
How to Disappear
Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Gabra Zackman
-
By:
-
Akiko Busch
About this listen
It is time to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked in this new world. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge but as a condition with its own meaning and power? The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity but about maintaining identity, autonomy, and voice.
In our networked and image-saturated lives, the notion of disappearing has never been both more alluring. Today, we are relentlessly encouraged, even conditioned, to reveal, share, and promote ourselves. The pressure to be public comes not just from our peers but from vast and pervasive technology companies that want to profit from patterns in our behavior. A lifelong student and observer of the natural world, Busch sets out to explore her own uneasiness with this arrangement, and what she senses is a widespread desire for a less scrutinized way of life - for invisibility. Writing in rich painterly detail about her own life, her family, and some of the world's most exotic and remote places, she savors the pleasures of being unseen. Discovering and dramatizing a wonderful range of ways of disappearing, from virtual reality goggles that trick the wearer into believing her body has disappeared to the way Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway finds a sense of affiliation with the world around her as she ages, Busch deliberates on subjects new and old with equal sensitivity and incisiveness.
How to Disappear is a unique and exhilarating accomplishment, overturning the dangerous modern assumption that somehow fame and visibility equate to success and happiness. Busch presents a field guide to invisibility, reacquainting us with the merits of remaining inconspicuousness, and finding genuine alternatives to a life of perpetual exposure. Accessing timeless truths in order to speak to our most urgent contemporary problems, she inspires us to develop a deeper appreciation for personal privacy in a vast and intrusive world.
©2019 Akiko Busch (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Order of Time
- By: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most listeners, this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it appears. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where, at the most fundamental level, time disappears.
-
-
Rovelli is a Genius
- By Mike on 05-11-18
By: Carlo Rovelli
-
The Alchemy of Your Dreams
- A Modern Guide to the Ancient Art of Lucid Dreaming and Interpretation
- By: Athena Laz
- Narrated by: Athena Laz
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We know that sleep is vital for rest and rejuvenation, but what if this time could be used for something more? What if our dreams really are telling us something? Psychologist and dream expert Athena Laz has dedicated her career to uncovering the wisdom of our dreams and revolutionizing what it means to be in touch with ourselves and the universe. Packed with exercises and step-by-step instructions, The Alchemy of Your Dreams teaches listeners how to interpret their dreams in order to achieve more in their waking lives.
-
-
Way different than I expected. But very good!
- By Destiny on 11-16-22
By: Athena Laz
-
Bring Yourself
- How to Harness the Power of Connection to Negotiate Fearlessly
- By: Mori Taheripour
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Contrary to conventional wisdom about what makes a good negotiator - namely, being aggressive and unemotional - in Bring Yourself, Taheripour offers a radically different perspective. In her own life, and in her more than 15 years of experience teaching negotiation, she's found that the best negotiators are empathetic, curious, and present. The essence of bargaining isn't the transaction, but the conversation and human connection.
-
-
Great business and personal read
- By michael c rogers jr on 06-11-23
By: Mori Taheripour
-
The Monkey Is the Messenger
- Meditation and What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You
- By: Ralph De La Rosa
- Narrated by: Ralph De La Rosa, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hope for all those who want to meditate but feel they can't because they think too much: a remedy. Making friends with the infamous "monkey mind" to make it a means for healing and awakening.
-
-
Helpful and practical
- By AD on 11-21-18
By: Ralph De La Rosa
-
True Age
- Cutting-Edge Research to Help Turn Back the Clock
- By: Morgan Levine PhD
- Narrated by: Sarah Beth Pfeifer
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
True Age introduces listeners to the latest developments in the science of aging and longevity. It provides an in-depth understanding of biological age and the methods now available to estimate our own. It helps us target an individualized plan to eat, exercise, and sleep, as well as pointing to other lifestyle practices like intermittent fasting and caloric restriction that have been shown to slow or reverse the aging process.
-
-
Narration is AWFUL
- By Rainbow Casey on 09-22-22
-
A Most Remarkable Creature
- The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey
- By: Jonathan Meiburg
- Narrated by: Jonathan Meiburg
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history.
-
-
I don't leave reviews often, but . . .
- By Steven L Peck on 06-24-21
By: Jonathan Meiburg
-
The Order of Time
- By: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most listeners, this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it appears. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where, at the most fundamental level, time disappears.
