-
The Lost Family
- How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
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 $16.11
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
A deeply reported look at the rise of home genetic testing and the seismic shock it has had on individual lives
You swab your cheek or spit into a vial, then send it away to a lab somewhere. Weeks later you get a report that might tell you where your ancestors came from or if you carry certain genetic risks. Or the report could reveal a long-buried family secret and upend your entire sense of identity. Soon a lark becomes an obsession, an incessant desire to find answers to questions at the core of your being, like "Who am I?" and "Where did I come from?" Welcome to the age of home genetic testing.
In The Lost Family, journalist Libby Copeland investigates what happens when we embark on a vast social experiment with little understanding of the ramifications. Copeland explores the culture of genealogy buffs, the science of DNA, and the business of companies like Ancestry and 23andMe, all while tracing the story of one woman, her unusual results, and a relentless methodical drive for answers that becomes a thoroughly modern genetic detective story.
The Lost Family delves into the many lives that have been irrevocably changed by home DNA tests - a technology that represents the end of family secrets. There are the adoptees who've used the tests to find their birth parents; donor-conceived adults who suddenly discover they have more than 50 siblings; hundreds of thousands of Americans who discover their fathers aren't biologically related to them, a phenomenon so common it is known as a "non-paternity event", and individuals who are left to grapple with their conceptions of race and ethnicity when their true ancestral histories are discovered. Throughout these accounts, Copeland explores the impulse toward genetic essentialism and raises the question of how much our genes should get to tell us about who we are. With more than 30 million people having undergone home DNA testing, the answer to that question is more important than ever.
Gripping and masterfully told, The Lost Family is a spectacular book on a big, timely subject.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Inheritance
- A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Dani Shapiro
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inheritance is an audiobook about secrets - secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than 50 years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history.
-
-
Author makes too much out of too little...
- By River Holmes-miller on 01-16-19
By: Dani Shapiro
-
The Less People Know About Us
- A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity
- By: Axton Betz-Hamilton
- Narrated by: Laurie Winkel
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this powerful true crime memoir, an award-winning identity theft expert tells the shocking story of the duplicity and betrayal that inspired her career and nearly destroyed her family. Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up in small-town Indiana in the early '90s. When she was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. Their credit ratings were ruined, and they were constantly fighting over money. This was before the age of the Internet, when identity theft became more commonplace, so authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton's parents.
-
-
Holy Shit
- By Jason Wiking on 02-19-20
-
The Forever Witness
- How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder
- By: Edward Humes
- Narrated by: Edward Humes
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In November 1987, a young couple on an overnight trip to Seattle vanished without a trace. A week later, the bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend Jay Cook were found in rural Washington. It was a brutal crime, and it was the perfect crime: With few clues and no witnesses, an international manhunt turned up empty, and the sensational case that shocked the Pacific Northwest gradually slipped from the headlines.
-
-
Compelling
- By MLB on 01-17-23
By: Edward Humes
-
Struck by Genius
- How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel
- By: Jason Padgett, Maureen Ann Seaberg
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings, Kate Rudd
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remarkable story of an ordinary man who was transformed when a traumatic injury left him with an extraordinary gift. No one sees the world as Jason Padgett does. Water pours from the faucet in crystalline patterns, numbers call to mind distinct geometric shapes, and intricate fractal patterns emerge from the movement of tree branches, revealing the intrinsic mathematical designs hidden in the objects around us. Yet Padgett wasn’t born this way. Twelve years ago, he had never made it past pre-algebra. But a violent mugging forever altered the way his brain works.
-
-
Struck by Delusion
- By Jay on 07-22-14
By: Jason Padgett, and others
-
Uprooted
- Family Trauma, Unknown Origins, and the Secretive History of Artificial Insemination
- By: Peter J. Boni
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By his 40s, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his 50th birthday, Peter’s 75-year-old mother unveiled a bombshell: His deceased father was not his biological father. Peter was conceived in 1945 via an anonymous sperm donor. The emotional upheaval upon learning that he was “misattributed” rekindled traumas long past and fueled his relentless research to find his genealogy.
