
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024
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Narrated by:
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Eileen Stevens
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Stephen Graybill
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Lee Osorio
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Gina Daniels
About this listen
Award-winning environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in the previous year.
“This was the most anomalous year (so far) in human history,” guest editor Bill McKibben writes, “the year in which the relationship between people and planet showed its most dramatic signs yet of unraveling.” The selections in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024 reveal a trying year for our planet—from the Lahaina wildfire tragedy to the lush Amazon jungle slowly turning to savanna—while also celebrating the earth’s beautiful and mysterious ways—from the largest beaver dam on earth to the heroic innovation to prevent birds from crashing into Chicago’s expanse of glass buildings. These essays offer solace in trying times, showing a way for a better future. They are, as McKibben says, “a reminder that this world is still a lovely and deep place, well worth the fighting for.”
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024 includes IAN FRAZIER • AMANDA GEFTER • DOUGLAS FOX • SARAH KAPLAN • BEN GOLDFARB • RAYMOND ZHONG • ALEX CUADROS • AND OTHERS
©2024 Bill McKibben and Jaime Green (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
“Food and travel are natural companions,” writes guest editor Padma Lakshmi. From this pairing comes “the possibility of seeing anew, of examining how we make and assign meaning.” The essays in this year’s Best American Food and Travel Writing circle the world—from Dakar in Senegal, to Michoacán in south-central Mexico, to the Camino de Santiago in Spain—and deepen our understanding of our place in it.
By: Padma Lakshmi, and others
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The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2022
- Best American
- By: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson - editor, Jaime Green - series editor
- Narrated by: Tracey Leigh, Jennifer Aquino, Ulka Simone Mohanty, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, renowned marine biologist and co-founder of the All We Can Save climate initiative, compiles the best science and nature writing of the year.
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The worst book in the series I have read.
- By O on 06-19-23
By: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson - editor, and others
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The Best American Essays 2022
- By: Alexander Chee
- Narrated by: Robert Atwan, Iva-Marie Palmer, Ewan Chung, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.
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Best of this series ever
- By Melissa on 02-28-23
By: Alexander Chee
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The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024
- By: S.A. Cosby, Steph Cha
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez, Bill Andrew Quinn, John Pirhalla, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.
By: S.A. Cosby, and others
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The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024
- By: Hugh Howey, John Joseph Adams
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston, Frankie Corzo, David Lee Huynh, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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“These are dangerous stories. The kind that warp reality and threaten to change the world” warns guest editor Hugh Howey in his introduction. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 promises a treasure trove of audacious characters, daring worldbuilding, and twisted realties. A sibling duo of supernatural hitmen. A traveling spellbreaker and his trusty alligator mount. Superheroes registering for work. Sentient spaceships with an AI-human interface grow up together with their human pilots.
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The treasures in here are worth the ticket price.
- By Anonymous User on 03-01-25
By: Hugh Howey, and others
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The Best American Essays 2023
- Best American
- By: Vivian Gornick, Robert Atwan
- Narrated by: Will Tulin, Marie Hoffman, Elena Rey, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In her introduction to this year’s The Best American Essays, guest editor Vivian Gornick states that her selections “contribute materially to the long and honorable history of the personal essay by way of the value they place on lived experience.” Provocative, daring, and honest at a time when many writers are deliberately silencing themselves in the face of authoritarian and populist censorship movements, the twenty-one essays collected here reflect their authors’ unapologetic observations of the world around them.
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Loved It
- By Marcel on 10-24-23
By: Vivian Gornick, and others
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The Best Short Stories 2024
- The O. Henry Prize Winners
- By: Amor Towles - editor, Jenny Minton Quigley - editor
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Kristen DiMercurio, Blair Young, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring prize-winning stories by Kate DiCamillo, Jess Walter, Dave Eggers, Allegra Goodman, Jai Chakrabarti, Francisco Gonzalez, and more.
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A fine collection of short stories
- By Michael on 02-25-25
By: Amor Towles - editor, and others
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The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon
- A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened
- By: Bill McKibben
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Like so many of us, McKibben grew up believing—knowing—that the United States was the greatest country on earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Massachusetts. He sang “Kumbaya” at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth. But fifty years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril. And he is curious: What the hell happened?
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Mind blowing
- By Amazon Customer on 02-16-23
By: Bill McKibben
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The End of Nature
- By: Bill McKibben
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Reissued on the 10th anniversary of its publication, this classic work on our environmental crisis features a new introduction by the author, reviewing both the progress and ground lost in the fight to save the Earth. This impassioned plea for radical and life-renewing change is today still considered a groundbreaking work in environmental studies. McKibben's argument that the survival of the globe is dependent on a fundamental, philosophical shift in the way we relate to nature is more relevant than ever.
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Excellent.
- By Thomas on 01-29-23
By: Bill McKibben
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Life on Earth
- By: David Attenborough
- Narrated by: David Attenborough
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the book’s first publication, David Attenborough has revisited Life on Earth, completely updating and adding to the original text, taking account of modern scientific discoveries from around the globe....
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100% Pure Attenborough
- By Dave on 09-25-18
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The Deep Learning Revolution
- By: Terrence J. Sejnowski
- Narrated by: Shawn Compton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The deep-learning revolution has brought us driverless cars, the greatly improved Google Translate, fluent conversations with Siri and Alexa, and enormous profits from automated trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Deep-learning networks can play poker better than professional poker players and defeat a world champion at Go. In this book, Terry Sejnowski explains how deep learning went from being an arcane academic field to a disruptive technology in the information economy.
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Probably the best audio book available on Deep Learning
- By Charlie on 03-01-19
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Mississippi River Tragedies
- A Century of Unnatural Disaster
- By: Christine A. Klein, Sandra B. Zellmer
- Narrated by: Troy McElfresh
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over 1000 miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called "natural disasters" continue to strike the Mississippi basin as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico.
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Interesting History of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and the People of the Area
- By Michelle on 12-12-23
By: Christine A. Klein, and others
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The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023
- By: R. F. Kuang, John Joseph Adams
- Narrated by: Will Tulin, Chanté McCormick, Em Grosland, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.
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Strange mixed bag
- By Pie S. on 10-28-23
By: R. F. Kuang, and others
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The Honey Bus
- A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees
- By: Meredith May
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm. She was five years old, her parents had recently split, and suddenly, she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard. That first close encounter was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment, she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.
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Touching story
- By Tess Villa on 05-31-19
By: Meredith May
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A Time of Gifts
- On Foot to Constantinople: from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube
- By: Patrick Leigh Fermor
- Narrated by: Crispin Redman
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the listener with him as far as Hungary. It is a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events that were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies.
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Nobody Writes Like This Anymore
- By Jennifer Calderone on 07-09-18