Grunt
The Curious Science of Humans at War
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Narrated by:
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Abby Elvidge
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By:
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Mary Roach
About this listen
Bestselling author Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.
Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries - panic, exhaustion, heat, noise - and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you'll never see our nation's defenders in the same way again.
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Never Quit
- From Alaskan Wilderness Rescues to Afghanistan Firefights as an Elite Special Ops PJ
- By: Jimmy Settle, Don Rearden
- Narrated by: Chris Abell
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
"That Others May Live" is a mantra that defines the fearless men of Alaska's 212th Pararescue Unit, the PJs, one of the most elite military forces on the planet. Whether they are rescuing citizens injured and freezing in the Alaskan wilderness or saving wounded Rangers and SEALs in blazing firefights at war, the PJs are the least known and most highly trained of America's warriors. Never Quit is the true story of how Jimmy Settle, an Alaskan shoe-store clerk, became a Special Forces Operator and war hero.
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Unbelievable Heroism by AF Parajumpers
- By Larry on 11-26-17
By: Jimmy Settle, and others
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The Long Walk
- A Story of War and the Life That Follows
- By: Brian Castner
- Narrated by: Brian Castner
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team—his brothers—would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late.
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Heart wrenching and a compelling read
- By J. Masters on 08-08-12
By: Brian Castner
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I Am a SEAL Team Six Warrior
- Memoirs of an American Soldier
- By: Howard E. Wasdin, Stephen Templin
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When the Navy sends their elite, they send the SEALs. When the SEALs send their elite, they send SEAL Team Six—a secret unit made up of the finest soldiers in the country, if not the world. I Am a SEAL Team Six Warrior is the dramatic tale of how Howard Wasdin overcame a tough childhood to live his dream and enter the exciting and dangerous world of US Navy SEALs and Special Forces snipers. This is Howard Wasdin's story of overcoming abuse and beating the odds to become an elite American warrior.
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gripping
- By Chuck on 05-26-22
By: Howard E. Wasdin, and others
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Shade it Black
- Death and After in Iraq
- By: Jessica Goodell, John Hearn
- Narrated by: Emily Durante
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Jess enlisted in the Marines immediately after graduating from high school in 2001, and in 2004 she volunteered to serve in the Marine Corps' first officially declared Mortuary Affairs unit in Iraq. Her platoon was tasked with recovering and processing the remains of fallen soldiers. With sensitivity and insight, Jess describes her job retrieving and examining the remains of fellow soldiers lost in combat in Iraq, and the psychological intricacy of coping with their fates, as well as her own.
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Credit-Worthy Slug to the Gut
- By Gillian on 03-25-14
By: Jessica Goodell, and others
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Gulp
- Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
- By: Mary Roach
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Best-selling author Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside. Roach takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: The questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts?
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Funtastic Voyage
- By Mel on 04-05-13
By: Mary Roach
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SEAL Team Six
- Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper
- By: Howard E. Wasdin, Stephen Templin
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When the Navy sends their elite, they send the SEALs. When the SEALs send their elite, they send SEAL Team Six—a secret unit tasked with counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and counterinsurgency. In this dramatic, behind-the-scenes chronicle, Howard Wasdin takes listeners deep inside the world of Navy SEALs and Special Forces snipers, beginning with the grueling selection process of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL - the toughest and longest military training in the world.
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A Woman's Review Perspective
- By Foodiewife on 05-30-11
By: Howard E. Wasdin, and others
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MASH: An Army Surgeon in Korea
- By: Otto F. Apel JR. M.D., Pat Apel
- Narrated by: Dr. Bill Brooks
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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When North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, Otto Apel was a surgical resident living in Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife and three young children. A year later he was chief surgeon of the 8076th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, constantly near the front lines in Korea. Immediately upon arriving in camp, Apel performed 80 hours of surgery. His feet swelled so badly, he had to cut his boots off, and he saw more surgical cases in those three and a half days than he would have in a year back in Cleveland.
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MASH and the Korean War
- By Angie on 08-29-17
By: Otto F. Apel JR. M.D., and others
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The Chick and the Dead
- Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors
- By: Carla Valentine
- Narrated by: Beverley A. Crick
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Using the most common postmortem process as the backbone of the narrative, The Chick and the Dead takes the listener through the process of an autopsy while also describing the history and changing cultures of our relationship with the dead. The book is full of vivid insight into what happens to our bodies in the end. Each chapter considers an aspect of an autopsy alongside an aspect of Carla's own life and work and touches on some of the more controversial aspects of our feelings toward death.
