Sounds Wild and Broken
Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction
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Narrated by:
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Steven Jay Cohen
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David George Haskell
About this listen
Finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction and the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Winner of the Acoustical Society of America's 2023 Science Communication Award
“[A] glorious guide to the miracle of life’s sound.” —The New York Times Book Review
A lyrical exploration of the diverse sounds of our planet, the creative processes that produced these marvels, and the perils that sonic diversity now faces
We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution’s creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales. In the startlingly divergent sonic vibes of the animals of different continents, we experience the legacies of plate tectonics, the deep history of animal groups and their movements around the world, and the quirks of aesthetic evolution.
Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, Haskell illuminates and celebrates the emergence of the varied sounds of our world. In mammoth ivory flutes from Paleolithic caves, violins in modern concert halls, and electronic music in earbuds, we learn that human music and language belong within this story of ecology and evolution. Yet we are also destroyers, now silencing or smothering many of the sounds of the living Earth. Haskell takes us to threatened forests, noise-filled oceans, and loud city streets, and shows that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative, just, and beautiful. The appreciation of the beauty and brokenness of sound is therefore an important guide in today’s convulsions and crises of change and inequity.
Sounds Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act.
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Critic reviews
“Haskell’s own joy of discovery makes it irresistible to tune in . . . [he] is spot on that sensory connection can inspire people to care in ways that dry statistics never will . . . Haskell’s previous books [...] suggested the emergence of a great poet-scientist. [Sounds Wild and Broken] affirms [him] as a laureate for the earth, his finely tuned scientific observations made more potent by his deep love for the wild he hopes to save.”—New York Times Book Review
“Earth sings and rings and warbles: a musical planet, maybe the only one in the universe. As David George Haskell tells it in his captivating new book, Sounds Wild and Broken, it is astonishing good fortune—and a fearsome responsibility—to be given this music and the ears to hear it with . . . Sounds Wild and Broken offer[s] one delight after another.”—Kathleen Dean Moore, Scientific American
“[Haskell] is something of an idiosynchratic genius . . . [his] previous works leveraged two tools that established him as one of America’s premier nature writers: his Zen-like ability to pay granular attention to what most people ignore and a lyrical writing style few scientists can muster . . . As he did in The Songs of Trees, Haskell enlivens the science by taking us on a journey, hopping from continent to continent. He wanders the mountains of southern France, treks Ecuador’s Amazon jungle, and noses about eucalyptus forests in New South Wales, all to illustrate the connection between sound and place.”—Outside
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Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spend 20 years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos, studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, when there are 400 at the time of the author's visit or when there are over a thousand. They have observed about 20 generations of finches - continuously.Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.
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Fascinating in-depth look at evolution in action
- By Philip on 05-15-11
By: Jonathan Weiner
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Becoming Animal
- An Earthly Cosmology
- By: David Abram
- Narrated by: David Abram
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we've inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our muscled flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This audiobook subverts that distance, drawing listeners ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth.
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a life changer
- By EH555 on 07-26-18
By: David Abram
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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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Gifts of the Crow
- How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans
- By: John Marzluff, Tony Angell
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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New research indicates that crows are among the brightest animals in the world. And professor of Wildlife Science at the University of Washington John Marzluff has done some of the most extraordinary research on crows, which has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as on NPR and PBS. Now he teams up with artist and fellow naturalist Tony Angell to offer an in-depth look at these incredible creatures - in a book that is brimming with surprises.
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You Will Never Look At A Crow The Same Way Again
- By Diane on 06-30-12
By: John Marzluff, and others
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The Thing with Feathers
- The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human
- By: Noah Strycker
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself. The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, and other mysteries.
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Interesting book, terrible reader
- By MGM123 on 03-16-18
By: Noah Strycker
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Intelligence in Nature
- An Inquiry into Knowledge
- By: Jeremy Narby
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has altered how we understand the Shamanic cultures and traditions that have undergone a worldwide revival in recent years. Now, in one of his most extraordinary journeys, Narby travels the globe - from the Amazon Basin to the Far East - to probe what traditional healers and pioneering researchers understand about the intelligence present in all forms of life. Intelligence in Nature presents overwhelming illustrative evidence that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity alone.
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Favorite part was untrue :(
- By Al A'scgh on 08-13-18
By: Jeremy Narby
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Becoming Wild
- How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace
- By: Carl Safina
- Narrated by: Carl Safina
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Some people insist that culture is strictly a human feat. What are they afraid of? This book looks into three cultures of other-than-human beings in some of Earth's remaining wild places. It shows how if you're a sperm whale, a scarlet macaw, or a chimpanzee, you too experience your life with the understanding that you are an individual in a particular community. You too are who you are not by genes alone; your culture is a second form of inheritance. And your culture, too, changes and evolves.
