Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Big Books for the Season
Coming soon
Pre-order as gift
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Sign up today
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingMeditations for Mortals
Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
Narrator
Oliver Burkeman
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more
Length
4 hours 4 minutes
Language
English
"The philosophical tone of his delivery is perfect" —AudioFile on Four Thousand Weeks
This program is read by the author.
A map for a liberating journey toward a more meaningful life—a journey that begins where we actually find ourselves, not with a fantasy of where we’d like to be—from the New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks
Addressing the fundamental questions about how to live, Meditations for Mortals offers a powerful new way to take action on what counts: a guiding philosophy of life Oliver Burkeman calls “imperfectionism.” It helps us tackle challenges as they crop up in our daily lives: our finite time, the lure of distraction, the impossibility of doing anything perfectly.
How can we embrace our nonnegotiable limitations? Or make good decisions when there’s always too much to do? How do we shed the illusion that life will really begin as soon as we can “get on top of everything”? Reflecting on quotations drawn from philosophy, religion, literature, psychology, and self-help, Burkeman explores a combination of practical tools and daily shifts in perspective. The result is a life-enhancing and surprising challenge to much familiar advice—and a profound yet entertaining crash course in living more fully.
To be listened to either as a four-week “retreat of the mind” or devoured in one or two sittings, Meditations for Mortals will be a source of solace and inspiration, and an aid to a saner, freer, and more enchantment-filled life. In anxiety-inducing times, it is rich in truths we have never needed more.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Oliver Burkeman worked for many years at The Guardian, where he wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” His books include the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.
Oliver Burkeman worked for many years at The Guardian, where he wrote a popular weekly column on psychology, “This Column Will Change Your Life.” His books include the New York Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.
Featured in these playlists...
Reviews
Advance Praise
“Meditations for Mortals offers a bracing and refreshing antidote for what ails high achievers. With crackling wit and counterintuitive wisdom, Burkeman shows that it’s okay—and often smarter—to do less, let some goals slide, and embrace our imperfections. This book is both a comfort and a challenge—exactly what our trying times demand.”
—Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret
“More than a book of ideas, Meditation for Mortals offers a practical path toward personal transformation—one that helps you sidestep the shallow allure of frenetic busyness and find a liberating joy in the limits and imperfections of life. A must-read.”
—Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of Slow Productivity and Deep Work
“I follow Oliver Burkeman's personal, literary, and journalistic adventures into wisdom with admiration and exhilaration. Now he brings us a ‘retreat of the mind’ in a very special book. We should all read this, preferably in the company of others—for the sake of our aching world as well as the state of our souls.”
—Krista Tippett, host of On Being
“Oliver Burkeman has a way of giving you the most unexpected productivity advice exactly when you need it.”
—Mark Manson, bestselling author of Everything is F*cked and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck