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Oliver Burkeman: Epidemics of Modern Life
Oliver Burkeman: Epidemics of Modern Life
Jan 14, 2026 11:57 AM

Author:Oliver Burkeman,Oliver Burkeman,Various

Oliver Burkeman: Epidemics of Modern Life

Oliver Burkeman's guides to leading a better life in an age of confusion

Journalist and author Oliver Burkeman is well-known for his long-running Guardian column, 'How to Change Your Life', and has written three bestselling books on happiness, productivity and time management. In this radio collection, he looks at four central ills of modernity - busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity and the decline of nuance. Talking to a range of experts, he discovers how these problems became so widespread, and how we can go about tackling them.

In Addicted to Busy (first broadcast as Oliver Burkeman is Busy), Oliver explores why we all feel so busy nowadays, asking whether we've talked ourselves into feeling overwhelmed, and if our problem might not be lack of time, but lack of bandwidth. Could the solution lie not in working harder, but in indulging in a little idleness?

The Power of Negative Thinking sees Oliver examining the virtues of negativity. Asking why 'thinking yourself happy' can so often have the opposite effect, he probes the ways in which negative visualisation can achieve positive results; considers the phenomenon of hedonic adaptation; ponders whether workplace fun is ever a good idea; and wonders whether confronting our own mortality could make us happier. And in a special one-off episode, The Impostor's Survival Guide, he inquires why so many of us spend our working lives feeling like a fraud. Where do these feelings come from, and what can be done about them?

In Why Are We So Angry?, Oliver attempts to understand why we are frequently so full of fury. Explaining how anger gave humans an evolutionary edge, he divulges how companies today profit from our outrage; investigates how anger can be essential for social change; learns how to manage rage in a healthy way; and asks if the future will become ever more angry, or if there's a point where our anger will finally break.

Finally, in The Death of Nuance, he looks at how nuance is vanishing from public discourse. He discovers that our brains are wired for snap decisions, and that language can limit our capacity for nuanced thought - depending on how we choose to use it. He also considers how to open minds through moderation; explores how society has become polarised across political divides and reveals how to restore nuance and evolve our thinking in a changing world.

Production credits

Presented by Oliver Burkeman

Produced by Peter McManus

Addicted to Busy: Why Life Has Got So Hectic first broadcast as Oliver Burkeman is Busy, BBC Radio 4, 12-16 September 2016

With Maria Popova, Tony Crabbe, Jonathan Gershuny, Brigid Schulte, Stephanie Brown, Dan Ariely, David Drever and his team, Eldar Shafir, Mark Cropley, Andrew Smart, Tom Hodgkinson

The Power of Negative Thinking first broadcast BBC Radio 4, 21-25 November 2016

With Gabriele Oettingen, Russ Harris, Jim Trodden, Derrick Jensen, Peter Congdon, Carol Barraclough, Kelsang Zamling, Kiera Lawlor, Ian Bogost, Marcus Coates, Josefine Speyer, Rebecca Green

Why Are We So Angry? first broadcast BBC Radio 4, 17 October-14 November 2018

With Ryan Martin, Aaron Sell, Maya Tamir, Mark Vernon, Charlie Beckett, Molly Crockett, Tobias Rose-Stockwell, Martin Boyce, Brett Ford, Martha C. Nussbaum

The Death of Nuance first broadcast BBC Radio 4, 28 December 2020-1 January 2021

With Kevin Dutton, Susan Neiman, Tim Lomas, Naomi Baron, Damon Linker, Daniel Ravner, Robert B. Talisse, Poppy Noor, Richard Holloway

© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Reviews

Praise for The Bridge Kingdom - Heart-pounding romance and intense action wrapped in a spellbinding world. I was hooked from the first page!

—— Elise Kova, USA Today bestselling author of A Deal with the Elf King

An epic, action-packed tale of love, revenge, and betrayal

—— Jennifer Estep, New York Times bestselling author of Kill the Queen

Exquisite, phenomenal, and sexy, The Bridge Kingdom is the epitome of fantasy romance perfection. I adored Jensen's world and characters. Aren and Lara were magnificent individually and together, a couple you'll root for from beginning to end

—— Oliva Wildenstein, USA Today bestselling author of Feather

Praise for Danielle Jensen - Richly-woven, evocative and absolutely impossible to put down . . . I loved every word

—— Sarah J. Maas bestselling author of, A Court of Thorns and Roses

Richly-woven, evocative, and absolutely impossible to put down - I was hooked from the first lines! Dark Shores has everything I look for in a fantasy novel: fresh, unique settings, a cast of complex and diverse characters, and an unflinching boldness with the nuanced world-building. I loved every word

—— Sarah J. Maas

The book grabs readers from the beginning with its stellar world-building and multidimensional characters

—— Kirkus Reviews

Stunning world-building, a vivid cast of secondary characters, and a steamy slow-burn romance between two exceedingly competent and compelling heroes. Dark Shores is not one to miss