-
-
Rovelli is a Genius
- By Mike on 05-11-18
By: Carlo Rovelli
-
The Alchemy of Your Dreams
- A Modern Guide to the Ancient Art of Lucid Dreaming and Interpretation
- By: Athena Laz
- Narrated by: Athena Laz
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We know that sleep is vital for rest and rejuvenation, but what if this time could be used for something more? What if our dreams really are telling us something? Psychologist and dream expert Athena Laz has dedicated her career to uncovering the wisdom of our dreams and revolutionizing what it means to be in touch with ourselves and the universe. Packed with exercises and step-by-step instructions, The Alchemy of Your Dreams teaches listeners how to interpret their dreams in order to achieve more in their waking lives.
-
-
Way different than I expected. But very good!
- By Destiny on 11-16-22
By: Athena Laz
-
Bring Yourself
- How to Harness the Power of Connection to Negotiate Fearlessly
- By: Mori Taheripour
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Contrary to conventional wisdom about what makes a good negotiator - namely, being aggressive and unemotional - in Bring Yourself, Taheripour offers a radically different perspective. In her own life, and in her more than 15 years of experience teaching negotiation, she's found that the best negotiators are empathetic, curious, and present. The essence of bargaining isn't the transaction, but the conversation and human connection.
-
-
Great business and personal read
- By michael c rogers jr on 06-11-23
By: Mori Taheripour
-
The Monkey Is the Messenger
- Meditation and What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You
- By: Ralph De La Rosa
- Narrated by: Ralph De La Rosa, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hope for all those who want to meditate but feel they can't because they think too much: a remedy. Making friends with the infamous "monkey mind" to make it a means for healing and awakening.
-
-
Helpful and practical
- By AD on 11-21-18
By: Ralph De La Rosa
-
True Age
- Cutting-Edge Research to Help Turn Back the Clock
- By: Morgan Levine PhD
- Narrated by: Sarah Beth Pfeifer
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
True Age introduces listeners to the latest developments in the science of aging and longevity. It provides an in-depth understanding of biological age and the methods now available to estimate our own. It helps us target an individualized plan to eat, exercise, and sleep, as well as pointing to other lifestyle practices like intermittent fasting and caloric restriction that have been shown to slow or reverse the aging process.
-
-
Narration is AWFUL
- By Rainbow Casey on 09-22-22
-
A Most Remarkable Creature
- The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey
- By: Jonathan Meiburg
- Narrated by: Jonathan Meiburg
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An enthralling account of a modern voyage of discovery as we meet the clever, social birds of prey called caracaras, which puzzled Darwin, fascinate modern-day falconers, and carry secrets of our planet's deep past in their family history.
-
-
I don't leave reviews often, but . . .
- By Steven L Peck on 06-24-21
By: Jonathan Meiburg
-
Secondhand
- Travels in the New Global Garage Sale
- By: Adam Minter
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Secondhand, Adam Minter delves into the vast, multibillion-dollar industry that resells used stuff around the world. He follows the trail of unwanted objects from the closets, garages, and storage units of Middle America to epic used-goods markets in Canada, Mexico, Japan, Ghana, India, Malaysia, and beyond. Secondhand takes us through the often painful and heartbreaking process of cleaning out a lifetime’s worth of possessions and shows that used stuff still has a place in a world that values the new and shiny.
-
-
Minimalism vs. business opportunity?
- By buyer on 02-24-20
By: Adam Minter
-
A History of America in Ten Strikes
- By: Erik Loomis
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Powerful and accessible, A History of America in Ten Strikes challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labor, unions, and American workers. In this brilliant book, labor historian Erik Loomis recounts ten critical workers’ strikes in American labor history that everyone needs to know about (and then provides an annotated list of the 150 most important moments in American labor history in the appendix).
-
-
great read
- By Perscors on 03-17-19
By: Erik Loomis
-
Grasp
- The Science Transforming How We Learn
- By: Sanjay Sarma, Luke Yoquinto
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the head of Open Learning at MIT, renowned professor Sanjay Sarma has a daunting job description: to fling open the doors of the MIT experience for the benefit of the wider world. But if you're going to undertake such an ambitious project, you first have to ask: How do we learn? What are the most effective ways of educating? And how can the science of learning transform education to unlock our potential, as individuals and across society?
