Life on the Rocks
Building a Future for Coral Reefs
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Narrated by:
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Juli Berwald
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By:
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Juli Berwald
About this listen
FINALIST FOR THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND BOOKLIST
The story of the urgent fight to save coral reefs, and why it matters to us all
Coral reefs are a microcosm of our planet: extraordinarily diverse, deeply interconnected, and full of wonders. When they’re thriving, these fairy gardens hidden beneath the ocean’s surface burst with color and life. They sustain bountiful ecosystems and protect vulnerable coasts. Corals themselves are evolutionary marvels that build elaborate limestone formations from their collective skeletons, broker symbiotic relationships with algae, and manufacture their own fluorescent sunblock. But corals across the planet are in the middle of an unprecedented die-off, beset by warming oceans, pollution, damage by humans, and a devastating pandemic.
Juli Berwald fell in love with coral reefs as a marine biology student, entranced by their beauty and complexity. Alarmed by their peril, she traveled the world to discover how to prevent their loss. She met scientists and activists operating in emergency mode, doing everything they can think of to prevent coral reefs from disappearing forever. She was so amazed by the ingenuity of these last-ditch efforts that she joined in rescue missions, unexpected partnerships, and risky experiments, and helped rebuild reefs with rebar and zip ties.
Life on the Rocks is an inspiring, lucid, meditative ode to the reefs and the undaunted scientists working to save them against almost impossible odds. As she also attempts to help her daughter in her struggle with mental illness, Berwald explores what it means to keep fighting a battle whose outcome is uncertain. She contemplates the inevitable grief of climate change and the beauty of small victories.
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- Our Intimate Connection with Kinky Crustaceans, Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep
- By: Marah J. Hardt
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Forget the Kama Sutra. When it comes to inventive sex acts, just look to the sea. There we find the elaborate mating rituals of armored lobsters; giant right whales engaging in a lively threesome while holding their breath; full-moon sex parties of groupers; and daily mating blitzes by blueheaded wrasse. Deep-sea squid perform inverted 69s while hermaphrodite sea slugs link up in giant sex loops.
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How to laugh while learning/ learn while laughing
- By Miamigrrl on 07-27-16
By: Marah J. Hardt
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Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
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Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
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Countdown
- Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
- By: Alan Weisman
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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Weisman visits an extraordinary range of the world's cultures, religions, nationalities, tribes, and political systems to learn what in their beliefs, histories, liturgies, or current circumstances might suggest that sometimes it's in their own best interest to limit their growth.
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Boring
- By NorthFLADiver on 01-14-14
By: Alan Weisman
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A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman
- A Memoir
- By: Lindy Elkins-Tanton
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Deep in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, three times farther from the sun than the Earth is, orbits a massive asteroid called (16) Psyche. It is one of the largest objects in the belt, potentially containing the equivalent of the world’s total economy in metals, though they cannot be brought back to Earth. But (16) Psyche has the potential to unlock something even more valuable: the story of how planets form, and how our planet formed.
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Inspiring
- By SLL on 12-03-23
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The Smart Swarm
- By: Peter Miller
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In a world where speed and flexibility are valued more than ever, leaders from the corporate boardroom to the military are looking for answers from seemingly unlikely experts - the ones in the grass, in the air, in the lakes, and in the woods. In this innovative audiobook, veteran National Geographic editor Peter Miller shows how swarm species, such as ants, bees, and fish, can teach us to tackle some of the most complex conundrums in business, politics, and technology.
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FLOCK TO THIS BOOK!
- By serine on 04-25-16
By: Peter Miller
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Biomimicry
- Innovation Inspired by Nature
- By: Janine M. Benyus
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Biomimicry is rapidly transforming life on earth. Biomimics study nature's most successful ideas over the past 3.5 million years, and adapt them for human use. The results are revolutionizing how materials are invented and how we compute, heal ourselves, repair the environment, and feed the world. Janine Benyus takes listeners into the lab and in the field with maverick thinkers as they: discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they're sick; learn how to create by watching spiders weave fibers; and many more examples.
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Dated but good
- By stephen taylor on 09-05-21
By: Janine M. Benyus
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War of the Whales
- A True Story
- By: Joshua Horwitz
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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War of the Whales is the gripping tale of a crusading attorney who stumbles on one of the US Navy’s best-kept secrets: a submarine detection system that floods entire ocean basins with high-intensity sound - and drives whales onto beaches. As Joel Reynolds launches a legal fight to expose and challenge the Navy program, marine biologist Ken Balcomb witnesses a mysterious mass stranding of whales near his research station in the Bahamas.
