Any Ordinary Day

Blindsides, Resilience and What Happens After the Worst Day of Your Life

By: Leigh Sales

Narrated by: Leigh Sales

The day that turns a life upside down usually starts like any other, but what happens the day after?
Dual Walkley Award-winner Leigh Sales investigates how ordinary people endure the unthinkable.

As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of the media. But one particular string of bad news stories - and a terrifying brush with her own mortality - sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event.

What are our chances of actually experiencing one? What do we fear most and why? And when the worst does happen, what comes next?

In this wise and layered book, Leigh talks intimately with people who've faced the unimaginable.

From terrorism to natural disaster to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Expecting broken lives, she instead finds strength, hope, even humour.

Leigh brilliantly condenses the cutting-edge research on the way the human brain processes fear and grief, and poses the questions we too often ignore out of awkwardness. Along the way, she offers an unguarded account of her own challenges and what she's learned about coping with life's unexpected blows.

Warm, candid and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don't know we have.

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'Warm, wise and humble.' ANNA FUNDER
'Masterfully written, revelatory and genuinely uplifting.' BETTER READING
'Asks questions most of us would only dare to think.' THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD©2018 Leigh Sales (P)2018 Penguin Random House Australia

An Important and Comforting REad

Leigh Sales has covered all the bases in this book. This is a book every journalist should read in order to learn how to ask the important questions with empathy and without fear. For everyone else, this is a book about how people survive tragedy in the true sense of the word. Leigh Sales interviews are insightful and uplifting. This could have been a very depressing read. Instead, it fills readers full of hope and confidence that they will be able to get through the worse events in their lives and even find beauty in them. I loved Sales' narration. It truly made the book more meaningful to have her voice narrate it.

Beautiful and Timely

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. I particularly enjoyed the journey that author and narrator, Leigh Sales, took in the compiling and writing of this book. The arc from sceptic to optimist (well, almost) was inspiring, and the courageously authentic perspectives Sales’ interviewees shared about their experiences inspired true hope.
I liked this book. I rather enjoyed the accidental editing mishaps that included Sales’ intermittent sips of tea. They only added to the authenticity of the subject matter for mine. I will recommend this book to many.
Thanks Leigh, for your bravery and exceptional journalistic skills! Truly stunning ;)

Thank you Leigh!

Captivating, moving, honest and real. Thank you Leigh for you insightfullness and gentle, thought provoking delivery. Thank you for giving perspective to the unthinkable.

Interesting & thought provoking.

Leigh has tackled a topic that I think we probably all have wondered about as we go through life, certainly I have - how do people make it through the unthinkable? Would I be able to if needed to. Leigh looks to research and the experiences of her own and others to explore this topic. An exceptional journalist, Leigh brings a real human element which I enjoyed. I don’t often re listen, but I think I will this one.

A must-read for everyone

I can't recommend this highly enough. There are lessons for everyone from every walk of life in this book.

One of the best books I've ever read

Leigh Sales does not leave a stone unturned. Her journalist curiosity and thoroughness, her analytical skills, combined with honesty, empathy, and a wonderful writing, make a great book and a must read to - well - all humans.

Well written and interesting.

Personal stories of truth and wisdom about how many have worked through lives greatest challenges.
Anecdotes for how best to walk with them or what to expect ourselves if ever faced with one of these events. Good read.

Tedious listening

I thought this book could be interesting however it was like listening to 7:30 report with some extra explanations about reporting.

Leigh’s attempts at philosophising tragic events and ‘fear’ became overbearing and too complicated. Life is simple and accepting things as they happen is Life.

I could only listen to a few chapters and although I am curious to see if Leigh changes in later chapters I don’t think I could endure anymore repeated news stories and explanations.

Sorry Leigh, you have a ways to go...

Leigh not the best choice to narrate

I love Leigh’s work as an anchor for ABC and see a lot of interest and value in the content of this book, but getting Leigh to read her own work here was a bad call. Her delivery: neutral, dispassionate and paced for a short time-limit is absolutely perfect for television journalism, but is so wrong for book narration. An actor could have brought much-needed warmth and modulated pacing and made this more listenable for me. A shame. And the microphone picks up Every. Single. Swallow.
Surely a sound sound recordist could’ve fixed this distraction. Did Leigh record this herself?