Audiobooks by Anneli Rufus

Stuck: Why We Can’t (Or Won’t) Move On

"In Stuck, the author of the highly praised Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto identifies a rather striking social trend: many people are stuck. Be it in the wrong relationship, the wrong career, the wrong town, or with the wrong friends, some of them even say they want to make a change but... somehow... never get the job done. A self-described “adolescent in size-ten shoes who is also a happily married homeowner with a master’s degree,” Anneli Rufus knows whereof she speaks. In this book, she draws on her own life experience as well as interviews with others who are also—in some way or another, and to differing degrees—immobilized. Tracing the many subtle ways in which American culture often conspires to keep us stalled, Rufus delivers a long-awaited diagnosis for our day and age: stuck. But there can be a light at the end of the tunnel; Rufus also tells the stories of people who managed to become unstuck and of others who, after much reflection, decided that where they are is best. After all, she says: “What looks to you like paralysis looks to others like passion. What looks to you like a rut, others would call commitment, true absorption in a topic, a relationship, a career, a pursuit, a place. What looks to you like boredom, others call commitment. And even contentment.” Stuck is a wise and passionate exploration of the dreams we hold dearest for ourselves—and the road to actually achieving them."

Anneli Rufus (Author), Susanna Burney (Narrator)

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Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto

"An essential defense of the people the world loves to revile -- the loners -- yet without whom it would be lost The Buddha. Rene Descartes. Emily Dickinson. Greta Garbo. Bobby Fischer. J. D. Salinger: Loners, all -- along with as many as 25 percent of the world's population. Loners keep to themselves, and like it that way. Yet in the press, in films, in folklore, and nearly everywhere one looks, loners are tagged as losers and psychopaths, perverts and pity cases, ogres and mad bombers, elitists and wicked witches. Too often, loners buy into those messages and strive to change, making themselves miserable in the process by hiding their true nature -- and hiding from it. Loners as a group deserve to be reassessed -- to claim their rightful place, rather than be perceived as damaged goods that need to be 'fixed.' In Party of One Anneli Rufus--a prize-winning, critically acclaimed writer with talent to burn -- has crafted a morally urgent, historically compelling tour de force -- a long-overdue argument in defense of the loner, then and now. Marshalling a polymath's easy erudition to make her case, assembling evidence from every conceivable arena of culture as well as interviews with experts and loners worldwide and her own acutely calibrated analysis, Rufus rebuts the prevailing notion that aloneness is indistinguishable from loneliness, the fallacy that all of those who are alone don't want to be, and wouldn't be, if only they knew how."

Anneli Rufus (Author), Thérèse Plummer (Narrator)

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Unworthy: How to Stop Hating Yourself

"'Self-loathing is a dark land studded with booby-traps. Fumbling through its dark underbrush, we cannot see what our trouble actually is: that we are mistaken about ourselves. That we were told lies long ago which we, in love and loyalty and fear, believed. Will we believe ourselves to death?' —from Unworthy As someone who has struggled with low self-esteem her entire life, Anneli Rufus knows only too well how the world looks through the eyes of those who are not comfortable in their own skin. In Unworthy, Rufus boldly explores how a lack of faith in ourselves can turn us into our own worst enemies. Drawing on extensive research, enlightening interviews, and her own poignant experiences, Rufus considers the question: What personal, societal, biological, and historical factors coalesced to spark this secret epidemic, and what can be done to put a stop to it? She reveals the underlying sources of low self-esteem and leads us through strategies for positive change."

Anneli Rufus (Author), Rose Itzcovitz (Narrator)

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