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Legal Drama - better than fiction
- By W. P. Brown on 08-23-14
By: Joshua Horwitz
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Visit Sunny Chernobyl
- And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places
- By: Andrew Blackwell
- Narrated by: Ax Norman
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For most of us, traveling means visiting the most beautiful places on Earth - Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. It’s rare to book a plane ticket to visit the lifeless moonscape of Canada’s oil sand strip mines, or to seek out the Chinese city of Linfen, legendary as the most polluted in the world. But in Visit Sunny Chernobyl, Andrew Blackwell embraces a different kind of travel, taking a jaunt through the most gruesomely polluted places on Earth.
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Better than I predicted
- By Paul Luthi on 08-23-13
By: Andrew Blackwell
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The Dragon Behind the Glass
- A True Story of Power, Obsession, and the World's Most Coveted Fish
- By: Emily Voigt
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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A young man is murdered for his prized pet fish. An Asian tycoon buys a single specimen for $150,000. Meanwhile, a pet detective chases smugglers through the streets of New York. Delving into an outlandish realm of obsession, paranoia, and criminality, The Dragon Behind the Glass tells the story of a fish like none other: a powerful predator dating to the age of the dinosaurs.
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A "must read" for all fish professionals.
- By Fishgen on 06-26-16
By: Emily Voigt
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The Soil Will Save Us
- How Scientists, Farmers, and Ranchers Are Tending the Soil to Reverse Global Warming
- By: Kristin Ohlson
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Soil Will Save Us, journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for "our great green hope"—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.
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Rambling, mile wide, inch deep treatment of a subject
- By Charles Phillips on 10-17-18
By: Kristin Ohlson
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Wild Ones
- A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America
- By: Jon Mooallem
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Half of all species could disappear by the end of the century, and scientists now concede that most of America’s endangered animals will survive only if conservationists keep rigging the world around them in their favor. So Jon Mooallem ventures into the field, often taking his daughter with him, to move beyond childlike fascination and make those creatures feel more real. Wild Ones is a tour through our environmental moment and the eccentric cultural history of people and wild animals in America that inflects it.
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The line between conservation and domestication...
- By Bonny on 04-02-14
By: Jon Mooallem
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Farmageddon
- The True Cost of Cheap Meat
- By: Philip Lymbery, Isabel Oakeshott
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Farm animals have been disappearing from our fields as the production of food has become a global industry. We no longer know for certain what is entering the food chain and what we are eating - as the UK horsemeat scandal demonstrated. We are reaching a tipping point as the farming revolution threatens our countryside, health, and the quality of our food wherever we live in the world.
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Excellent insight of industrial farming
- By Grazyna on 04-19-14
By: Philip Lymbery, and others
What listeners say about Life on the Rocks
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Placeholder
- 12-18-22
Good read about corals
The book gave good details about the problems facing corals today also the book talked about climate change. However, i felt the book was long and little boring at times while listening. I strongly recommend listening to the book.
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- Kiana P.
- 07-15-22
Get the print version
We all have strengths and I appreciate the way Juli writes in a clear and concise way for the non scientific mind to understand. However, she is not the easiest to listen to. Some people are meant to write, some to perform. Rarely do you get both.
The book itself is VERY well researched, informative and up to date. The timeline is a little jumpy and the parts about her family life/ daughter seem unnecessary but I understand why she wants the information out there.... And yes, she does manage to tie it all in towards the end.
Well worth the read although I couldn't listen to the audio version. But I liked it enough to buy two copies lol.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Scott Burton
- 06-13-22
A rare science book that teaches and touches
Berwald's beautiful writing captures the existential plight of coral with the inquisitive mind of a scientist and the loving heart of a mother. She weaves together the mysterious resilience of these clever creatures with the challenges of parenting a child struggling with mental health challenges.
I was thoroughly engrossed from Juli's opening description of her love affair with coral reefs all the way to the end which portrays optimistic and ambitious multi- sector global coral restoration initiative.
It's a rare science book that teaches and touches. I learned so much about the world, climate change, other cultures, marine research, OCD, and of course coral. I also teared up multiple times as she described the hope and heartbreak she felt for her beloved daughter and the world's coral reefs.
Prior to this book I hadn't fully grasped how essential the survival of coral is to the survival of human life on this planet.... and how tenuous both are.
I think this is required reading for all who care about life on Earth
I highly recommend!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-21-22
A lot of family fluff
Would be a nicer book if the focus kept towards coral. Basically it is now like listening to two books in one
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