The Stories of Your Life

The Eight Masterplots That Explain Human Behaviour

Ben Ambridge

$46.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

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English

Macmillan
10 December 2024

Sociolinguistics; Popular culture; Neurosciences; Popular psychology

""A fascinating, entertaining and deeply smart journey into the storytelling brain"" - Will Storr, bestselling author of The Status Game and The Science of Storytelling

""Life - and the quite appalling behaviour of everyone I know - finally makes sense. Read this remarkable book"" - Andrew Gold, author of The Psychology of Secrets and host of Heretics

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We understand the world through stories. All of our experiences, all of our insights - psychologically, we interpret them through specific lenses that have been curated, perfected and passed down throughout human history. Internationally bestselling author Professor Ben Ambridge has quantified those lenses into eight distinct masterplots that can apply to any experience.

The mother who wakes up an hour early every day to prep her child's breakfast? She's playing out the Sacrifice plot. The amateur sports team who go on to win the big trophy against all the odds? They're part of the Underdog narrative.

Ambridge uses examples from fiction, real life, and popular psychology research to demonstrate how we not only naturally gravitate towards the masterplot narratives, but how we actually use those narratives to manipulate the world around us - like the addict who uses the Monster plot to paint their illness as something to overcome, or the boxer who relies on the Revenge narrative to motivate themselves to fight their way back after an embarrassing defeat.

These masterplots do more for us than to help us understand the world; they're vehicles through which humans have survived. The Stories of Your Life shares fascinating lessons about the nature of humanity, the power of psychology and - most importantly - the way we see ourselves.

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""Stories are essential for human beings - they allow us to learn, to connect, to empathize. The best stories follow structures that catalyze and amplify their power. Ambridge expertly decodes and deciphers these masterplots so we can all benefit and grow"" - Matt Abrahams, author of Think Faster Talk Smarter and host of Think Fast, Talk Smart

By: Ben Ambridge
Imprint: Macmillan
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 244mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 29mm
Weight: 488g
ISBN: 9781035018383
ISBN 10: 1035018381
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 10 December 2024
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Author Website: https://twitter.com/benambridge?lang=en

Ben Ambridge is Professor of Psycholinguistics at the University of Manchester and the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD). His first two books, Psy-Q: You Know Your IQ - Now Test Your Psychological Intelligence and Are You Smarter Than a Chimpanzee have sold over 100,000 copies across sixteen language editions. These books led to regular columns in The Observer and The Big Issue, appearances on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch, BBC Radio 2's Chris Evans Breakfast Show, the BBC's Tiny Happy People website, talks at Google, The Royal Institution, Oxford Literary Festival, Wilderness Festival and Bestival, and a TEDx talk, 'Nine Myths About Psychology', that has had over 3 million views. Ben's day job as a prolific researcher of experimental psycholinguistics keeps him up to date with findings from the psychology, linguistics and neuroscience literature; knowledge that will prove extremely valuable when undertaking a writing project at the intersection of these disciplines.

Reviews for The Stories of Your Life: The Eight Masterplots That Explain Human Behaviour

A fascinating, entertaining and deeply smart journey into the storytelling brain -- Will Storr, bestselling author of The Status Game and The Science of Storytelling Stories are essential for human beings. They allow us to learn, to connect, to empathize. The best stories follow structures that catalyze and amplify their power. In The Stories of Your Life, Ben Ambridge decodes and deciphers these master plots so we all can benefit and grow -- Matt Abrahams, author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter and host of Think Fast, Talk Smart Life - and the quite appalling behaviour of everyone I know - finally makes sense. Read this remarkable book -- Andrew Gold, author of The Psychology of Secrets and host of Heretics