
Moby-Duck
The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Christopher Evan Welch
-
By:
-
Donovan Hohn
About this listen
When the writer Donovan Hohn heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. Hohn's accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories.
Moby-Duck is a journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable. With each new discovery, Hohn learns of another loose thread, and with each successive chase, he comes closer to understanding where his castaway quarry comes from and where it goes. In the grand tradition of Tony Horwitz and David Quammen, Moby-Duck is a compulsively readable narrative of whimsy and curiosity.
©2011 Donovan Hohn (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
-
Five Days at Memorial
- Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
- By: Sheri Fink
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs.
-
-
Five Days in Hell/Years in Purgatory
- By Cynthia on 09-15-13
By: Sheri Fink
-
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
- Monk & Robot, Book 1
- By: Becky Chambers
- Narrated by: Em Grosland
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
-
-
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
- By Daniel Cascaddan on 07-15-21
By: Becky Chambers
-
Global Mom
- Eight Countries, Sixteen Addresses, Five Languages, One Family
- By: Melissa Dalton-Bradford
- Narrated by: Melissa Dalton-Bradford
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Follow this family of six on their passage - extraordinary, hilarious and heartbreakingly poignant-from Bright Lights (of New York City) to the Northern Lights (of Norway) to the City of Light (Paris) to the speed-of-light of the Autobahn (in Munich). Continue deep into the tropics of Southeast Asia (Singapore) and end your voyage in the heights of the Swiss Alps (Geneva).
-
-
Genuine beautifully told tale of life abroad
- By Fiona Robison on 03-28-25
-
A Wrinkle in Time Archival Edition: Read by the Author
- A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, Book 1
- By: Madeleine L'Engle
- Narrated by: Madeleine L'Engle
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In honor of Madeleine L'Engle's 100th birthday, fans are invited to enjoy this archival audiobook, originally recorded in 1993 and newly restored! Listen to the voice of the author as Madeleine L'Engle reads her Newbery Medal-winning novel A Wrinkle in Time.
-
-
Waiting a long time
- By Rj on 08-30-20
-
Superheroes in Prose
- Welcome to Prose
- By: Sevan Paris
- Narrated by: Bryan Reid
- Length: 1 hr and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Imagine you have the power to fly. Pretty awesome, right? Imagine you have the power to levitate or crush something the size of a Winnebago. Equally awesome. Now ... here's the catch: having the power means you are bonded irreversibly to a smartass, sociopathic alien life form. Not so awesome. So, what would you do with all of that power? The way I figured it, I had one of two options: Option #1) Use it to commit crime or Option #2) Use it to fight crime. My name is Gabe Garrison and I chose Option #2."
-
-
Supers are...SUPER!
- By A. Kessel on 03-11-14
By: Sevan Paris
-
Ender's Game
- By: Orson Scott Card
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A full-cast production of the science fiction classic featuring original recordings of Orson Scott Card
By: Orson Scott Card
-
Five Days at Memorial
- Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
- By: Sheri Fink
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs.
-
-
Five Days in Hell/Years in Purgatory
- By Cynthia on 09-15-13
By: Sheri Fink
-
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
- Monk & Robot, Book 1
- By: Becky Chambers
- Narrated by: Em Grosland
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
-
-
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
- By Daniel Cascaddan on 07-15-21
By: Becky Chambers
-
Global Mom
- Eight Countries, Sixteen Addresses, Five Languages, One Family
- By: Melissa Dalton-Bradford
- Narrated by: Melissa Dalton-Bradford
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Follow this family of six on their passage - extraordinary, hilarious and heartbreakingly poignant-from Bright Lights (of New York City) to the Northern Lights (of Norway) to the City of Light (Paris) to the speed-of-light of the Autobahn (in Munich). Continue deep into the tropics of Southeast Asia (Singapore) and end your voyage in the heights of the Swiss Alps (Geneva).
-
-
Genuine beautifully told tale of life abroad
- By Fiona Robison on 03-28-25
-
A Wrinkle in Time Archival Edition: Read by the Author
- A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, Book 1
- By: Madeleine L'Engle
- Narrated by: Madeleine L'Engle
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In honor of Madeleine L'Engle's 100th birthday, fans are invited to enjoy this archival audiobook, originally recorded in 1993 and newly restored! Listen to the voice of the author as Madeleine L'Engle reads her Newbery Medal-winning novel A Wrinkle in Time.
-
-
Waiting a long time
- By Rj on 08-30-20
-
Superheroes in Prose
- Welcome to Prose
- By: Sevan Paris
- Narrated by: Bryan Reid
- Length: 1 hr and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Imagine you have the power to fly. Pretty awesome, right? Imagine you have the power to levitate or crush something the size of a Winnebago. Equally awesome. Now ... here's the catch: having the power means you are bonded irreversibly to a smartass, sociopathic alien life form. Not so awesome. So, what would you do with all of that power? The way I figured it, I had one of two options: Option #1) Use it to commit crime or Option #2) Use it to fight crime. My name is Gabe Garrison and I chose Option #2."
-
-
Supers are...SUPER!
- By A. Kessel on 03-11-14
By: Sevan Paris
-
Ender's Game
- By: Orson Scott Card
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A full-cast production of the science fiction classic featuring original recordings of Orson Scott Card
By: Orson Scott Card
-
Master and Commander
- Aubrey/Maturin Series, Book 1
- By: Patrick O'Brian
- Narrated by: Patrick Tull
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, Royal Navy, and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of life aboard a man-of-war in Nelson's navy are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the road of broadsides as the great ships close in battle.
