The Road to Character
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The Road to Character
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Morey
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David Brooks
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By:
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David Brooks
About this listen
Penguin presents the unabridged downloadable audiobook edition of The Road to Character by David Brooks, read by Arthur Morey and David Brooks.
Number one New York Times best seller
In The Road to Character, David Brooks, best-selling author of The Social Animal and New York Times columnist, explains why selflessness leads to greater success.
We all possess two natures. One focuses on external success: wealth, fame, status and a great career. The other aims for internal goodness, driven by a spiritual urge not only to do good but to be good - honest, loving and steadfast. The inner self doesn't seek happiness superficially defined; it seeks emotional commitments without counting the cost and a deeper moral joy. Individuals and societies thrive when a general balance is struck between these two imperatives, but we live in a culture that encourages us to think about the external side of our nature rather than the inner self. We hanker for praise instead of following our hearts, and we self-promote rather than confront our weaknesses.
In this urgent and eye-opening audiobook, David Brooks asks us to confront the meaning of true fulfilment. A famous columnist for The New York Times and a best-selling author, Brooks found himself living in a shallow mode. For years he remained focused on getting ahead and reaping the rewards for his efforts, placing his career before his character.
Finding himself at a crossroads, Brooks sought out men and women who embodied the moral courage he longed to experience. Citing an array of history's greatest thinkers and leaders - from St. Augustine and George Eliot to Dwight Eisenhower and Samuel Johnson - he traces how they were able to face their weaknesses and transcend their flaws. Each one of them chose to embrace one simple but counterintuitive truth: in order to fulfil yourself, you must learn how to forget yourself.
An elegant interweaving of politics, spirituality and psychology, The Road to Character proves that it is how we want to be remembered - and not what we put on our CVs - that truly matters.
©2016 David Brooks (P)2016 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about The Road to Character
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- maciekk
- 30-11-16
a few stories that shifted my mindset
in the times of 'I' I read about times when 'Them' was important and 'I' was out of focus
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Ash
- 23-11-22
Average
Bit longwinded - lots of examples but no real solutions on character building so it’s okay
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David Mansfield
- 20-07-19
Remarkable compendium of wisdom
Brooks has managed to synthesize the essence of a good life without marginalizing the religious, nor glorifying the secular. I found it a very helpful review of my own journey and a worthy textbook on how to improve in character and humility as I travel on. Great precursor to his excellent ‘Second Mountain’.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- S. Evans
- 30-10-17
A wonderful book and beautifully read.
A very profound and meditative experience, much to think about. I expect to return to the book and buy a copy too.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 27-08-18
could be reduced to first and last paragraphs
opening and closing paragraphs worth reading. very boring and struggled to get through the rest however.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- A. S. Wade
- 08-02-18
Good but rambling
I Liked the gist but overlong and a bit rambling. There were some standout character biographies which I found fascinating including Augustine but difficult to remember all others. Found it hard at points to understand where he was going. summary at end is good and ties things up well.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Andrew Hanton
- 15-10-19
set of interesting biographies
really enjoyed the diversity of characters, whose lives are all remarkable. fascinating tales of trials and living with oneself
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Long distance runner from the UK
- 19-09-23
Turgid traditionalist waste of time
I picked this up from a list of top books and I tried to stick it out I really did but it is just absolutely awful.
It has very little point, a seemingly random selection of largely uninteresting people to use as examples and this horrible undercurrent of conservative, religious, traditional values.
So and so did X, so and so had a challenge, so and so overcame challenge by a good old belief in never feeling any emotions, getting no pleasure from life, by being religious and "moral". This is a traditionalists wet dream of how everyone should be and act. You can hear in every chapter the unsaid "everything used to be better, why can't we just go back to the good old days"
The message is basically if you want to have "character" subdue everything, take no pleasure in life, be devoutly religious, stubborn and steadfast, and you will be moral and everything will be good.
I stuck with it hoping to see how it made it on to the list of recommended books but I just couldn't make it to the end. I realised that there was not a single ounce of care about anything that was being said.
On top of that the narrater should win an award for best sleep aid. This is turgid, uninteresting and badly read.
This might be the road to character in the 1940s but do yourself a favour and avoid.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Geraint
- 13-05-17
Overpromises
Sounds like it will be something more general, but quickly descends into religious gobbledegook. Two stars because at least the biographies were competent enough and covered a reasonable variety, even if they were very US-centric. The reading is also very slow; I rarely listen at high speed but this required 1.5x or quicker to be bearable.
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5 people found this helpful