The Power of Fun

How to Feel Alive Again

By: Catherine Price

Narrated by: Catherine Price

Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

If you’re not having fun, you’re not fully living. The author of How to Break Up with Your Phone makes the case that, far from being frivolous, fun is actually critical to our well-being—and shows us how to have more of it.

“This delightful book might just be what we need to start flourishing.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant

Journalist and screen/life balance expert Catherine Price argues persuasively that our always-on, tech-addicted lifestyles have led us to obsess over intangible concepts such as happiness while obscuring the fact that real happiness lies in the everyday experience of fun. We often think of fun as indulgent, even immature and selfish. We claim to not have time for it, even as we find hours a day for what Price calls Fake Fun—bingeing on television, doomscrolling the news, or posting photos to social media, all in hopes of filling some of the emptiness we feel inside.

In this follow-up to her hit book, How to Break Up with Your Phone, Price makes the case that True Fun—which she defines as the magical confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow—will give us the fulfillment we so desperately seek. If you use True Fun as your compass, you will be happier and healthier. You will be more productive, less resentful, and less stressed. You will have more energy. You will find community and a sense of purpose. You will stop languishing and start flourishing. And best of all? You’ll enjoy the process.

Weaving together scientific research with personal experience, Price reveals the surprising mental, physical, and cognitive benefits of fun, and offers a practical, personalized plan for how we can achieve better screen/life balance and attract more True Fun into our daily lives—without feeling overwhelmed.

Groundbreaking, eye-opening, and packed with useful advice, The Power of Fun won’t just change the way you think about fun. It will bring you back to life.

©2021 Catherine Price (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“If you feel like modern adulthood has sucked the fun out of your life, you’ll find hope in these pages. With clarity and levity, Catherine Price illuminates why our days are so dull—and how we can have more play and more joy.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

“This is a practical, evidence-backed plan for how to create True Fun in our lives, and an argument that fun isn’t optional, but essential.”—Charles Duhigg, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

”Building on the central idea of How to Break Up With Your Phone—that our lives are what we pay attention to—The Power of Fun takes things a step further by helping us identify what we want to pay attention to, with the ultimate goal of helping us to feel more alive. Inspirational, funny, research-packed, and full of practical strategies, The Power of Fun is a game-changer.”—Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global

Lots of fun and delight to live and share.

“Fun isn’t just the result of human thriving, it’s the cause of it.” Honestly- one of the better “self-help” books I’ve listened to in a long while. It is a bit gloom and doom for a little bit in the beginning, but it helps understand the power that fun can have in your life.

Brilliant!

I loved every minute! I have been enjoying noticing “delight!” and recognizing fun when it happens. Now that I know the components of fun, I look for fun everyday. I’m so grateful to have found this book. It’s already making my life more fun and I’m noticing my family having more fun too. Thanks for the sunshine!

Incredibly inspiring and actionable

I devoured this book! buying the hard copy to go deeper and make fun a priority again.

Honest reflection on living your life to the fullest

Great reflections on a very good topic and her delivery makes for enjoyable listening, so a very worthy read or listen

Basically get off phone

The word happiness is being replaced with the word fun.

Basically we are constantly distracted by our phone..

Get off it.

Great combination of real life examples and academics

As someone that is addicted to phone (it’s just that darn Youtube!) AND couldn’t quite figure out where the fun went in my life, this book really helped me figure it out. I really appreciated the whole breaking down of the concepts and what is needed for fun to even exist. Author is so right. Author’s tying together real life experiences to the research done by others really brings the concepts to life. I loved the book and it encourages me to get out there in the world and try new things!

Excellent book!!

I’m so happy I listened to this book. I learned lots of strategies to improve my own happiness and the happiness of those around me.

Practical ways to engage in fun

Great read to expand my emotional intelligence. Provided practical ways to engage in fun and cultivate it.

Good practical advice for those of us who’ve lost our zest

The advice was sound. It was backed by plenty of evidence and support. Lots of great anecdotes to keep the reader entertained. You will get something good out of it.

The main critique I have was really it was longer than it really needed to be. Reading a book about fun is only kind of fun and certainly not true fun so let’s break it down and get right to it!

I still greatly appreciate the work that Catherine put into this book and how it will affect my life going forward.

Well written and impactful

Price does a great job of weaving personal narrative with research and first-person interviews and research to compile a practical handbook to building more fun into your life. I found a lot of value in this book and recommend it to anyone who feels like it’s hard to answer the question, “what do i do for fun?”