AuthorSiddhartha Mukherjee
NarratorDennis Boutsikaris
Duration19h 31m
CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, Science and Nature
PublisherRandom House
VersionUnabridged
*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, that governs our form and function. The story of the gene begins in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856 where a monk stumbles on the idea of a 'unit of heredity'. It intersects with Darwin's theory of evolution, and collides with the horrors of Nazi eugenics in the 1940s. The gene transforms post-war biology. It reorganizes our understanding of sexuality, temperament, choice and free will. This is a story driven by human ingenuity and obsessive minds - from Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin, and the thousands of scientists still working to understand the code of codes. This is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea coming to life, by the author of The Emperor of All Maladies. But woven through The Gene, like a red line, is also an intimate history - the story of Mukherjee's own family and its recurring pattern of mental illness, reminding us that genetics is vitally relevant to everyday lives. These concerns reverberate even more urgently today as we learn to "read" and "write" the human genome - unleashing the potential to change the fates and identities of our children. Majestic in its ambition, and unflinching in its honesty, The Gene gives us a definitive account of the fundamental unit of heredity - and a vision of both humanity's past and future.
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: 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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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: 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: Robert Macfarlane
Author Robert Macfarlane
Narrator Roy Mcmillan
Duration 13h 9m
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Underland by Robert Macfarlane. A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century The highly anticipated new book from the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of Landmarks, The Lost Words and The Old Ways Discover the hidden worlds beneath our feet... In Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes us on a journ...
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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: 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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