-
-
Informative
- By Kindle Customer on 08-05-23
By: Sanjay Sarma, and others
-
Weavers, Scribes, and Kings
- A New History of the Ancient Near East
- By: Amanda H. Podany
- Narrated by: Amanda H. Podany
- Length: 18 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this sweeping history of the ancient Near East, Amanda Podany takes listeners on a gripping journey from the creation of the world's first cities to the conquests of Alexander the Great. The book is built around the life stories of many ancient men and women, from kings, priestesses, and merchants to brickmakers, musicians, and weavers. Their habits of daily life, beliefs, triumphs, and crises, and the changes that people faced over time are explored through their own written words and the buildings, cities, and empires in which they lived.
-
-
word of advice
- By Jim Davis on 08-04-23
By: Amanda H. Podany
-
This Way to the Universe
- A Theoretical Physicist's Journey to the Edge of Reality
- By: Michael Dine
- Narrated by: Michael Dine
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Way to the Universe is a celebration of the astounding, ongoing scientific investigations that have revealed the nature of reality at its smallest, at its largest, and at the scale of our daily lives. The enigmas that Professor Michael Dine discusses are like landmarks on a fantastic journey to the edge of the universe. Asked where to find out about the big bang, dark matter, the Higgs boson particle - the long cutting edge of physics right now - Dine had no single book he could recommend. This is his accessible, authoritative, and up-to-date answer.
-
-
Interesting but far above my intellect
- By Richard M. on 04-25-23
By: Michael Dine
-
The Enchanted Life
- Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday
- By: Sharon Blackie
- Narrated by: Fiona Reid
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Enchantment. By Dr. Sharon Blackie’s definition, a vivid sense of belongingness to a rich and many-layered world, a profound and whole-hearted participation in the adventure of life. Enchantment is a natural, spontaneous human tendency - one we possess as children, but lose, through social and cultural pressures, as we grow older. It is an attitude of mind which can be cultivated: the enchanted life is possible for anyone. It is intuitive, embraces wonder, and fully engages the mythic imagination - but it is also deeply embodied in ecology, grounded in place and community.
-
-
A very disenchanting book
- By Wesley on 10-30-20
By: Sharon Blackie
-
Joyful
- By: Ingrid Fetell Lee
- Narrated by: Ingrid Fetell Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Joyful, designer Ingrid Fetell Lee explores how the seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood. Drawing on insights from neuroscience and psychology, she explains why one setting makes us feel anxious or competitive while another fosters acceptance and delight—and, most importantly, she reveals how we can harness the power of our surroundings to live fuller, healthier, and truly joyful lives.
-
-
Boring read of an interesting book
- By Angela Sauer on 12-02-19
-
A Mind for Numbers
- How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)
- By: Barbara Oakley PhD
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to learning effectively - secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions - you just need the creativity to see them.
-
-
Not quite what you expect
- By Sean P Ruggier on 07-20-22
-
This Is What It Sounds Like
- What the Music You Love Says About You
- By: Ogi Ogas, Susan Rogers
- Narrated by: Susan Rogers
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When you listen to music, do you prefer lyrics or melody? Intricate harmonies or driving rhythm? The “real” sounds of acoustic instruments or those of computerized synthesizers? Drawing from her successful career as a music producer (engineering hits like Prince’s “Purple Rain”), professor of cognitive neuroscience Susan Rogers reveals why your favorite songs move you. She explains that we each possess a unique “listener profile” based on our brain’s reaction to seven key dimensions of any record: authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre.
-
-
Needed to include the music
- By Sarah on 01-18-23
By: Ogi Ogas, and others
-
An Anthropologist on Mars
- Seven Paradoxical Tales
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Oliver Sacks
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To these seven narratives of neurological disorder Dr. Sacks brings the same humanity, poetic observation, and infectious sense of wonder that are apparent in his bestsellers Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. These men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality.
-
-
SACKS IS AN ABSOLUTE JOY !!