-
-
Shared experience & emotional validation
- By Monica C. on 08-29-23
By: Peter J. Boni
-
Human Errors
- A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes
- By: Nathan H. Lents
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often - 200 times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake. As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last.
-
-
From Pointless Bones to Broken Genes to...Aliens?
- By Katy.LED on 12-04-18
By: Nathan H. Lents
-
Inheritance
- A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Dani Shapiro
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inheritance is an audiobook about secrets - secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than 50 years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history.
-
-
Author makes too much out of too little...
- By River Holmes-miller on 01-16-19
By: Dani Shapiro
-
The Less People Know About Us
- A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity
- By: Axton Betz-Hamilton
- Narrated by: Laurie Winkel
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this powerful true crime memoir, an award-winning identity theft expert tells the shocking story of the duplicity and betrayal that inspired her career and nearly destroyed her family. Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up in small-town Indiana in the early '90s. When she was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. Their credit ratings were ruined, and they were constantly fighting over money. This was before the age of the Internet, when identity theft became more commonplace, so authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton's parents.
-
-
Holy Shit
- By Jason Wiking on 02-19-20
-
The Forever Witness
- How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder
- By: Edward Humes
- Narrated by: Edward Humes
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In November 1987, a young couple on an overnight trip to Seattle vanished without a trace. A week later, the bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend Jay Cook were found in rural Washington. It was a brutal crime, and it was the perfect crime: With few clues and no witnesses, an international manhunt turned up empty, and the sensational case that shocked the Pacific Northwest gradually slipped from the headlines.
-
-
Compelling
- By MLB on 01-17-23
By: Edward Humes
-
Struck by Genius
- How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel
- By: Jason Padgett, Maureen Ann Seaberg
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings, Kate Rudd
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remarkable story of an ordinary man who was transformed when a traumatic injury left him with an extraordinary gift. No one sees the world as Jason Padgett does. Water pours from the faucet in crystalline patterns, numbers call to mind distinct geometric shapes, and intricate fractal patterns emerge from the movement of tree branches, revealing the intrinsic mathematical designs hidden in the objects around us. Yet Padgett wasn’t born this way. Twelve years ago, he had never made it past pre-algebra. But a violent mugging forever altered the way his brain works.
-
-
Struck by Delusion
- By Jay on 07-22-14
By: Jason Padgett, and others
-
Uprooted
- Family Trauma, Unknown Origins, and the Secretive History of Artificial Insemination
- By: Peter J. Boni
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By his 40s, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his 50th birthday, Peter’s 75-year-old mother unveiled a bombshell: His deceased father was not his biological father. Peter was conceived in 1945 via an anonymous sperm donor. The emotional upheaval upon learning that he was “misattributed” rekindled traumas long past and fueled his relentless research to find his genealogy.
-
-
Shared experience & emotional validation
- By Monica C. on 08-29-23
By: Peter J. Boni
-
Human Errors
- A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes
- By: Nathan H. Lents
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often - 200 times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake. As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last.
-
-
From Pointless Bones to Broken Genes to...Aliens?
- By Katy.LED on 12-04-18
By: Nathan H. Lents
-
Babel
- Around the World in Twenty Languages
- By: Gaston Dorren
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
English is the world language, except that most of the world doesn’t speak it - only one in five people does. Dorren calculates that to speak fluently with half of the world’s 7.4 billion people in their mother tongues, you would need to know no fewer than 20 languages. He sets out to explore these top 20 world languages, which range from the familiar (French, Spanish) to the surprising (Malay, Javanese, Bengali).
-
-
Breezy
- By Bessie Mae on 11-01-23
By: Gaston Dorren
-
Ancestor Trouble
- A Reckoning and a Reconciliation
- By: Maud Newton
- Narrated by: Catherine Taber
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ancestor Trouble is one writer’s attempt to use genealogy - a once-niche hobby that has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry - to expose the secrets and contradictions of her own ancestors, and to argue for the transformational possibilities that reckoning with our ancestors offers all of us.