-
-
Choice of Narrators
- By Frank R. Adams on 04-23-10
By: Patrick O'Brian
-
Cloud Atlas (20th Anniversary Edition)
- A Novel
- By: David Mitchell, Gabrielle Zevin
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....
-
-
thoroughly enjoyed
- By Elizabeth on 01-05-08
By: David Mitchell, and others
-
The Devil's Teeth
- A True Story of Survival and Obsession Among America's Great White Sharks
- By: Susan Casey
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journalist Susan Casey was in her living room when she first glimpsed this strange place and its resident sharks, their dark fins swirling around a tiny boat in a documentary. These great whites were the alphas among alphas, the narrator said, some of them topping 18 feet in length, and each fall they congregated here off the northern California coast.
-
-
Romance novel + diary + shark?
- By Brian Dowrick on 08-05-05
By: Susan Casey
-
Ship of Magic
- The Liveship Traders, Book 1
- By: Robin Hobb
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 35 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships---rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. The fortunes of one of Bingtown's oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her---a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim.
-
-
Horrible Narrator
- By CP on 10-07-10
By: Robin Hobb
-
Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries
- By: Jon Ronson
- Narrated by: Jon Ronson
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jon Ronson is fascinated by madness, extraordinary behaviour and the human mind. He has spent his life investigating crazy events, following fascinating people and unearthing unusual stories. Collected here from various sources (including the Guardian and GQ America) are the best of his adventures.
-
-
Like a Collection of TAL Episodes
- By Pamela Harvey on 10-20-12
By: Jon Ronson
-
Anathem
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, and others
- Length: 32 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.
-
-
I love Neal, but Good lord... ugh!
- By SpiderGrrl on 10-08-19
By: Neal Stephenson
-
Caleb's Crossing
- A Novel
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ehle
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure. The narrator of Caleb's Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex....
-
-
Sadly, I can't go on listening.
- By Susan C. S. on 06-22-11
By: Geraldine Brooks
-
Dimension of Miracles
- By: Robert Sheckley
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dimension of Miracles is a satirical science fiction novel first published by Dell in 1968. It's about Tom Carmody, a New Yorker who, thanks to a computer error, wins the main prize in the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. Tom claims his prize before the error is discovered and is allowed to keep it. However, since Tom is a human from Earth without galactic status and no space traveling experience, he has no homing instinct that can guide him back to Earth once his odyssey begins - and the galactic lottery organizers cannot transport him home.
-
-
Easily The Best Title I've Encountered on Audible
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 07-02-13
By: Robert Sheckley
-
The Autobiography of Henry VIII
- By: Margaret George
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 41 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret George's novel brings into focus the larger-than-life King Henry VIII, monarch of prodigious appetites for wine, women, and song.
-
-
Perfection!
- By Amy M. Walts on 10-20-07
By: Margaret George
-
The Sex Lives of Cannibals
- Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
- By: J. Maarten Troost
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At age 26, Maarten Troost decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to a remote South Pacific island. The idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. But he should have known better.
-
-
HILARIOUS
- By Elizabeth on 08-17-08
-
Russka
- The Novel of Russia
- By: Edward Rutherfurd
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 39 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russka is the story of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of Russia. From a single riverside village situated at one of the country’s geographic crossroads, Russia’s Slav peasant origins are influenced by the Greco-Iranian, Khazar, Jewish, and Mongol invasions. Unified by this one place, the many cultures blend to form a rich and varied tapestry. Rutherfurd’s grand saga is as multifaceted as Russia itself.
-
-
Wonderful Historical Novel
- By Angelyn S. Furst on 10-22-12
-
Anthem
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 2 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This gripping tale of the future anticipates Ayn Rand's later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. In the dark ages of the future, individuals have no name, no independence, and no values. In this faceless world, one man dares to love the woman of his choice and to seek and find knowledge.
-
-
Anthem
- By Sly on 01-27-03
By: Ayn Rand
Interesting story but way too many side jaunts.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
When is a bath toy not a bath toy...?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Captured my imagination
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What did you like about this audiobook?
Yes because both the author and narrator made the story very compelling, informative, and entertaining.How has the book increased your interest in the subject matter?
Tory Horwitz's "Confederates in the Attic", because the style is similar, and because the author breathes life into topics that may seem very dry and anecdotal.Does the author present information in a way that is interesting and insightful, and if so, how does he achieve this?
I found his voice to be very engaging and he made even technical passages sound compelling.What did you find wrong about the narrator's performance?
I did find myself laughing aloud and wanting to share what I'd just heard with those around me. I urge others to read and/or listen to the book.Wow! I liked this even more than I expected!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Rambling and repetitive
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Brilliant narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Unless you count full recognition of the cost of product disposal, control of wasteful habits, and an educated consumer that does not consume only for the sake of consuming.
Solid narration presents the material well and does not get in the way of the message.
Intro to global economy and consequences
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator does a solid job when he is reading from the voice of the author, but when the author is in conversation with another person, the performer adopts a really dorky voice. Clearly he is trying to make the voice sufficiently different that there is no ambiguity about who is speaking, but the voice he chooses is awkward and off-putting.
Overall, it’s worth a listen though.
Interesting and thought provoking.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
Wow, what a waste of time.What could Donovan Hohn have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
More story and less fillerAny additional comments?
Avoid this book. Story was not worth telling. I could not finish the book.Moby-Flop
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
not to spoil the ending, but i still don't know. I know it's a true story, but its a science book and not a "story". way to technical for me,Would you ever listen to anything by Donovan Hohn again?
probably notHow did the narrator detract from the book?
a bit dullIf you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Moby-Duck?
most of it... very redundantwhat happened to the ducks?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.