- By Jeff on 09-22-13
By: Oliver Sacks
-
Leonardo's Brain
- Understanding da Vinci's Creative Genius
- By: Leonard Shlain
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bestselling author Leonard Shlain explores the life, art, and mind of Leonardo da Vinci, seeking to explain his singularity by looking at his achievements in art, science, psychology, and military strategy (yes), and then employing state of the art left-right brain scientific research to explain his universal genius. Shlain shows that no other person in human history has excelled in so many different areas as Da Vinci and he peels back the layers to explore the how and the why.
-
-
As distracted as Da Vinci
- By D. McCracken on 05-12-15
By: Leonard Shlain
-
The Spell of the Sensuous
- Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
- By: David Abram
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people but with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patterns) that we have only lately come to think of as "inanimate". How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world?
-
-
The Spell of the Sensuous is a book that could cha
- By Amazon Customer on 06-24-20
By: David Abram
Critic reviews
“Coming upon [How to Disappear] was like finding the Advil bottle in the medicine cabinet after stumbling about with a headache for a long time.... For [Busch], invisibility is not simply a negative, the inverse of visibility. Going unseen, undetected, overlooked: These are experiences with their own inherent ‘meaning and power’; what we need is a ‘field guide’ for recognizing them. And this is what Busch offers, roaming from essay to essay in a loose, associative style, following invisibility where it takes her.... Inconspicuousness can be powerful - this may be Busch’s most radical point, especially at a moment when we’re conditioned to think power means yelling louder than everyone else in your Twitter feed, or showing the world in Instagram how you’re living your best life.... Silence and invisibility, [Busch insists], are part of our everyday lives - the place our mind wanders when we’re in the shower or out jogging, the feeling we get looking out the window of an airplane, the pleasure of becoming a stranger on a bustling city street. We take these pauses, these moments of exhalation, for granted, but we should clutch them close. They are our armor against the onslaught.” (Gal Beckerman, The New York Times Book Review, cover review)
“Akiko Busch’s How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency serves as a gentle reminder...[to] stop confusing what is most obvious or distracting for what is genuinely important. Almost everything that actually matters in life happens beneath the surface. Ms. Busch, who has rightly been compared to Annie Dillard and Edward Abbey, has dedicated nearly 30 years to sounding this message, one that our age seems intent on ignoring.... It is precisely Ms. Busch’s subtle contrarianism that deserves our sustained attention.... How to Disappear is, at least in part, a description of how the world might reappear to us if we weren’t so hellbent on overwhelming it.... On the surface, How to Disappear is a palliative for the alienation that modern overexposure begets. Ms. Busch would like to save us from ourselves, from the lonely fate that afflicts Narcissus, his eyes forever locked on the only person he has ever truly loved - himself. But in its deeper moments, the book touches on an abiding, but easily forgotten, truth: Disappearing, the act of losing our selves, is a precondition of selflessness. Ms. Busch’s deeper concern is to save not Narcissus but rather the wider world his selfishness affects.” (John Kaag, Wall Street Journal)
“In this provocative series of essays, Busch examines how social media and the surveillance economy have redefined the way we live.... Throughout, she asks important questions about the consequences of hypervisibility.” (BBC Culture, Ten Books to Read this February)
What listeners say about How to Disappear
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- shelley
- 11-21-23
Lots to think about here
I especially found interesting the chapter that examined the invisibility of middle-aged women, and referenced Virginia, Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Anonymous User
- 08-05-19
Thought-provoking, engaging, beautifully narrated
This book is so thoughtfully written and well-researched. Gabra Zackman's nuanced, heartfelt, and respectful narration is spot-on.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- davej
- 09-15-24
Not what I expected
I thought this was going to be a more practical book. It was very philosophical and spiritual. The story itself was very hard for me to follow.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daniel
- 05-28-24
A Slog
The book is not about *how* to disappear but is more about the author's views and philosophical musings on invisibility in all its various forms (physical, cultural, societal, etc.). There is some interesting stuff, some needless interjection of (leftist) politics and a lot of repetition. The title is misleading and the actual material is often pretentious. Save one or two chapters, it makes a wonderful sleep aid.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cat Wilson
- 10-04-23
Not a Guide on How to Disappear
I was expecting more of a practical guide but this ended up being a philosophical research paper on the idea of invisibility. I returned this title after the third chapter.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason Ainsley
- 12-31-23
Took nothing practical away
More of an academic examination of the concept. Not what I expected at all. Buyer beware!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful