Keith
- 20
- reviews
- 100
- helpful votes
- 78
- ratings
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Reading the Rocks
- The Autobiography of the Earth
- By: Marcia Bjornerud
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11
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Story4 out of 5 stars 11
To many of us, the Earth's crust is a relic of ancient, unknowable history. But to a geologist, stones are richly illustrated narratives, telling gothic tales of cataclysm and reincarnation. For more than four billion years, in beach sand, granite, and garnet schists, the planet has kept a rich and idiosyncratic journal of its past. Fulbright Scholar Marcia Bjornerud takes the listener along on an eye-opening tour of Deep Time, explaining in elegant prose what we see and feel beneath our feet.
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2 out of 5 stars
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More like a whiny sermon.
- By Keith on 10-09-24
- Reading the Rocks
- The Autobiography of the Earth
- By: Marcia Bjornerud
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
More like a whiny sermon.
Reviewed: 10-09-24
What starts out as a good geology book, slowly turns into a rant espousing all of the standard cultish points of environmentalist progressivism. Unless you want to be berated for how terrible humanity is, or perhaps you enjoy being complained at, you should pass.
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1 person found this helpful
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Life on a Young Planet
- The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth
- By: Andrew H. Knoll
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites - such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Earliest Life
- By Arden on 02-16-20
- Life on a Young Planet
- The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth
- By: Andrew H. Knoll
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
Skip the epilog.
Reviewed: 09-25-24
A great book that explains the early Earth. But why do authors writing about science always seem to be obligated to go off on some anti-religion rant, only to end with their own prayers to their god of scientism?
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Consilience
- The Unity of Knowledge
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 212
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 182
In Consilience (a word that originally meant "jumping together"), Edward O. Wilson renews the Enlightenment's search for a unified theory of knowledge in disciplines that range from physics to biology, the social sciences and the humanities. Using the natural sciences as his model, Wilson forges dramatic links between fields. Presenting the latest findings in prose of wonderful clarity and oratorical eloquence, and synthesizing it into a dazzling whole, Consilience is science in the path-clearing traditions of Newton, Einstein, and Richard Feynman.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Singular Achievement!
- By The Saint on 02-25-19
- Consilience
- The Unity of Knowledge
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
Disappointing
Reviewed: 08-23-24
I think the author is still that Alabama Baptist looking for God, only now that god is determinism. It's also far more verbose than necessary. Reductionism and statistics cannot explain everything in the world, yet so many "scientists" insist on chasing after this utopia rather than simply doing science.
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The Progressive Era
- By: Murray N. Rothbard
- Narrated by: Graham Wright
- Length: 24 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
Rothbard's posthumous masterpiece is the definitive book on the Progressives. It will soon be the must read study of this dreadful time in our past. (from the foreword by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano) The current relationship between the modern state and the economy has its roots in the Progressive Era. (from the introduction by Patrick Newman) In short, the Progressive Era ushered the modern American politico-economic system into being. (from the preface by Murray N. Rothbard)
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5 out of 5 stars
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Details... Oh my God, the details
- By Russell Herbst on 05-25-18
- The Progressive Era
- By: Murray N. Rothbard
- Narrated by: Graham Wright
Strange Narrator Pronunciations
Reviewed: 06-24-24
Stop using British narrators who have weird pronunciations. Names are pronounced a certain way no matter how they are spelled.
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Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24,801
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 21,092
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 21,132
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Shrike Awaits. Enter The Time Tombs...
- By Michael on 10-13-12
- Hyperion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Allyson Johnson, Kevin Pariseau, Jay Snyder, Victor Bevine
So much exposition
Reviewed: 05-03-21
Don't start this book unless you're willing to listen to the second book, or you'll be very disappointed. It's pretty good, but so long and when you get to the end, you find out you've really only just started. But I've listened to the second book, and if you have the patience, it's worth the trip.
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,114
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 991
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 989
A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
- This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
Starts well, but
Reviewed: 03-25-21
Very good start, but the last two hours are worthless progressive politics and nothing to do with science.
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1 person found this helpful
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Who We Are and How We Got Here
- By: David Reich
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,403
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,206
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,191
Geneticists like David Reich have made astounding advances in the field of genomics, which is proving to be as important as archaeology, linguistics, and written records as a means to understand our ancestry. In Who We Are and How We Got Here, Reich allows listeners to discover how the human genome provides not only all the information a human embryo needs to develop but also the hidden story of our species.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great Book, No Maps Available thru Audible
- By Jane W. on 07-15-18
- Who We Are and How We Got Here
- By: David Reich
- Narrated by: John Lescault
Too much politics
Reviewed: 12-03-20
Great information on the recent advancements in genetic analysis, but full of multiple chapters of apologizing for and justifying of the politically correct dogma of present day academia. Talk of nationalism, racism, sexism, and all manner of academic bigotry is peppered throughout the text. If you want to see how politics is corrupting science at the most basic level, listen to this book.
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11 people found this helpful
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Atomic Accidents
- A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
- By: James Mahaffey
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,094
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,893
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,883
From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A NUCLEAR POINT OF VIEW
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 01-05-15
- Atomic Accidents
- A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
- By: James Mahaffey
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
Great stories and no politics.
Reviewed: 11-04-20
Really captures the potential for nuclear power and the fumbling into danger involved with such new technology. This is what can happen when you are building big powerful things that don't have an off switch.
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The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,762
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,733
Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?
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5 out of 5 stars
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ABSOLUTE MUST READ!
- By serine on 05-12-16
- The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
Disappointing
Reviewed: 03-02-20
Another scientist who thinks it's their mission to debunk anything that isn't religiously scientific. Part of the time I wasn't sure if he wasn't trying to convince himself, but he mostly comes off as a know-it-all and anybody that doesn't agree with him is not "forward thinking". All his points are reductionist and linear. And he hilariously side steps the recent gender politics issues by simply stating that gender can mean whatever we want it to mean. No biology, just whatever. Very empirical (not).
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The Tangled Tree
- A Radical New History of Life
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,190
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,044
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,044
In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection - a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very Enjoyable and Readable
- By Dennis on 08-18-18
- The Tangled Tree
- A Radical New History of Life
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
Too Much Biography
Reviewed: 02-28-20
Way too much biography stories. I really don't care how much one scientist liked or hated another scientist. You end up just thinking all scientists are prima donnas.
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