-
-
Crazy Evil Parents = Crazy Author
- By MiMi on 12-28-23
By: Maud Newton
-
Flight 232
- A Story of Disaster and Survival
- By: Laurence Gonzales
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As hundreds of rescue workers waited on the ground, United Airlines Flight 232 wallowed drunkenly over the bluffs northwest of Sioux City. The plane slammed onto the runway and burst into a vast fireball. The rescuers didn't move at first: nobody could possibly survive that crash. And then people began emerging from the summer corn that lined the runways. Miraculously, 184 of 296 passengers lived. No one has ever attempted the complete reconstruction of a crash of this magnitude.
-
-
Therapeutic
- By Quiltedwings on 05-07-15
-
The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind
- My Tale of Madness and Recovery
- By: Barbara K. Lipska, Elaine McArdle - contributor
- Narrated by: Emma Powell
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2015, Barbara Lipska - a leading expert on the neuroscience of mental illness - was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to her brain. Within months, her frontal lobe, the seat of cognition, began shutting down. She descended into madness, exhibiting dementia- and schizophrenia-like symptoms that terrified her family and coworkers. But miraculously, the immunotherapy her doctors had prescribed worked quickly. Just eight weeks after her nightmare began, Lipska returned to normal. With one difference: she remembered her brush with madness with exquisite clarity.
-
-
Be Prepared To Feel Insane--
- By Gillian on 04-11-18
By: Barbara K. Lipska, and others
-
Talking to Strangers
- What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.
-
-
Enjoyable listen with some facts incorrect
- By Jim on 09-11-19
By: Malcolm Gladwell
-
The Tipping Point
- How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.
-
-
My tipping point…for audio
- By Mod on 04-17-12
By: Malcolm Gladwell
-
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
- By: Rebecca Skloot
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects.
-
-
The Secret Life of an American Cancer Cell
- By Cynthia on 08-10-13
By: Rebecca Skloot
-
The Code Breaker
- Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a “compelling” (The Washington Post) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies.
-
-
Except for the author, this book is good!
- By Johan on 03-14-21
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Orphans of Davenport
- Eugenics, the Great Depression, and the War over Children's Intelligence
- By: Marilyn Brookwood
- Narrated by: Susie Berneis
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Doomed from birth” was how psychologist Harold Skeels described two girls at the Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls had inherited their parents’ low intelligence and sent them to an institution. To their astonishment, under the women’s care, the children’s IQ scores became normal. Recasting Skeels and his team as intrepid heroes, Marilyn Brookwood weaves years of prodigious archival research to show how after decades of backlash, the Iowans finally prevailed.
-
-
Highly Recommended
- By Bai on 12-05-21
-
Dirty Work
- Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America
- By: Eyal Press
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drone pilots who carry out targeted assassinations. Undocumented immigrants who man the "kill floors" of industrial slaughterhouses. Guards who patrol the wards of America's most violent and abusive prisons. In Dirty Work, Eyal Press offers a paradigm-shifting view of the moral landscape of contemporary America through the stories of people who perform society's most ethically troubling jobs. As Press shows, we are increasingly shielded and distanced from an array of morally questionable activities that other, less privileged people perform in our name.
-
-
A Must Read for Conservatives
- By Nice guy on 11-05-21
By: Eyal Press
-
Everybody Lies
- Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are
- By: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Steven Pinker - foreword
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the end of on average day in the early 21st century, human beings searching the Internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information - unprecedented in history - can tell us a great deal about who we are - the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than 20 years ago seemed unfathomable.
-
-
Leave out the politics please
- By Shane Hampson on 02-20-20
By: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, and others
-
The Gene
- An Intimate History
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
-
-
It's a Wonderful Book
- By JKC on 06-02-16
Related to this topic
-
The Invisible History of the Human Race
- How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures
- By: Christine Kenneally
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Invisible History of the Human Race, Christine Kenneally draws on cutting-edge research to reveal how both historical artifacts and DNA tell us where we come from and where we may be going. While some books explore our genetic inheritance and some popular television shows celebrate ancestry, this is the first book to explore how everything from DNA to emotions to names and the stories that form our lives are all part of our human legacy.