—— Booklist

What makes The Furrows so thrilling is its ability to constantly surprise and keep us on the edge of our seats. But its real brilliance rests in Namwali Serpell's bold and audacious refusal to allow the complicated layers of guilt and grief to remain unexplored. In this spectacular and genre-bending book, she has permanently shifted the ground beneath us, and where we stand by the end is in a new place where mourning and longing and sensuality not only exist at once, but transform into something revelatory, and perhaps even healing

—— Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King

The furrows of grief, in Namwali Serpells's telling, are a surreal and hypnotic fantasy. This book reads like a ghost story, a murder mystery, a thriller, a redemptive love story that never loses its knife edge of danger. A daring and masterful book about how we respond to the mystery of death

—— Kiran Desai, author of The Inheritance of Loss

Namwali Serpell has written a stunning and highly original novel exploring the erotic shadow-life of grief. In Serpell's hands, longing becomes a story of uncanny repetition, and the logic of dreams feels intensely, compellingly real

—— Isabella Hammad, author of The Parisian

Beautifully written... it blew me away

—— Zoe Wicomb, author of Still Life

Namwali Serpell's gift soars...She takes pain and loss and cooks up a storm. Currents of grief, guilt and greed are unpicked with ruthless precision. . . The Furrows establishes her as a literary powerhouse

—— Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, author of The First Woman

Grief is dogged company. It shapeshifts and proliferates, hijacking thoughts and ravaging sleep. But Namwali Serpell's riveting prose urges me to believe that sometimes the true work of grief is to rupture us so thoroughly, we become capable of telling--and living--another story

—— Tracy K. Smith, poet and author of Ordinary Light

The Furrows is a deeply felt novel that deserves to be read. So eloquent and assured that I easily fell into this sweeping, gut-wrenching tale of loss, grief, and identity

—— Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun

Brilliant... A heart-racing, heart-wrenching stunner that sizzles, with complex questions floating under the thrilling story. This is a novel not to be missed

—— Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of Heads of the Colored People

The Furrows is a triumph, a book that succeeds brilliantly in reconfiguring and retuning itself in pursuit of its essential subject. In this novel of grief, time flows, stretches, collapses, bends, stutters, and echoes, responsive, as it must be, to loss. Namwali Serpell narrates with an acute awareness of what resists and eludes conventional narration, producing a story that is wonderfully unpredictable, arresting, haunting

—— Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky Man

If The Old Drift was an epic effort to outdo Marquez and Rushdie, this slippery yet admirably controlled novel aspires to outdo Toni Morrison, and it earns the comparison. It's deeply worthy of rereading and debate. Stylistically refreshing and emotionally intense, cementing Serpell's place among the best writers going

—— Kirkus

[Serpell captures] the child's-eye perspective with great flair...along with the secrecy and judgement of the adult world

—— Times Literary Supplement

An endlessly innovative and deeply moving exploration of grief and family

—— White Review, *Books of the Year*

Highly accomplished

—— London Review of Books

This raw and powerful read shows Carrie growing and learning, about herself as much as others. Though she's an abrasive character, readers will cheer her on every step of the way

—— Sunday Express

TJR is surely the queen of escapist fiction

—— Sunday Telegraph

This top-rank tale of beating the odds is full of heart and breezy charm

—— Metro

Altogether, it makes for a gripping and engaging read about a woman persevering against all odds, recognising your limits and knowing when to push back. As well as a complex and nuanced character study, Carrie Soto is Back offers its readers a warm-hearted story of the love between a father and a daughter, as well a tender journey of learning how to love yourself and open up to others too. Between the action-packed tennis matches, Carrie's emotional reckoning and the wider commentary of women having to continuously fight for recognition in male-dominated fields, Taylor Jenkins Reid has crafted another compelling novel that effortlessly draws in readers and will no doubt keep them thinking about Carrie Soto long after they turn the final page

—— Culturefly

At times, her prose is so engaging that you feel as though you are waiting on the baseline while Soto gets ready to serve an unstoppable ace

—— Independent (Ireland)

In Carrie Soto is Back, as at Flushing Meadows this and next month, there are great rivalries, millions of dollars and legacies on the line. Letting go cuts deep. But, boy, there is glamour

—— Tatler

The author has created another heroine we can't quite work out whether we like, but we're rooting for her anyway because she's fabulous

—— Woman's Weekly

Another delectable slice of escapism drama

—— Living North

Pacy, propulsive and utterly immersive, you're going to want to read this

—— Elle

Taylor has done it again . . . a brilliant and dynamic book about what it means to be an ambitious woman- for better or for worse

—— Woman

With a wonderfully complex character, a world you can't help being seduced by, and an important message about it never being too late, TJR has served up another ace

—— Heat

Frank, funny and emotional

—— Marie Claire

A fascinatingly realistic look into the world of elite sports where driven and flawed characters' private lives are just as intriguing and controversial as they are on the court

—— Business Post

This is a well-researched, exciting and genuinely tender book

—— RTÉ
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