Being a Human
Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness
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Narrated by:
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Damian Lynch
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By:
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Charles Foster
About this listen
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ATLANTIC, KIRKUS REVIEWS, AND NEW STATESMAN
A radically immersive exploration of three pivotal moments in the evolution of human consciousness, asking what kinds of creatures humans were, are, and might yet be
How did humans come to be who we are? In his marvelous, eccentric, and widely lauded book Being a Beast, legal scholar, veterinary surgeon, and naturalist extraordinaire Charles Foster set out to understand the consciousness of animal species by living as a badger, otter, fox, deer, and swift. Now, he inhabits three crucial periods of human development to understand the consciousness of perhaps the strangest animal of all—the human being.
To experience the Upper Paleolithic era—a turning point when humans became behaviorally modern, painting caves and telling stories—Foster learns what it feels like to be a Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherer by living in makeshift shelters without amenities in the rural woods of England. He tests his five impoverished senses to forage for berries and roadkill and he undertakes shamanic journeys to explore the connection of wakeful dreaming to religion. For the Neolithic period, when humans stayed in one place and domesticated plants and animals, forever altering our connection to the natural world, he moves to a reconstructed Neolithic settlement. Finally, to explore the Enlightenment—the age of reason and the end of the soul—Foster inspects Oxford colleges, dissecting rooms, cafes, and art galleries. He finds his world and himself bizarre and disembodied, and he rues the atrophy of our senses, the cause for much of what ails us.
Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, natural history, agriculture, medical law and ethics, Being a Human is one man’s audacious attempt to feel a connection with 45,000 years of human history. This glorious, fiercely imaginative journey from our origins to a possible future ultimately shows how we might best live on earth—and thrive.
A Macmillan Audio production from Metropolitan Books
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Critic reviews
2021, Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
"A magpie book full of intriguing anthropological sketches ... that fits neatly into the growing library of modern British natural history writing, alongside the best of Nan Shepherd, Robert Macfarlane, and Roger Deakin. A splendid assessment of the many ways there are to be a person, for good and ill." (Kirkus Reviews, starred)
"A wondrous and moving examination ... To get back in touch with the 'constant ecstatic contact' [with nature] he argues humans need, Charles Foster witnesses shimmering visions, eats roadkill, contemplates birdsong and language, and hypothesizes that consciousness exists beyond humans. Foster is a wonderful prose stylist, and knows how to build a case and support it with plentiful detail. This powerful account is a remarkable achievement." (Publishers Weekly starred)
"Dazzling and eccentric...Foster is a beautiful writer and an engaging companion throughout this strange, occasionally maddening book. The argument - that we as a species have lost something in our move from wandering animism to settled civilisation - is a powerful one, amply supported by learned quotations and dense footnotes ... A wonderfully fun if entirely bonkers read. (The Guardian)
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Best-selling science fiction superstars Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle combine their talents with those of Steven Barnes in an extraordinary adventure of humankind’s first outpost in the farthest reaches of space. Light years from Earth, colonists land on a planet they name Avalon. It seems like a paradise—until native creatures savagely attack. It will take every bit of intelligence, courage, and military-style discipline to survive.
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Great read!
- By Thomas on 12-05-12
By: Larry Niven, and others
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The Caves of Perigord
- By: Martin Walker
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Walker's richly interwoven novel opens with the arrival of a mysterious package for a young American woman working in a London auction house. Brought by a British officer, it contains a 17,000-year-old fragment of a cave painting left to him by his father, a former World War II hero. The fragment, significant and stunning in itself, is also the key to the existence of an unknown cave that may be more important in the history of art and human creation than the world-famous one at Lascaux.
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A wonderful construct
- By Alfred North on 08-28-20
By: Martin Walker
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Ammonite
- By: Nicola Griffith
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Change or die: the only options available on the Durallium Company-owned planet GP. The planet's deadly virus had killed most of the original colonists - and changed the rest irrevocably. Centuries after the colony had lost touch with the rest of humanity, the Company returned to exploit GP, and its forces found themselves fighting for their lives. Afraid of spreading the virus, the Company had left its remaining employees in place, afraid and isolated from the natives.
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Women Are People
- By DC on 11-17-20
By: Nicola Griffith
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Eight
- Eight, Book 1
- By: Samer Rabadi
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Life’s tough when you’re trapped in an eight-year-old body on another world. His name is Eight. Not really, but that’s what the System decided after a slip of the tongue. One moment, he was stepping out the office door on the way home, and the next waking up on a hillside below a town wall. Oh, and the gate guard drove him off, because he thought Eight was a monster. What’s a boy to do in a world full of magic and so many, many hungry creatures searching for their next meal? Well, there’s an old man inside that body, and he'll use everything he’s learned to survive.
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The writing and narration is incredible
- By Mr. Thomas on 09-01-22
By: Samer Rabadi
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The Dream House
- By: Craig Higginson
- Narrated by: Terry Lloyd-Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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A farmhouse is being reproduced a dozen times, with slight variations, throughout a valley. Three small graves have been dug in the front garden, the middle one lying empty. A woman in a wheelchair sorts through boxes while her husband clambers around the old demolished buildings, wondering where the animals have gone. A young woman – called ‘the barren one’ behind her back – dreams of love, while an ageing headmaster contemplates the end of his life.
