AuthorMark Cocker
NarratorMark Cocker
Duration12h 33m
CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, Science and Nature
PublisherRandom House
VersionUnabridged
Environmental thought and politics have become parts of mainstream cultural life in Britain. The wish to protect wildlife is now a central goal for our society, but where did these 'green' ideas come from? And who created the cherished institutions, such as the National Trust or the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, that are now so embedded in public life with millions of members? From the flatlands of Norfolk to the tundra-like expanse of the Flow Country in northern Scotland, acclaimed writer on nature Mark Cocker sets out on a personal quest through the British countryside to find the answers to these questions. He explores in intimate detail six special places that embody the history of conservation or whose fortunes allow us to understand why our landscape looks as it does today. We meet key characters who shaped the story of the British countryside - Victorian visionaries like Octavia Hill, founder of the National Trust, as well as brilliant naturalists such as Max Nicholson or Derek Ratcliffe, who helped build the very framework for all environmental effort. This is a book that looks to the future as well as exploring the past. It asks searching questions like who owns the land and why? And who benefits from green policies? Above all it attempts to solve a puzzle: why do the British seem to love their countryside more than almost any other nation, yet they have come to live amid one of the most denatured landscapes on Earth? Radical, provocative and original, Our Place tackles some of the central issues of our time. Yet most important of all, it tries to map out how this overcrowded island of ours could be a place fit not just for human occupants but also for its billions of wild citizens.
Author: Douglas W. Tallamy
Author Douglas W. Tallamy
Narrator Jonathan Todd Ross
Duration 6h 40m
As development and subsequent habitat destruction accelerate, there are increasing pressures on wildlife populations. But there is an important and simple step toward reversing this alarming trend: Everyone with access to a patch of earth can make a significant contribution toward sustaining biodiversity. There is an unbreakable link between native...
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No One Is Too Small To Make A Difference
Author: Greta Thunberg
Author Greta Thunberg
Narrator The Author
Duration 1h 15m
'Everything needs to change. And it has to start today' In August 2018 a fifteen-year-old Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, decided not to go to school one day. Her actions ended up sparking a global movement for action against the climate crisis, inspiring millions of pupils to go on strike for our planet, forcing governments to listen, and earning he...
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Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Author Malcolm Gladwell
Narrator Malcolm Gladwell
Duration 8h 47m
The highly anticipated new book from Malcolm Gladwell, host of Revisionist History and No.1 international bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw and David and Goliath. The routine traffic stop that ends in tragedy. The spy who spends years undetected at the highest levels of the Pentagon. The false conviction of...
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Author: David Wallace-Wells
Author David Wallace-Wells
Narrator David Wallace-Wells
Duration 8h 33m
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Uninhabitable Earth written and read by David Wallace-Wells. It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all, and if your anxiety about it is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely...
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Author: Monty Don
Author Monty Don
Narrator Monty Don
Duration 7h 38m
Written as he talks, this is Monty Don right beside you in the garden, challenging norms and sharing advice. Discover Monty's thoughts and garden ideas around nature, seasons, color, design, pests, flowering shrubs, containers, and much more. Read about the month-by month jobs he does in his own garden that he hopes are relevant to you.
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Author: Henry Marsh
Author Henry Marsh
Narrator Henry Marsh
Duration 7h 47m
Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical front line. Prompted by his retirement from his full-time job in the NHS, and through his continuing work in Nepal and Ukraine, Henry has been forced to reflect more deeply about what 40 years spent handling the human brain has taught him. Moving between encounters with patients in his Lond...
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Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Author Robin Wall Kimmerer
Narrator The Author
Duration 16h 44m
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldes...
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Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
Author Siddhartha Mukherjee
Narrator Dennis Boutsikaris
Duration 19h 31m
*Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2016* The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history, from bestselling, prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee. Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, th...
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Author: David George Haskell
Author David George Haskell
Narrator The Author, Cassandra Campbell
Duration 10h 26m
David Haskell's award-winning The Forest Unseen won acclaim for eloquent writing and deep engagement with the natural world. Now, Haskell brings his powers of observation to the biological networks that surround all species, including humans. Haskell repeatedly visits a dozen trees around the world, exploring the trees' connections with webs of fun...
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Author: Annaka Harris
Author Annaka Harris
Narrator Annaka Harris
Duration 2h 22m
As concise and enlightening as Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, this mind-expanding dive into the mystery of consciousness is an illuminating meditation on the self, free will, and felt experience. What is consciousness? How does it arise? And why does it exist? We take our experience of being in the world for...
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Anonymous 7 Nov 2021
Disappointing narration
Unfortunately I couldn't get along with this book at all. It wasn't helped by the hopelessly boring narration. I know a lot of the subject matter is rather dry but it reads like a telephone directory.
I stuck with it untill chapter 5, at which point, being very aware of my own mortality, I gave up.
For anyone who enjoys being bombarded with statistics I'm sure they will enjoy it.