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Heartbreak

A Personal and Scientific Journey

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

For fans of Wild and Lab Girl, Heartbreak is a uniquely immersive audiobook, merging science and self-discovery to change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love. 


When her twenty-five-year marriage unexpectedly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. What she doesn't expect is that she'll end up in the hospital, examining close-up the way our cells listen to loneliness. She travels to the frontiers of the science of "social pain" to learn why heartbreak hurts so much and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong. 


In Williams's search for insight as well as personal strategies to game her way back to health, she tries it all–and listeners can hear it all–including exclusive (astonishing) bonus material from Williams's most intimate moments: live and unscripted therapy sessions, gabfests with girlfriends, and the making and breaking of new romantic relationships. Join her in the laboratory as she tests her blood for genetic markers of grief, hear every sound of the wilderness as she searches for awe as an antidote to loneliness, and be a fly on the wall as she is guided through psilocybin and MDMA therapy. 


Narrated by the author and accompanied by in-the-moment diary recordings and interviews, Heartbreak is an immersive audiobook that taps into one of the most shared experiences in the animal kingdom: heartbreak. 

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Journalist Florence Williams intertwines journal entries, conversations with experts and friends, therapy sessions, and the sounds of nature to provide an honest and intriguing description of the phenomenon of heartbreak. She candidly shares her own heartbreaking journey after her twenty-five-year marriage ends, particularly as she starts noticing the physical effects of the breakup on her own body. Vulnerable and refreshingly human, Williams provides helpful scientific information and relatable stories about heartache, which she pieces together to convey how grief can take a toll on a person and how to heal that damage. Engaging and gentle in her approach, Williams explains with honesty and courage the wisdom that can be learned from love lost and loneliness. D.Z. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 6, 2021
      “Much has been written about the science of falling in love, but very little about what happens on the other side,” writes journalist Williams (The Nature Fix) in this show-stopping, offbeat story about the science of heartbreak. Deciding to unravel “what the heck had happened to the woman I used to be” after her 25-year marriage ended, and aiming to understand how “heartbreak changes our neurons, our bodies, and our sense of ourselves,” Williams visits psychologists, geneticists, and others researching emotion and behavior. She cites studies showing divorce to be a greater health risk than smoking; hears about experiments on monogamous prairie voles, in which those separated from their partners produce more stress hormones; and learns about “broken-heart syndrome,” the symptoms of which are similar to a heart attack. Along the way, she fills out reams of health evaluations and tries dozens of healing methods, including taking Ecstasy (she hallucinates becoming a tree and her ex-husband “a strangler fig”) and a solo whitewater rafting trip (“I was flowing away from the broken bad lands of my marriage”). Unflagging research—she even flies to London to interview Britain’s first “minister of loneliness”—and the author’s vulnerability make for an impressive and moving survey. This is a courageous, whirlwind tale of healing and self-discovery.

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  • English

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