Author:Ethan Kross
Turn your inner voice from critic to coach
As humans, we all have a special ability that is unique to our species: an inner voice. It helps us focus, achieve our goals and reflect on life’s most joyful moments. But it can also be our biggest enemy, chewing over painful emotions and replaying embarrassments, hijacking our thoughts to run amok with ‘chatter’. How does this source of wisdom turn into our biggest critic? And how can we take back control?
These are the questions one of the world’s leading experts on the conscious mind set out to answer twenty years ago, when he started on an audacious mission — to study the conversations we have with ourselves. In this hugely anticipated book, that expert, the award-winning neuroscientist and psychologist Ethan Kross, reveals the sheer power of the inner voice, and shows us that we all possess a set of tools for harnessing it. Hidden in plain sight, they are in the words we use and the stories we tell ourselves, in the conversations we have with our loved ones and in the habits we undertake when tackling our goals. They are even sometimes in our bizarre rituals and lucky charms.
Fascinating, entertaining and full of original insights and tips, Chatter will change the conversations you have with yourself forever, and help you lead a happier, more productive life.
Completely fascinating... it's already changed my life
—— Chris EvansAre there right and wrong ways to communicate with yourself, and if so, are there techniques that might usefully be employed by those with inner voices that are just a little too loud?...Kross has found answers to some, if not all, of these questions...[Chatter] could hardly be published at a more opportune moment.
—— Rachel Cooke, The GuardianFresh and riveting, Chatter is a masterpiece-a landmark book that will change the way you think about human nature. Ethan Kross is one part sage, one part mensch, and one part world-class psychological scientist. When I need advice, it's Ethan I call. Now, through Chatter, everyone has a chance to learn about their inner voice from among the wisest people I know. Required reading for all.
—— Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of GritSo accessible and informative - a fantastic addition to our understanding of our mind, and how it emphatically changes our day for good or bad.
—— Julia Samuel, psychotherapist and bestselling author of Grief Works and This Too Shall PassEthan Kross isn't just a world-renowned scientist, he's an expert storyteller too. In Chatter, he shows why our inner voice is indispensable, and reveals how we can master it. Urgent, lucid, and compelling, Chatter is the groundbreaking and transformative book the world needs now.
—— Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Quiet and Quiet PowerI've demonstrated throughout my career how negative thoughts can spiral and undermine people's success. In Chatter, Ethan Kross weaves cutting-edge science with riveting stories to reveal the tools people can use to manage these experiences. Chatter is a truly compelling and valuable book.
—— Carol Dweck, author of MindsetChatter isn't just thought provoking - it's thought transforming.
—— Apple Books ReviewThis book is going to fundamentally change some of the most important conversations in your life - the ones you have with yourself. Along with being a pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist, Ethan Kross is an unusually gifted writer and storyteller. He shows that instead of trying to silence your monkey mind, you can learn to educate it, motivate it, and even reason with it.
—— Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option BI talk to myself. And so do you. Yet this remarkable capacity for introspection can sometimes lead us astray. Ethan Kross has written the definitive work on how to redirect our inner voices away from rumination and self-criticism and toward reflection and self-improvement. Chatter is a profound and practical book-one that will leave you with both a fresh understanding of yourself and new strategies to live a fuller life.
—— Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drive, To Sell is Human, and WhenStimulating . . . Kross, the director of the University of Michigan's Emotion & Self Control Laboratory, debuts with an eye-opening look at managing 'the silent conversations people have with themselves'.
—— Publishers Weekly (starred review)[A] fascinating narrative, fluidly written and packed with insight. . . . [Kross] shows us how we might have better chats with ourselves, ones that make us happier, healthier, and more productive. . . . A book that will truly change minds.
—— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Ethan is a deep and original thinker and a thorough, always thought-provoking researcher. He's one of the psychologists whose work I always read whenever I see his name.
—— Maria Konnikova, bestselling author of The Biggest BluffA practical, useful guide to quieting one's inner noise.
—— BooklistEthan Kross illuminates and solves the crucial issue of mastering self-talk in this modern classic. Compulsively readable and refreshingly original, Chatter will help you win the argument with yourself.
—— Dave Evans, bestselling author of Designing Your Life*Best books of January 2021
—— Apple Books*10 books to read in January 2021
—— Washington Post*A notable book of 2021
—— Behavioral Scientist*Best new wellness books of January 2021
—— Shape MagazineA must-read... sharp, funny, it chronicles all of the big decisions a woman is expected to make between the ages of 25-40: where to live, if they should marry, what to do with one's career. And that other biggie: to have a baby or not.
—— Culture WhisperAb-definingly funny, The Panic Years captures the female experience perfectly. Discussing all of the large, looming decisions women have to make between their late 20s and early 40s, this is a must-read.
—— ES MagazineOffers advice and feminist learnings on how to survive when it feels like everyone around you is becoming a parent.
—— CosmopolitanWise, perceptive and refreshingly open...a memoir that feels inherently personal to womanhood and what being a woman means.
—— CultureflyA must read. Timely, honest, brave and funny calling for a new kind of conversation about love, work and parenthood.
—— Daily MailBracingly honest...big-hearted... [and] page-turningly compelling
—— Holly Williams , ObserverSome Body To Love is an honest and thoughtful memoir that touches on difficult contemporary topics . . . Incredibly moving and very, very powerfu
—— MonocleA powerful treatise on pain and love, this is an honest, moving and authentic examination of the end of a relationship, and the way our lives can fracture and recover from sudden, seismic shifts. Heminsley's writing is sharply resonant - you don't have to share her experiences to be struck by her observations about letting go with love, and how we can find strength in self-love too
—— SheerLuxe, *Books of the Year*Energetic, dark and hilarious. Paris Lees, with her loud and proud sense of self, is set to explode.. if you read one book this summer, make it What It Feels Like for a Girl... radically cool, explosive and riotous ... long may Lees' voice shine neon bright
—— Shivani Kochnar , The Daily MailLike Alan Sillitoe on acid... it's got to be a film. I've never read anything like it.
—— Vicky McClureRaw and original
—— Elle MagazineExtraordinary, riotous, furiously unique, moving and funny, What It Feels Like for a Girl is a deeply important book as well as being a fantastic read
—— Elizabeth DayClever, gripping, messy, sad. I loved it.
—— Travis AlabanzaSadness and joy also go hand-in-hand in What It Feels Like for a Girl, an exuberant account of Paris Lees's tearaway teenage years in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, where "the streets are paved wi' dog shit". Her gender nonconformity is just one aspect of an adolescence that also features bullying, violence, prostitution, robbery and a spell in a young offenders' institute. Yet despite the many traumas, Lees finds joy and kinship in the underground club scene and a group of drag queens who cocoon her in love and laughter.
—— Fiona Sturges , The Guardian, Best Books of 2021Bold and compulsively readable... She writes with humour about heartbreakingly harrowing moments while simultaneously capturing the dazzling joy of Nottingham nightlife and the importance of finding those who accept you for who you truly are
—— Emma Hanson , Harper's Bazaar, memoirs and autobiographies to be inspired by