Author:Maureen Gaffney
WINNER OF THE AUDIENCE CHOICE IRISH BOOK AWARD 2021
Once you've got a few decades on the clock, life can seem sort of cross-roadsy. Once you're no longer thinking of yourself as 'young', you may be looking back, thinking 'How did I get here?' And also looking ahead, wondering: 'What do I do now?'
This realization that neither time nor choices are limitless is both daunting and exciting. This is the moment to take stock and figure out how to make the best of every precious moment of the rest of your life. And to develop the tools to be able to do so again and again.
Your One Wild and Precious Life is an eye-opening account of this surprisingly liberating process. Using the latest ground-breaking research, leading psychologist Maureen Gaffney has written an inspiring and practical guide for getting to grips with time. Taking the key stages of our life - from infancy to old age - she explores what we learn at each stage. And, crucially, she explains how, no matter what has happened in the past, and what age you are, you can find a better route forward.
Your One Wild and Precious Life is both profound and reassuring. It will transform your thinking, connect you with who you truly are and help you to reclaim control over your life. Crucially, it will empower you to face the future with optimism.
It is a book to fundamentally alter your relationship with time and show you that every age can be your best age.
'A profound, important work; simultaneously wise, instructive and a love letter to humanity' IRISH TIMES
'Fascinating and engaging' SUNDAY TIMES
'A must-read' IRISH DAILY MAIL
'[It] will transform your thinking' IRISH FARMERS JOURNAL
A profound, important work; simultaneously wise, instructive and a love letter to humanity . . . I recognised entire sections that seemed to have been written just for me . . . I don't think I've ever taken so many notes
—— Irish TimesA book I will keep by my bedside for ever
—— Deirdre O'Kane , Sunday TimesWarm, wise and immensely readable . . . peppered with insights and advice about how to become your best self
—— Irish Mail on SundaySolid and practical advice on how to navigate those tricky, hurdle-strewn years that lie between finishing the child-rearing and preparing oneself for dotage
—— Sunday IndependentA must-read
—— Irish Daily MailFascinating and engaging
—— Sunday TimesYour One Wild and Precious Life . . . will transform your thinking
—— Irish Farmers JournalIt reframed so much for me
—— Aoibhín GarrihyThe rotund nature of the work makes it feel like a foundational text, accessible to anyone who seeks to know more about themselves and something any trainee psychologist would enjoy. It astutely examines how attachments to people or patterns can speed up, stunt or spark our growth, and, most importantly, what we can do about it.
No matter where you locate yourself in this book there's an energy to the prose that makes it a fascinating read.
But if every love story is a ghost story, as David Foster Wallace says, then Gaffney's new book resurrects your original love story and the ghost that it conjures. She provides instructions on how to vanquish the past and understand connection, so a new cycle of living is possible.
This book is a powerful reminder that history does not have to dictate our future if we can, somehow, amid the chaos of life, listen now and again.
This book is a practical guide to making the most of our lives, within a revised framework, at every stage.
—— Anne Cunningham , The Anglo-CeltGaffney invariably gets to the core of things and always seems to talk to one directly. If she has a recipe for facing the next stage in life, it's going to be one worth trying
—— Orna Mulcahy , The GlossAn expertly organised tour through life
—— Irish TimesWhat will it be like to be trapped in Zuckerberg's Metaverse? This is a mind-bending yet lucid discussion of how we might still lead meaningful lives, even in a simulated world
—— The Telegraph Cultural Desk, Books of the Year , TelegraphIn a world stuffed with dangers of all scales, from microbial plagues to planet-smashing asteroids, might it be reassuring to know that we are all just software programs running on some vast alien computer simulation? The eminent Australian philosopher David J Chalmers addresses such sci-fi possibilities in Reality+ . Whether we are trapped in the Matrix or in Mark Zuckerberg's promised Metaverse, questions of what is real and how we might still lead flourishing lives are here discussed in mind-bending yet lucid fashion. The good news, according to Chalmers, is that a table made from digital ones and zeroes (if we are in VR or a simulation) is just as real as a table made from quantum wave-packets (assuming we live in the real world). That is, until a rock falls on it from space
—— Steven Poole, Books of the Year , TelegraphThe Australian philosopher David Chalmers made this name when he concluded that consciousness was the "Hard Problem". Everybody else had come up with various daft conclusions. But Chalmers, not being daft, said we had no idea what it was. Now he goes further: we don't know whether we are a computer simulation
—— Bryan Appleyard, Books of the Year , Sunday TimesChalmers posits that virtual reality will not only be commonplace, but it'll be as valid as our genuine reality. We'll interact with virtual objects, which will replace screen-based computing. We'll spend much of our lives in virtual environments - come the next pandemic, we might be hanging out in simulate worlds, not on Zoom
—— Rory Kiberd, Books of the Year , Irish TimesThe future, too, is the subject of David Chalmers's Reality +. Rather than scoffing at Mark Zuckerberg's metaversal adventures, Chalmers gives due consideration to what the rise of virtual worlds could mean for the real one-and whether, after a certain point, they'll even be distinguishable.
—— Books of the Year , ProspectChalmers is very clever because [in Reality+] he's managed to rehearse many of the key arguments that you would encounter in most philosophy courses, but through that lens of virtual reality... It genuinely is thought-provoking (or virtual thought-provoking). It's well-written too
—— Nigel Warburton, Books of the Year , Five BooksScull delivers a remarkable history of psychiatry. The final section is a devastatingly effective chronicle of the rise of psychopharmacology and its tendency to regard all mental illnesses as potentially treatable with the right medication. This sweeping and comprehensive survey is an impressive feat
—— Publishers WeeklyA carefully researched history of psychiatry, it provides a critical assessment of the psychiatric enterprise. In the rush to find cures for psychiatric illnesses, Scull believes that there has been a disappointing lack of focus on patients
—— Psychiatric NewsA compelling argument for why we should be doing less and doing it better... This comforting, calm book is filled with sensible, practical ideas
—— Independent, *Books of the Year*Burkeman offers practical solutions to problems that might otherwise seem too monolithic to disassemble
—— Emily Watkins , iOliver Burkeman's Guardian feature was called "This Column Will Change Your Life". The wisdom of this book could do the same
—— Julia Bueno , Times Literary Supplement[A] brilliant, comforting time-management guide
—— Stig Abell , Sunday TimesKind of cool
—— Jeff Bridges