U-Turn: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living the Wrong Life?

Bruce Grierson

Bloomsbury Publishing USA, Mar 18, 2008 - Psychology - 352 pages

"Read this book for the tales it tells, for the inspiration it imparts, or for the knowledge it so generously gives." Lauren Slater, author of Welcome to My Country

In this impressively researched and incisive book, Bruce Grierson draws on over three hundred stories of so-called "U-turners," who have risked their livelihoods to answer a sudden wake-up call. We meet people who change political parties and careers, doctors who quit to become poets, men who become women, people who suddenly become revolutionaries for a cause they didn't care about the day before. In chapters that address everything from the neuroscience behind epiphanies to the possibility of "forcing" a U-turn, Grierson brilliantly describes and elucidates this powerful, mysterious phenomenon, and in doing so illuminates all of our continual struggles with life choices and identity.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• The Burning Spear: 11
• The Time of Reckoning: 25
• The Revolutionary Evolution: 96
• The Crying Baby: 120
• The Change of Heart: 131
• The Thought Experiment: 223
• The Parole Boards Dilemma: 245
• The Earth As Seen from Space: 271
• Notes: 289
• Selected Bibliography: 315
• Acknowledgments: 325

About the author

Bruce Grierson has been nominated for eight Canadian National MagazineAwards, and is the coauthor of Culture Jam. He lives in Vancouver with his wife and daughter.

Bibliographic information

• Title: U-Turn: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living the Wrong Life?
• Author: Bruce Grierson
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2008
• ISBN: 1582345872, 9781582345871
• Length: 352 pages
• Subjects: Psychology / General; Psychology / Personality; Psychology / Social Psychology