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Dull
- By Leah on 08-19-17
By: Carla Valentine
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Touching the Dragon
- And Other Techniques for Surviving Life's Wars
- By: James Hatch, Christian D'Andrea
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith, James Hatch
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
James Hatch is a former special ops Navy SEAL senior chief, master naval parachutist, and expert military dog trainer and handler. His fateful final mission in Afghanistan went south, and Hatch was left with a shattered femur from an AK-47 round and the SEAL dog who fought alongside him was dead. As a result of his horrific leg wound, his 24-year military career came to an end - and with it the only life he’d ever known. In Touching the Dragon, we witness his long road to recovery.
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Rare Honesty - Raw and Well Written
- By Diana on 06-02-18
By: James Hatch, and others
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In the Company of Heroes
- The True Story of Black Hawk Pilot Michael Durant and the Men Who Fought and Fell at Mogadishu
- By: Michael Durant, Steven Hartov
- Narrated by: Michael Durant
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Abridged
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Story
Durant's experience as a prisoner in Somalia grew increasingly bizarre, crystallizing a clash of cultures by turns frightening, melancholy, hilarious, and strangely familiar. Revealing never-before-told stories with the incisive thought and emotion of one who was there, In the Company of Heroes is one man's unforgettable, true story of going to hell and making it back alive.
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27 years after the fact, I finally listened.
- By Michael on 06-30-21
By: Michael Durant, and others
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The Gift of Valor
- A War Story
- By: Michael M. Phillips
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Every day ordinary young Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq, with the same bravery, honor, and sense of duty that have distinguished American troops throughout history. One of these is Jason Dunham, a 22-year-old Marine corporal from the one-stoplight town of Scio, New York, whose stunning story reporter Michael M. Phillips discovered while he was embedded with a Marine infantry battalion in the Iraqi desert.
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Semper Fi
- By James on 07-31-05
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Immortality
- By: Kevin Bohacz
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 26 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Without warning, something has gone terribly awry. In the remote and unnoticed places of the world, small pockets of death begin occurring. As the initially isolated extinctions spread, the world's eyes focus on this unimaginable horror and chaos. Out of the ecological imbalance, something new and extraordinary is evolving and surviving to fill the voids left by these extinctions. Evolution is operating in ways no one could have expected, and environmental damage may be the catalyst.
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Good End of World Thriller
- By John S on 11-04-14
By: Kevin Bohacz
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Day By Day Armageddon
- By: J. L. Bourne
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In your hands is the handwritten journal depicting one man's struggle for survival. Trapped in the midst of global disaster, he must make decisions; choices that ultimately mean life, or the eternal curse to walk as one of them. Enter, if you will, into the world of the undead.
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Freakin' AWESOME!
- By Brandon on 02-09-11
By: J. L. Bourne
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Read this book, but don't listen to it!
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Fuzz
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What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.
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The footnotes
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Packing for Mars
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Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? Have sex? Smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour?
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Everything You Always Wanted to Know - and More
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My Planet
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Narrator drove me crazy
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Read this book, but don't listen to it!
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Fuzz
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What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.
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For two thousand years, cadavers have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.
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I worked with cadavers for years, but....
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Lucy Preston just wants to go on vacation. But being the daughter of a famous private detective means that sometimes, your beach vacay goes off the rails a bit. Think: a clandestine meeting at an abandoned amusement park—except instead of a meeting, Lucy and her mom find a body. Because of course they do.
By: Mary E. Roach
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All That Remains
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Dame Sue Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist. She has lived her life eye to eye with the Grim Reaper, and she writes vividly about it in this book, which is part primer on the basics of identifying human remains, part frank memoir of a woman whose first paying job as a schoolgirl was to apprentice in a butcher shop, and part no-nonsense but deeply humane introduction to the reality of death in our lives. It is a treat for CSI junkies, murder mystery and thriller fans, and anyone seeking a clear-eyed guide to a subject that touches us all.
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I wanted a science book about forensics. I got a mostly-memoir instead.
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Gory Details
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Filled to the brim with far-out facts, this wickedly informative narrative from the author of National Geographic's popular Gory Details blog takes us on a fascinating journey through an astonishing new reality. Blending humor and journalism in the tradition of Mary Roach, acclaimed science reporter Erika Engelhaupt investigates the gross, strange, and morbid absurdities of our bodies and our universe.
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Feels like old school Discovery channel
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The Icepick Surgeon
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Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.
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FANTASTIC! & What’s up with all these naysayers (negative reviewers)?!