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It all sinks in over the story—highly recommend
- By Knitting Fisherman on 06-13-20
By: Carl Safina
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What a Fish Knows
- The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins
- By: Jonathan Balcombe
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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An underwater exploration that overturns myths about fishes and reveals their complex lives, from tool use to social behavior. There are more than 30,000 species of fish - more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined. But for all their breathtaking diversity and beauty, we rarely consider how fish think, feel, and behave.
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Title misled me
- By Margaret Weidemann on 08-12-17
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The Lives of a Cell
- Notes of a Biology Watcher
- By: Lewis Thomas
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Lives of a Cell, Dr. Lewis Thomas opens up to the listener a universe of knowledge and perception that is perhaps not wholly unfamiliar to the research scientist; but the world he explores is also one of men and women, of complex interrelationships, old ironies, peculiar powers, and intricate languages that give identity to the alienated and direction to the dependent. This remarkable work offers a subtle, bold vision of humankind and the world around us - a sense of what gives life - from a writer who seems to draw grace and strength from the very substance of his subject.
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So enlightening and enjoyable!
- By Flora on 03-15-18
By: Lewis Thomas
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The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
- A New History of a Lost World
- By: Steve Brusatte
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy.
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"The Rise of the Scientists Who Study Dinosaurs"
- By Daniel Powell on 09-16-18
By: Steve Brusatte
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The Cabaret of Plants
- Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination
- By: Richard Mabey
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A rich, sweeping, and compelling work of botanical history, The Cabaret of Plants explores dozens of plant species that for millennia have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty, and belief. Going back to the beginnings of human history, Richard Mabey shows how flowers, trees, and plants have been central to human experience not just as sources of food and medicine but as objects of worship, actors in creation myths, and symbols of war and peace, life and death.
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Can't wait to listen to again!
- By hyacinthgirl on 12-27-16
By: Richard Mabey
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Gods, Wasps and Stranglers
- The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees
- By: Mike Shanahan
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers, rain forest royalty, more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Gods, Wasps and Stranglers tells their amazing story. Fig trees fed our prehuman ancestors, influenced diverse cultures, and played key roles in the dawn of civilization.
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Incredible research in a wonderful story
- By Alonsa Guevara on 11-24-22
By: Mike Shanahan
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The Hidden Life of Trees
- What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World
- By: Peter Wohlleben
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever known. In The Hidden Life of Trees, forester Peter Wohlleben puts groundbreaking scientific discoveries into a language everyone can relate to.
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Tree Hugger
- By Darwin8u on 04-18-19
By: Peter Wohlleben
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How to Read Nature
- An Expert's Guide to Discovering the Outdoors You've Never Noticed
- By: Tristan Gooley
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 3 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Nobody wakes up in the morning and decides to shut down their senses and stumble through each day in an oblivious bubble, and yet some people end up having much richer experiences than others. In this guidebook, natural navigator Tristan Gooley strives to reawaken our senses to help us understand and deepen our personal experience of nature. His message is to connect - however we can and to whatever draws us in.
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A fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees
- By Mark A Bleakley on 08-07-18
By: Tristan Gooley
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Lifts you out of the ordinary
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Lifts you out of the ordinary
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Impassioned antislavery rhetoric made antebellum Boston famous as the nation’s hub of radical abolitionism. In fact, the city was far from a beacon of equality. In No Right to an Honest Living, historian Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small—a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive. Highlighting the everyday struggles of ordinary Black workers, this book shows how injustice in the workplace prevented Boston—and the United States—from securing true equality for all.
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Too much repititive detail, to the point that I ended up disliking the book would not recommend to my friends.
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In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them.
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At the end, this book is about friendships
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The Power of Trees
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In his beloved book The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben revealed astonishing discoveries about the social networks of trees and how they communicate. Now, in The Power of Trees, he turns to their future, with a searing critique of forestry management, tree planting, and the exploitation of old growth forests. At the heart of The Power of Trees lies Wohlleben’s passionate plea: that our survival is dependent on trusting ancient forests, and allowing them to thrive.
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Critical Urgency
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When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.
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Mycology for Everyone
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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
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Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
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Beautifully written, but painful.
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What listeners say about Sounds Wild and Broken
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- smg
- 03-02-23
Interesting info, unsatisfactory reader.
