Stop Reading the News cover art

Stop Reading the News

A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Stop Reading the News

By: Rolf Dobelli, Caroline Waight
Narrated by: Keith Wickham
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

News is to the mind as sugar is to the body.

In 2013 Rolf Dobelli stood in front of a room full of journalists and proclaimed that he did not read the news. It caused a riot. Now he finally sets down his philosophy in detail. And he practices what he preaches: he hasn't read the news for a decade.

Stop Reading the News is Dobelli's manifesto about the dangers of the most toxic form of information - news. He shows the damage it does to our concentration and well-being and how a misplaced sense of duty can misdirect our behaviour.

From the author of the best-selling The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli offers the listener guidance about how to live without news and the many potential gains to be had: less disruption, more time, less anxiety, more insights.

In a world of increasing disruption and division, Stop Reading the News is a welcome voice of calm and wisdom.

©2020 Piper Verlag GmbH (P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Art & Literature Journalists, Editors & Publishers Media Studies Social Sciences Thought-Provoking

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Bad News cover art
What's Our Problem? cover art
Fooled by Randomness cover art
The Madness of Crowds cover art
China's Civilian Army cover art
Good Decisions for Strange Situations cover art
Pseudowork cover art
The Creative's Curse cover art
What the Fact? cover art
Do Something cover art
The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" cover art
Free Your Mind cover art
The Sh*t They Never Taught You: What You Can Learn from Books cover art
You Are Not So Smart cover art
The Great Acceleration cover art
The Persuaders cover art

Critic reviews

Rolf Dobelli writes clearly, intelligently and convincingly (Gerhard Schroder)
Rolf Dobelli offers plenty of food for thought, and writes clearly - stimulating, amusing, brilliant (Dr Christoph Franz, former CEO of Lufthansa, Chairman of Roche)
Rolf Dobelli's works are informative, insightful, and accessible. In an age of celebrity ignoramuses, he is a true public intellectual. (Lou Marinoff, Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York)
All stars
Most relevant  
I am half way through this book and I think I understand the main ideas. With some of them I agree, however there is also plenty to dispute. The author briefly describes his path to the epiphany of abandoning the news and follows up by calling the reader to follow on his footsteps, listing the benefits of saving time and using it to read proper staff, such as books and in-depth analysis.


While I agree that most of the news are largely irrelevant to one's personal life, it doesn't mean that on a rare but important occasion the information conveyed won't be crucial, specially if you live in a large city. There might be an attack or a riot with the epicentre in your neighbourhood. A new computer virus might have been just discovered or a cloud of chemical waste blown towards your city. The stock market might be tumbling. Yes, you'll eventually hear about it from your friends (if you have friends) but it might be too late.


There is also entertainment value in the news. A person who ate a can of worms in Arizona is a far away freak, but he is still entertaining. Not everyone wants to work constantly on self improvement by reading scientific journals. Some people have plenty of time to spare on nonsense.


Most news is the brightly coloured rubbish sweets, the noise, which the book is convincingly demonstrating. Yet, the author assumes that his reader is a silly child in a sweet shop, while many of us are already adults with some concept of healthy eating.

Good insights but too much preaching

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I agree with almost everything said here. Consuming daily global and national news is making us a population of sick anxious, paranoid individuals that have fallen prey to learned helplessness. If you really want improve your life focus on actually taking action on a limited amount of issues you care enough about to deep dive into, and actually have time for. The only thing I disagreed with the author about was physical volunteering Vs giving money to charities . I give money to charities sparingly (I do the red cross, and small sporadic amounts to a few others), but generously volunteer my time with local charities and causes. The reason is I disagree with how many large charities spend money on six figure CEOs and chuggers (paid collectors who harass people on their doorstep and in the street). If I 'm directly involved with volunteering face to face, I get more of a sense of how the funds are being spent

Excellent! This book should be required reading in schools

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was anxious following news on the pandemic. After minimising news, I sleep better, enjoy going to supermarket again. Enjoy walks, cooking easy meals.

Very helpful to me in reducing Anxiety

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The book is pretty good, no doubt. A big issue is a book that is under 3 hours long (Closer to 2 hours for me as I listen to them at 1.5 speed) is the same price as other books that are far longer. Quantity doesn't always mean quality, I know. That being said I did enjoy the book even though I'm far from a "news junky" myself, it's interesting to hear from the perspective of someone that was once.

Not sure books this short really justify a credit

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have already stopped reading the news for a week now, or should I say listening to the today programme, watching ‘politics live’, endlessly checking the guardian and listening to PM and watching channel 4 news plus reading the times and telegraph and watching you tube clips. I knew I had a problem and this book has put the argument for leaving the news media cycle into a succinct and mostly well reasoned set of principles. Well worth reading even if you decide to carry on reading the news! He offers alternative ways of being informed and actually taking action rather than endlessly consuming news media and being a passive recipient.

Good stuff and well argued

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have known that The News and Mass Media are terribly unhealthy for quite a while now. This book just clarified why so. It's really a must read.

A Need Text

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Will only tailor to those who are not living in a bubble. No sheep required here !!!

Interesting and makes total sense.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A good read. I enjoyed this and it helped me to see things from several angles.

Interesting and challenging

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Anecdote, conflation, repetition, unsubstantiated claim, repetition, lists of headlines, repetition, and HUGE privilege. Don't waste your time.

Astounding privilege

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.