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By: Sam Kean
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The Fires of Vesuvius
- Pompeii Lost and Found
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Destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE, the ruins of Pompeii offer the best evidence we have of life in the Roman Empire. But the eruptions are only part of the story. In The Fires of Vesuvius, acclaimed historian Mary Beard makes sense of the remains. She explores what kind of town it was - more like Calcutta or the Costa del Sol? - and what it can tell us about "ordinary" life there. From sex to politics, food to religion, slavery to literacy, Beard offers us the big picture even as she takes us close enough to the past to smell the bad breath....
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Delightful Description of Life in Ancient Pompeii
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Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?
- Big Questions from Tiny Mortals
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In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Doughty blends her mortician’s knowledge of the body and the intriguing history behind common misconceptions about corpses to offer factual, hilarious, and candid answers to 35 distinctive questions posed by her youngest fans. In her inimitable voice, Doughty details lore and science of what happens to, and inside, our bodies after we die. Why do corpses groan? What causes bodies to turn colors during decomposition? And why do hair and nails appear longer after death?
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There is just something with Caitlin Doughty...
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By: Caitlin Doughty
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The Poisoner's Handbook
- Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
- By: Deborah Blum
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
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In The Poisoner's Handbook, Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.
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Fascinating book marred by production errors
- By Reagan Kelly on 03-02-10
By: Deborah Blum
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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
- And Other Lessons from the Crematory
- By: Caitlin Doughty
- Narrated by: Caitlin Doughty
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty - a 20-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre - took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. With an original voice that combines fearless curiosity and mordant wit, Caitlin tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters, gallows humor, and vivid characters (both living and very dead).
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Loved it So Much I Bought it After Reading it Free
- By J. Mattox on 05-17-17
By: Caitlin Doughty
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How To
- Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
- By: Randall Munroe
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.
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Bad Ideas So BAD They Are NEARLY Irresistable! 🤓
- By C. White on 09-03-19
By: Randall Munroe
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Quackery
- A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
- By: Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
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What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine - yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison - was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices.
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Computer-generated Narrator. Dated Humour.
- By Nemo on 12-28-18
By: Lydia Kang, and others
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Pathogenesis
- A History of the World in Eight Plagues
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According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.
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Devolves into political advocacy
- By Mark Fackler on 04-29-23
By: Jonathan Kennedy
What listeners say about Grunt
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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- Michael D. Johas Teener
- 06-01-17
Very good, as usual ...
...for a Mary Roach book. Much more serious towards the end, however, than was "Stiff" or "Bonk". Worth listening to.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-21-17
Interesting material, terrible performance
Voice and reading style was really annoying and very mismatched for the topic and material
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- Megan
- 06-24-16
Another Stellar Book by Mary Roach!
Informative and well researched with Mary's usual wit and humor. She expertly handles sensitive topics and makes them approachable. Highly recommend!
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- Obese Ninja
- 07-28-16
science found its sexy
I love science. I love research. I really loved the way Mary explained the work that wemt into all the little improvements that made and makes military life more bearable.
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- Jessica
- 04-01-17
glad I stuck it out
I initially downloaded this book as an "adventure" - reading something that sounded interesting with no idea how it would go. When the story started, I thought, "this was a mistake...", but I continued reading it, thinking I would at least see what the first two chapters were like. I'm glad I did. Each chapter taught me so many new things that, while some times sad and some times unpleasant, I found enlightening. I'd recommend this book to people who like learning new things and have a fairly open mind to the not-so-pleasant side of science and medicine.
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- Justin
- 08-06-16
A very good and interesting read.
Would you consider the audio edition of Grunt to be better than the print version?
Not necessarily, but it was perfect for a road trip. My wife and I listened to it on a trip that happened to be just about the same drive time as the book and it was great.
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
It's both funny and informative, like all Mary Roach books.
Have you listened to any of Abby Elvidge’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, but my wife and I really enjoyed her. I am not sure why some of the other reviewers didn't. She did a really great job and does really good voices including male voices which is interesting since she has such a high pitched voice.
Any additional comments?
If you like any of Mary Roach's other books, you will probably like this one. It goes into some weird aspects of the military that you wouldn't normally think of, like how does diarrhea effect combat missions? and how they train combat medics to deal with the shock of gore. It's really interesting and has that great Mary Roach sense of humor.
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- Aurora
- 09-18-16
I never see the miltary the same way again
Narration was a little nasal. and ending was abrupt but otherwise fascinating book. the end
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- Abigail Aasbo
- 10-03-17
Narrator voice a problem
The topic was good but the narrator’s voice was annoying. Writing too folksy for my taste.
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- William
- 08-24-16
Give it time
Not as gripping as her previous works. Sick with it... The are some gems in there.
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- J. Burns
- 10-05-22
A fun ramble through the mess this is modern combat
Mary digs into some of the weirder and horrific parts of modern warfare with clear honest and humor
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