This was packed with information – gave lots of new insights to the sound dimension.
Best not to try to listen to all at once, but in bits and pieces.
Had to speed up the reader, because normal speed was so slow, and voice inflection wasn’t engaging. Became a chore to listen to, unfortunately.
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- Neriah & Lori
- 01-28-23
Incredible
This book is so thorough and detailed, it is truly a necessity for human beings to know themselves and their place in the bigger picture.
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- Steven L Peck
- 06-15-22
Stunning.
One of the most beautiful books I've read in a long time. So richly researched and stunningly executed it's destined to be a classic on writing about nature and the environment. I'm going to read this again and again. I'm so glad they found a reader up to the task of making this audible book sound vocally as wonderfully as it reads on the printed page. As a writer, and would be acoustic ecologist, I found myself cheering at both the remarkable writing and the scientific aspects captured equally well--don't miss this one.
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4 people found this helpful
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- S. Kalita
- 03-27-22
A poet-philosopher-scientist-sage for the ages!
I truly love love David Haskell's latest song in the guise of a book. It is as melodious and poetic as the sounds of evolution at work must have been the way he describes it over millions and billions of years and reveals the creative poet-philosopher-scientist-sage that he is...
The narrator also made the work more accessible with his pleasant and easy-to-listen-to voice.
And I'm also so glad David Haskell chose to read the preface. It was magical to hear his voice after however many years since I last heard it... I hope to hear his voice again.
Having finished the Audible version, I will now probably need to read the digital version, time-willing... With Audible, you can do two things at the same time and I was listening to David Haskell's creation while cooking meals and walking the dog thus combining several of my favorite pastimes : )
One suggestion to make the listening experience even more seamless would be to include the examples of the many sounds David Haskell has collected and posted on his website at the appropriate points in the Audible version.
Full disclosure -- There are many in the Sewanee community who have been wonderful mentors to me during my four years growing up there back in the day.
And David Haskell was very important to me from the the get-go as a student advisor and to working with him as an intern writing code for computer simulations.
SP Kalita
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7 people found this helpful
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- Laura M
- 05-05-24
Hard to listen to
I’m a huge fan of Haskell and found the content here less engaging than usual but I think that was mostly the narration. The voice was just hard to hear (not sonorous or crisp). With any background noise (in car, on bus) I had trouble hearing the words. And it was often flat in tone, which didn’t help. I wish the author had narrated the whole book.
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- T. Harrison
- 11-25-22
A Healing Listen
While I would have loved to hear the voice of the author throughout the audiobook (especially after being treated to David's soothing tonal quality in the preface), the narrator's voice worked well for me at 1.5x speed (and got me to my next audiobook more quickly).
I loved learning about dimensions of sound that I was not consciously aware of and also about much that resonated with what simply seems natural to me but that I had not heard explained. Wonderfully affirming!
I am also grateful to learn more about the many and varied ways many sounds contrived by us humans are far more damaging and problematic than I knew. While this was disturbing to hear, it gives me great hope that the more people hear it, the more people will work to correct the problems... hopefully holistically!
And I'm not sure I'll ever be able to process the information that sound is a fundamental force in the birth of our universe (or is it a multiverse?)... did I even get that remotely right? Fascinating, but way beyond my scientific comprehension!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Susan H Swope
- 02-28-23
A great book, an irritating narrator
I love this book, and recommend it highly. David George Haskell is brilliant, and opens my eyes (ears) to wonders.
But don't listen to this audio book. Instead, read it in print. I nearly gave up on the audio book: the narrator's inflection makes it sound like he wants to provoke an argument. It was a constant irritant that I couldn't ignore. Believe me, I tried.
I also recommend watching Haskell's youtube discussion of the book that was sponsored by Town Hall Seattle.
I don't usually like an author reading their own book, but I wish Haskell had read this one instead of the professional reader.
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- Jake
- 10-01-23
1/2 science of sound, 1/2 liberal ruminations
The first half of the book is excellent and fits the description of the book. The second half deviates a lot, going more into increasingly generic liberal ruminations. The last 1/4 of the book goes into detail how white people, especially white males are ruining New York because white males are racist, and then mentions any attempt at a white male to explain themselves is "mansplaining." The direction the book takes, is frankly kind of bizarre. The first half is quite good however and the prose is beautiful.
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- Zahra
- 03-17-24
Not what I expected
I got this book as a popular science book, but it's more like a long, boring essay. I couldn't finish it.
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- CMC
- 09-09-24
Only if you are into birds
This book is only worth your time if you are really into birds. I like birds but not enough to finish the last 7 hours.
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