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Brilliant Dream House Narration
- By Simon Griffiths on 05-05-21
By: Craig Higginson
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A Door into Time
- An Alex Hawk Time Travel Adventure, Book 1
- By: Shawn Inmon
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The wall just didn’t look right. Alex has been trying to cope. Life after his deployment had been rough. His ex-wife thought he needed to stop disappointing their daughter. She was right. He would try harder. With six hours before his little girl’s fourth birthday party, he saw the anomaly. One wall was too short. Plenty of time to tear out a panel and look behind it. He found a brick wall. His house wasn’t made of brick. Behind that was another just like the first. He still had time. When the second wall came down, Alex stood and stared at the shining doorway.
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maybe 8 year old boys would like this
- By Jojo11 on 09-15-20
By: Shawn Inmon
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The Once and Future King
- By: T. H. White
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 33 hrs
- Unabridged
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The complete "box set" of T. H. White's epic fantasy novel of the Arthurian legend. The novel is made up of five parts: "The Sword in the Stone", "The Witch in the Wood", "The Ill-Made Knight", "The Candle in the Wind", and "The Book of Merlyn".
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My favorite book this year.
- By Robert on 12-13-12
By: T. H. White
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One Blade of Grass
- Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir
- By: Henry Shukman
- Narrated by: Henry Shukman
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of how a meditation practice gave Henry Shukman a context for integrating a sudden spiritual awakening into his life and how his depression and anxiety were gradually healed through this practice. In sharing how he grew into a Zen teacher, Shukman demystifies Zen training, casting its profound insights in simple, lucid language. Along the way, One Blade of Grass guides listeners on a journey of their own, into the hidden treasures that contemplative practice can reveal to any of us.
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Boring
- By Elvis on 09-10-20
By: Henry Shukman
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Far North
- A Novel
- By: Marcel Theroux
- Narrated by: Yelena Schmulenson
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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My father had an expression for a thing that turned out bad. He'd say it had gone west. But going west always sounded pretty good to me. After all, westwards is the path of the sun. And through as much history as I know of, people have moved west to settle and find freedom. But our world had gone north, truly gone north, and just how far north I was beginning to learn.
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Spellbinding!
- By Joan on 01-14-10
By: Marcel Theroux
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The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic
- The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive
- By: Martín Prechtel
- Narrated by: Martín Prechtel
- Length: 18 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic is both an epic story and a cry to the heart of humanity based on the author’s realization that human survival depends on keeping alive the seeds of our “original forgotten spiritual excellence.” Prechtel relates our current state of ecological crisis to the rapid disappearance of biodiversity, indigenous cultures, and shared human values. He demonstrates how real human culture is exterminated when real (not genetically modified) seeds are lost.
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Absolutely awesome and delicious!
- By Joange on 08-18-21
By: Martín Prechtel
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Believers
- Making a Life at the End of the World
- By: Lisa Wells
- Narrated by: Lisa Wells
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Like many of us, Lisa Wells has spent years overwhelmed by news of apocalyptic-scale climate change and a coming sixth extinction. She did not need to be convinced of the stakes. But what can be done? Wells embarked on a pilgrimage, seeking answers in dedicated communities - outcasts and visionaries - on the margins of society.
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I believe
- By Amazon Customer on 08-19-21
By: Lisa Wells
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A Hunter's Fireside Book
- Tales of Dogs, Ducks, Birds, & Guns
- By: Gene Hill
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The legendary American outdoor writer’s finest collection. For decades, Gene Hill’s articles and books have captured the spirit of the outdoors in a way that inspires and entertains millions of readers. A Hunter’s Fireside Book captures the essence of the life of a sportsman and explores the full spectrum of the hunter’s experience: sunrises in the duck blind, an unforgettable hunter’s moon, the camaraderie of men who know the pleasures of being wet and cold and a little bit lost.
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Beyond acquiring meat, this is why we go afield
- By Ray C on 02-28-20
By: Gene Hill
What listeners say about Being a Human
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Paul Bradley
- 09-09-21
Finally! The book I didn’t know I was looking for.
Recommended for those who know we are missing something in our current way of life in the 21st century. Something that’s fundamental to being a full person.
Foster crystallizes “that funny feeling” that we get- that we’ve set up a safe world for ourselves by separating ourselves from what we evolved to be. Natural animals of the earth. And in doing so, in trying to control nature in order to feel more secure and predictable, we’ve completely flipped our priorities and ideals from what they should be as a race.
I highly recommend. If you earnestly listen with an open mind to what he’s trying to say, this book is probably the closest thing to a mushroom trip without imbibing any chemicals that I can think of. He’s a real free thinker. And it’s good to know that there are people out there like Charles Foster.
Also the narration was spot on. Damian Lynch captures the tone I think the author was writing in. 5 stars all the way.
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- J. Colborn
- 01-21-22
Endless rumination, no science
I suppose if you are captivated by the author, this might be interesting— but for me it was tedious. I had hoped for more of a survey of the topic rather than The introspection of a nature writer.
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- Bertha Watkins
- 02-23-24
Very Disjointed
I listened to about one hour of the narrative. I am interested in human evolution at an amateur level. I think I understood that he was trying to connect our modern-day experience to the past . But it is terribly disjointed to the point that provided no useful information. Sorry. Had to shut it off.
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