Shankar Vedantam Audiobooks

Behavioural science as narrative in The Hidden Brain, by a broadcaster made for audio

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.4/5 average

596 listener ratings

Who is Shankar Vedantam?

Shankar Vedantam is an American journalist, writer and science correspondent whose beat is the strangest territory of all: the human mind and the social forces that steer it. His reporting concentrates on human behaviour and the social sciences – why people do what they do, especially when they do not realise they are doing it. It is journalism aimed at the machinery behind the news rather than the news itself.

He is best known for Hidden Brain, the banner under which his work spans a book, a podcast and a radio programme – a rare case of one idea finding its audience in every medium it tries.

Shankar Vedantam in audiobooks

Vedantam is that unusual thing: an author whose natural habitat is audio. Listeners who know his voice from radio and podcasting will find The Hidden Brain, the book in this catalogue, entirely at home in the medium – behavioural science delivered as narrative, built on his speciality, the reasons people do what they do and the reasons they cannot see.

For UK listeners it is ideal walking-pace non-fiction: one idea at a time, each unpacked with a journalist’s clarity, and each likely to explain at least one colleague, relative or personal habit by the time the chapter ends.