara Ehrenreich

Kate Reading is the recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards and has been named by AudioFile magazine as a “Voice of the Century,” as well as the Best Voice in Science Fiction & Fantasy in 2008 and 2009 and Best Voice in Biography & Culture in 2010. She has narrated works by such authors as Jane Austen, Robert Jordan, Edith Wharton, and Sophie Kinsella. Reading has performed at numerous theaters in Washington D.C. and received a Helen Hayes Award for her performance in Aunt Dan and Lemon. AudioFile magazine reports that, “With subtle control of characters and sense of pacing, Kate’s performances are a consistent pleasure.”

About the Author(s) of Bright-sided

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of Bright-sided

Bright-sided Full Details

Narrator Kate Reading
Length 7 hours 27 minutes
Author Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher Macmillan Audio
Release date October 13, 2009
ISBN 9781427208378

Additional info

The publisher of the Bright-sided is Macmillan Audio. The imprint is Macmillan Audio. It is supplied by Macmillan Audio. The ISBN-13 is 9781427208378.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

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