Kristen Bell, Paul Simon, Mike Schur, Stephen Fry, Natalia Vodianova, and Shabana Azmi among readers of free audiobook; free ebook also available
The Life You Can Save
How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty
10th Anniversary Edition
By Peter Singer
Available from December 3, 2019
IN VARIOUS FORMATS
Ebook ISBN: 9781733672719
Audiobook ISBN: 9781549182815
On Giving Tuesday - December 3 - controversial ethicist and Princeton University professor Peter Singer releases, free in ebook and audiobook editions, an expanded and fully updated 10th Anniversary Edition of his influential book, The Life You Can Save, previously published by Random House.
Each chapter of the audiobook is read by a separate celebrity who supports the message of the book. Mike Schur, creator of the popular TV series “The Good Place” has written a foreword and reads it, other “The Good Place” stars to read chapters are Kristen Bell and Marc Evan Jackson. Singer/songwriter Paul Simon reads a chapter and is available to do publicity for the book with Singer. Other chapters are read by Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova, English actor and comedian Stephen Fry, Indian film, television, and theatre actress Shabana Azmi, and American actor Nicholas D’Agosto. Winnie Auma, Uganda Country Director for Village Enterprise, and The Life You Can Save’s Executive Director Charlie Bresler also read chapters.
The unusual publishing arrangement was made possible when The Life You Can Save, a charity founded by Singer, bought back the rights to the book in order to ensure the widest possible audience for Singer's life-changing message on effective giving.
The Life You Can Save is offering the book available for free as an ebook and audiobook. A paperback edition is on sale through bookstores and online retailers.
In The Life You Can Save Singer argues that living an ethical life includes supporting highly effective charities that dramatically improve, or even save, the lives of people living in extreme poverty for relatively little cost to ourselves. He writes:
“I have been thinking and writing for more than forty years about how we should respond to hunger and poverty. I have presented this book’s arguments to thousands of students in my university classes and in my online course on effective giving, and to countless others in newspapers, magazines, a TED talk, podcasts, and television programs. As a result, I’ve been forced to respond to a wide range of thoughtful challenges. The first edition of this book brought more discussion and challenges, and the rise of the effective altruism movement has stimulated extensive research into what forms of assistance provide the best value for money. So now this fully updated 10th Anniversary Edition distills everything I’ve learned over the years about why we give, or don’t give, and what we should do about it.”
The end of global poverty is within our reach. The Life You Can Save makes a compelling argument that we all have a role in that collective call-to-action, giving us concrete directives about what each should and can do to help bring about that end more quickly.
About the Author:
Peter Singer first became well-known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. In 2011 Time included Animal Liberation on its “All-TIME” list of the 100 best nonfiction books published in English since the magazine began, in 1923. Singer has written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, including Practical Ethics; The Expanding Circle; Rethinking Life and Death; Ethics into Action; The Life You Can Save; and The Most Good You Can Do. His works have appeared in more than 25 languages.
Peter Singer was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. After teaching in England, the United States and Australia, in 1999 he became Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Since 2005 he has combined his Princeton appointment with the position of Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. He is married, with three daughters and four grandchildren. His recreations include hiking and surfing. In 2012 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, the nation’s highest civic honour.
Photo credit Alletta Vaandering
About The Life You Can Save:
The mission of The Life You Can Save is to help change the culture of giving in affluent countries while dramatically raising annual donations to highly impactful nonprofits that reduce suffering and premature death, and improve life and livelihoods, for people living in extreme poverty. Our organization was founded by Peter Singer, widely recognized as one of the world's most influential contemporary philosophers, to advance the ideas in his 2009 book, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty.
Praise for The Life You Can Save:
“Mr. Singer is far from the world’s only serious thinker on poverty, but with The Life You Can Save he becomes, instantly, its most readable and lapel-grabbing one.” —The New York Times
“Faced with [Peter Singer’s] argument, it is hard not to ask yourself how your own giving measures up. Yes, I will go on buying things I do not really need. But, yes, this book has persuaded me that I should give more—significantly more—to help those less fortunate.” — Financial Times
“A persuasive and inspiring work that will change the way you think about philanthropy . . . and that shows us we can make a profound difference in the lives of the world’s poorest.” —Bill & Melinda Gates
“Powerful and clarifying . . . Singer sets up a demanding ethical compass for human behavior.” — Sunday Star Ledger
“Be warned: reading this book may be dangerous to your definitions of morality, charity, and how to be good. That is why you must read it.” — The Christian Science Monitor
“If you think you can’t afford to give money to the needy, I urge you to read this book. If you think you’re already giving enough, and to the right places, still I urge you to read this book. In The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer makes a strong case—logical and factual, but also emotional—for why each of us should be doing more for the world’s impoverished. This book will challenge you to be a better person.” — Holden Karnofsky, co-founder, GiveWell
For more information and to download the ebook and audiobook for free, please visit: www.thelifeyoucansave.org
IN VARIOUS FORMATS
Ebook ISBN: 9781733672719
Audiobook ISBN: 9781549182815
PRINT VERSION
CONTACT YOUR BOOKSELLER FOR THE PRINT VERSION
ISBN 9781733672702 | Paperback | 312 pages | 203 x 127mm | £16.99
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