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Title details for Look Again by Tali Sharot - Available

Look Again

The Power of Noticing What Was Always There

by Tali Sharot
Cass R. Sunstein
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
5 of 6 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
5 of 6 copies available
This "smart and fun read, and a valuable way to revitalize your life" (Walter Isaacson) deftly explains how disrupting our well-worn routines, both good and bad, can rejuvenate and reset our brains for the better.
Have you ever noticed that what is exciting on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even passionate relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. As easy as it is to stop noticing what is most wonderful in our lives, it's also possible to stop noticing what is terrible. People get used to dirty air. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.

Now, neuroscience professor Tali Sharot and Harvard law professor (and presidential advisor) Cass R. Sunstein investigate why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to "dishabituate" at the office, in the bedroom, at the store, on social media, and in the voting booth.

This groundbreaking and "sensational guide to a more psychological rich life" (Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author), based on decades of research, illuminates how we can reignite the sparks of joy, innovate, and recognize where improvements urgently need to be made. The key to this disruption—to seeing, feeling, and noticing again—is change. By temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact with—or even just stepping back and imagining change—you regain sensitivity, allowing you to identify more clearly the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 27, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781797172477
      • File size: 187594 KB
      • Duration: 06:30:49

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 27, 2023
      Even the most “exhilarating” stimuli—a favorite song, an exciting romance—lose their luster over time, acknowledge cognitive neuroscientist Sharot (The Optimism Bias) and behavioral economist Sunstein (The World According to Star Wars) in this eye-opening study of how that process may be reversed. According to the authors, the brain acclimates to negative and positive stimuli over time as it “prioritize what is new and different... filter out the old and expected.” However, some of that sensitivity can be restored by “temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people with whom you interact, and taking real or imagined minibreaks from ordinary life.” Briefly leaving a quiet restaurant table with a beautiful view to visit a noisier area can enhance enjoyment of the meal, for example. It’s also possible to dishabituate to risk—in Sweden, switching the side of the road on which people drove temporarily decreased the rate of accidents (it returned to previous levels after about two years). Corralling a wealth of fascinating examples, including how vigilance against Covid-19 slackened the longer the pandemic wore on and the manner in which Germans acclimated to Nazism (“The collapse of freedom and rule of law occurred in increments, some of which seemed relatively insignificant”), Sharot and Sunstein provide a revelatory investigation of a phenomenon that’s as complex as it is common. This enthralls. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Two gifted narrators turn in performances that make the authors' ideas about paying attention come alive. Their vocal gifts are different and complement each other: Imani Jade Powers performs with a hushed intensity and a philosophical depth that give her interpretations real power. Byron Wagner's strengths are more stylistic; his amazing array of pitch patterns is fun to hear and makes the author's ideas glow without trivializing them. Both narrators perform with seemingly effortless diction from start to finish. The audiobook's mission is to help us understand and gain power over the way we process familiar versus novel experiences. The sections on how we "normalize" what is ordinarily shocking or untrue are especially illuminating in this age of disinformation and cultural decline. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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