Adventures in Human Being Audiobook By Gavin Francis cover art

Adventures in Human Being

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Adventures in Human Being

By: Gavin Francis
Narrated by: Thomas Judd
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.59

Buy for $18.59

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

We have a lifetime's association with our bodies, but for many of us they remain uncharted territory.

In Adventures in Human Being, Gavin Francis leads the listener on a journey through health and illness, offering insights on everything from the ribbed surface of the brain to the secret workings of the heart and the womb; from the pulse of life at the wrist to the unique engineering of the foot.

Drawing on his own experiences as a doctor and GP, he blends firsthand case studies with reflections on the way the body has been imagined and portrayed over the millennia. If the body is a foreign country, then to practise medicine is to explore new territory: Francis leads the listener on an adventure through what it means to be human.

Both a user's guide to the body and a celebration of its elegance, this audiobook will transform the way you think about being alive, whether in sickness or in health.

Gavin Francis is an award-winning writer and doctor and a contributor to The Guardian, The New York Review of Books and London Review of Books.

©2015 Gavin Francis (P)2016 Audible, Ltd Biological Sciences Science

Critic reviews

"A sober and beautiful book about the landscape of the human body: thought-provoking and eloquent." (Hilary Mantel)
"Wonderful, subtle, unpretentious...produces a kind of complicity between the author, the reader, and the subject." (John Berger)
Fascinating Medical Stories • Historical Perspectives • Masterful Narration • Poetic Descriptions • Engaging Anecdotes
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
More about the ways in which we've interacted with and discovered our bodies throughout human history than the anatomy itself, but there are modern scientific descriptions as well. The author's passion shines through and the narrator's reading makes it even more enjoyable (it helps that he sounds like Neil Gaiman and does accents well).

If you enjoy history, literature, sociology or a new and well-informed perspective, give this a go!

Fantastic listen!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator does a superb job. The story is very informative and give me pleasure to know more and more appreciative about my own body. I have to thank the author so immensely for sharing it to us.

Informative And Educating In My Leisure Time

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As I have been in the medical field for some forty years, I did not really expect anything terribly new. I did thoroughly enjoy the reader's British accent, especially when there were differences in pronunciation, such as saying 'carcinoma ' with a hard 'c' as in "car-kin-oma. That one pulled me up short!
There were many interesting and personally touching items, such as the original fabrication of a dialysis machine with an orange juice carton, plastic sausage wrappers, and a motor from a Ford truck. I presently have a beloved friend who is on dialysis, so that meant a lot to me.
The history anecdotes were fascinating and worth the book for sure!
A delight, which I will probably revisit from time to time. Highly recommended!!!

Some new info, some old; British accent adds a little

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I listened to this on audible, and the narration was fine. I tend to enjoy nonfiction books more in audio than print format.

This started a little slow for me, but it became more interesting as the book progressed. I wasn't too keen on the literary references and some of the historical information at first, but then it became a bit more interesting. The book was set up in sections starting a the head and ending with the feet. While there wasn't a lot of new medical information, I did learn some things here and there. I did enjoy listening to the case studies and their application to the particular body part under discussion.

There was some humor in the book; I LOL during the rectum discussion when a patient's x-ray was stolen (I won't spoil it, but it is good!!!). I also realized that perhaps I shouldn't be listening to the placenta part during my lunch hour; as I was eating my lunch and listening to the book, the author was discussing cultures where placenta was eaten for various reasons.

Head to Toe Analysis

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Being from the States, I always enjoy hearing readers from Briton.
This is especially true of the subject matter. Both the author with the reader voice were able translate such an incredibly hard subject with such clarity that I am sure that I will listen to this book possibly 2 more times!!
BRAVO!!
Thank You!!

Anatomy at it's Clearest!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It just ended and I'm going to listen again! Every aspect was amazing. Enjoy!

Fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Extremely rereshing to encounter writing that recalls the practice of medicine and training with fondness and fascination! A good reminder of why we were drawn to medicine in the first place. The beautiful orchestra that occurs daily without our own effort. Allow yourself to be amazed by the human body.

Be Amazed, at the poem that is the human body!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The anecdotes in this writing are entertaining. It seems that the author has has had a very interesting medical practice. I had no expectations going into this but after the first chapter I was hooked. I was intrigued by the author's ability to link classical writings to modern medical knowledge and practices. I would recommend this book and I will probably give it another listen at some point.

The reader's voice is pleasant and had a good pace.

The anecdotes in this writing are entertaining.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great book, but much shorter than I had expected. wish it had been longer. But I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Great Book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Nice commentary on being us. Enjoyed it a lot with special interest on the old medical ideas

Fun to know about us humans

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews