Stories We Tell Ourselves

Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe

By: Richard Holloway

Narrated by: Richard Holloway

Throughout history we have told ourselves stories to try and make sense of what it all means: our place in a small corner of one of billions of galaxies, at the end of billions of years of existence. In this new book Richard Holloway takes us on a personal, scientific and philosophical journey to explore what he believes the answers to the biggest of questions are. He examines what we know about the universe into which - without any choice in the matter - we are propelled at birth and from which we are expelled at death, the stories we have told about where we come from and the stories we tell to get through this muddling experience of life.

Thought-provoking, revelatory, compassionate and playful, Stories We Tell Ourselves is a personal reckoning with life's mysteries by one of the most important and beloved thinkers of our time.

©2020 Richard Holloway (P)2020 Canongate Books Ltd

Highly recommend

This is the second book by this author i have read, and I will find a third. This was denser than the first, I found I had to rewind key topics, but very much worth it. I will go back and listen to it again. For anyone interested in religion, regardless of your faith, this is a must listen. And the fact he reads it himself, only adds to it.

Balm for a Weary Soul

I needed this book so much. Richard's kindness, compassion, and thoughtfulness quieted my heart for the first time in months. Thank you.

Validating

Mr. Holloway’s thoughts are much like my own. We are just dopey primates with anxiety searching for meaning. We are the virus we suffer from. So if you are so inclined to need meaning for it all, just pick a story you like that explains it to you, harm none, and be kind.

A rather enlightening into living

This book is a rather enlightening look into the stories we tell ourselves and how an agnostic person still finds a way to be a Christian. I feel rather sympathetic to the author. facing the delema of being a Christian and not, but not commiting to either.

A good book for those wondering about religion, Christ, and atheism through an interesting lense.

thank you for your story.

I have been in a kind of a bad head space for awhile. I'm usually open minded about what a believe but i got myself to a point were nothing mattered. i just want to say your book helped me get back to a good place were a feel I can be happy with the story I tell myself.

A great book for the agnostically curious

I would recommend this book. If you have a lot of questions about the modern day church that seem to be frowned upon or looked down upon. This book gives you the permission and the space to ask those questions and evaluate them without the persecution and judgment of formal Christianity.

If you don’t have those questions already, I wouldn’t recommend beginning this book if you’re comfortable in an established Christian faith. I think all this book can offer you is doubts and stress.

The book is well written and insightful, and I would recommend it with the exception mentioned above.

Effortlessly profound

I have read several of the authors books and he has become a bit of a guide for me personally so I start this review from that perspective.

But I think that regardless of your own starting point, this book does help you arrive closer to wherever the end point of your own personal journey.

The fact that it’s read by the author helps with the nuance and meaning and also it’s more convincing when he says that he is not trying to sway you with his thoughts; in fact, you feel like you are sitting in on one of his own verbal reflections, a bystander to one of his streams of consciousness.

I will reread as I do all his books after a period of time to derive additional meanings but his summary chapter is enough for a top up.

A great story

This is undoubtedly one of the stories we should all tell ourselves (or rather have the author tell us)