If I Knew Then, Jann Arden
If I Knew Then, Jann Arden
7 Rating(s)
List: $28.00 | Sale: $19.60
Club: $14.00

If I Knew Then
Finding wisdom in failure and power in aging

Author: Jann Arden

Narrator: Jann Arden

Unabridged: 3 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/27/2020


Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Jann Arden—bestselling author, recording artist and late-blooming TV star—is back with this funny, heartfelt and fierce memoir on becoming a woman of a certain age. The power, gravity and freedom she's found at fifty-seven are superpowers she believes all of us can unleash.

Digging deep into her strengths, her failures and her losses, Jann Arden brings us an inspiring account of how she has surprised herself, in her fifties, by at last becoming completely her own person. Like many women, it took Jann a long time to realize that trying to be pleasing and likeable and beautiful in the eyes of others was a loser's game. Letting it rip, and damning the consequences, is not only liberating, it's a hell of a lot of fun: "Being the age I am—that so many women are—is just the best time of my life."

Jann weaves her own story together with tales of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, and the father she came close to hating, to show her younger self—and all of us—that fear and avoidance is no way to live. "What I'm thinking about now aren't all the ways I can try to hang on to my youth or all the seconds ticking by in some kind of morbid countdown to death," she writes, "but rather how I keep becoming someone I always hoped I could be. If I'm lucky one day a very old face will look back at me from the mirror, a face I once shied away from. I will love that old woman ferociously, because she has finally figured out how to live a life of purpose—not in spite of but because of all her mistakes and failures."

About The Author

JANN ARDEN is a singer, songwriter, broadcaster, actor, author and social media star. The celebrated multi-platinum, award-winning artist catapulted onto the music scene in 1993 with her debut album, Time for Mercy, featuring the hit single "I Would Die for You." A year later she had her international break-out hit, "Insensitive." She has written four books, the most recent being the Canadian bestseller Feeding My Mother: Comfort and Laughter in the Kitchen as My Mom Lives with Memory Loss. A multiple Juno Award-winner, Jann continues to record and tour; in 2020 she was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. She is also the star of her own hit TV sitcom, Jann, which debuted in 2019, and will air a new season in 2020, and the host of the weekly Jann Arden Podcast.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Chelsea on April 28, 2021

If I Knew Then: Finding Wisdom in Failure and Power in Aging By: Jann Arden GO CRONES! Okay I'm going to be honest I don't think i would of picked this book out on my own. I picked it up on accident miss read the author and thought it was a completely different book. Now that I have read this book I a......more

Goodreads review by Tina on October 12, 2020

As a long-time fan of Jann Arden, I am always there for whatever she wants to share with the world, be it music, books or her posts on social media. Her words resonate with me and have helped me through tough times more than once. In this book she talks about growing older, losing parents, the exper......more

Goodreads review by Susan on January 12, 2021

Go crones! I listened to this book and enjoyed hearing Jann narrate her well-earned insights and experiences. Moments of humour, vulnerability, sadness and inspiration. I loved her perspective on aging and embracing this chapter of her life, especially realising how much I’ve aged since I first star......more

Goodreads review by Chrisreadsbooks on January 09, 2021

This book gets 5 stars, first of all because it's written by Jann Arden. But also because of her message to me - and all women of a certain age who need to be reminded that there are incredible things to be found in aging. I want to be able to follow her message of acceptance and forgiveness. Maybe......more

Goodreads review by Tracy on January 17, 2021

When I first started reading this I thought that maybe it was for an older woman but it is more like a wise older sister providing guidance. Honestly if read anything she wrote.......more


Quotes

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Storyteller. Counsellor. Life coach. Canadian singer Jann Arden wears all those hats—and more—in her latest memoir . . . If I Knew Then will strike vibrato chords with readers. Like her song lyrics, Arden’s phrasing is simple, authentic and rich. It resonates. She wears her wounds on her sleeve, and isn’t afraid to show her scars." —Winnipeg Free Press

Praise for Jann Arden:

“The type of free-spirited, brutally truthful woman who can stand toe to toe with any man or woman. Funny and not afraid to sprinkle an interview with helpings of words your mother would never allow in the house, Arden is two parts poet and one part your crazy aunt.” —The Toronto Sun
 
“[Jann Arden is] abundantly and humorously generous with herself in public. . . . No doubt Arden holds some secrets, some passions, some pain close to the vest, but, like the best gossip in the neighbourhood, she diverts our attention with titillating yarns.” —Toronto Star