-
-
Who are you really. Who am I?
- By Annie M. on 10-28-14
-
In Search of Our Roots
- How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying Black men and women even their names. Here, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., backed by an elite team of geneticists and researchers, takes 19 extraordinary African Americans on a once unimaginable journey, tracing family sagas through US history and back to Africa.
-
-
Amazing
- By Placeholder on 04-17-19
-
Before and After
- The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society
- By: Judy Christie, Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of 15 adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots.
-
-
Badly written
- By Stacie on 02-25-20
By: Judy Christie, and others
-
The Survivors
- A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing
- By: Adam Frankel
- Narrated by: Adam Frankel, Rob Shapiro
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adam Frankel’s maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust and built new lives, with new names, in Connecticut. Though they tried to leave the horrors of their past behind, the pain they suffered crossed generational lines - a fact most apparent in the mental health of Adam’s mother. When Adam sat down with her to examine their family history in detail, he learned another shocking secret, this time one that unraveled Adam’s entire understanding of who he is.
-
-
Amazing story
- By Alissa on 12-26-19
By: Adam Frankel
-
The Sibling Effect
- What the Bonds among Brothers and Sisters Reveal about Us
- By: Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody affects us as deeply as our brothers and sisters - not parents, not children, not friends. From the time we - and they - are born, our siblings are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales. They teach us how to resolve conflicts and how not to, how to conduct friendships and when to walk away.
-
-
This is the only book I never finished
- By Rob on 06-25-12
By: Jeffrey Kluger
-
The Inheritance
- A Family on the Front Lines of the Battle Against Alzheimer's Disease
- By: Niki Kapsambelis
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every 69 seconds, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Of the top 10 killers, it is the only disease for which there is no cure or treatment. For most people, there is nothing that they can do to fight back. But one family is doing all they can. The DeMoe family has the most devastating form of the disease that there is: early onset Alzheimer's, an inherited genetic mutation that causes the disease in 100 percent of cases, and has a 50 percent chance of being passed onto the next generation.
-
-
A Cover-to-Cover Slug in the Gut, but Inspiring
- By Gillian on 04-16-17
By: Niki Kapsambelis
-
The Invisible History of the Human Race
- How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures
- By: Christine Kenneally
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Invisible History of the Human Race, Christine Kenneally draws on cutting-edge research to reveal how both historical artifacts and DNA tell us where we come from and where we may be going. While some books explore our genetic inheritance and some popular television shows celebrate ancestry, this is the first book to explore how everything from DNA to emotions to names and the stories that form our lives are all part of our human legacy.
-
-
Who are you really. Who am I?
- By Annie M. on 10-28-14
-
In Search of Our Roots
- How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying Black men and women even their names. Here, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., backed by an elite team of geneticists and researchers, takes 19 extraordinary African Americans on a once unimaginable journey, tracing family sagas through US history and back to Africa.
-
-
Amazing
- By Placeholder on 04-17-19
-
Before and After
- The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society
- By: Judy Christie, Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of 15 adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots.
-
-
Badly written
- By Stacie on 02-25-20
By: Judy Christie, and others
-
The Survivors
- A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing
- By: Adam Frankel
- Narrated by: Adam Frankel, Rob Shapiro
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adam Frankel’s maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust and built new lives, with new names, in Connecticut. Though they tried to leave the horrors of their past behind, the pain they suffered crossed generational lines - a fact most apparent in the mental health of Adam’s mother. When Adam sat down with her to examine their family history in detail, he learned another shocking secret, this time one that unraveled Adam’s entire understanding of who he is.
-
-
Amazing story
- By Alissa on 12-26-19
By: Adam Frankel
-
The Sibling Effect
- What the Bonds among Brothers and Sisters Reveal about Us
- By: Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody affects us as deeply as our brothers and sisters - not parents, not children, not friends. From the time we - and they - are born, our siblings are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales. They teach us how to resolve conflicts and how not to, how to conduct friendships and when to walk away.
-
-
This is the only book I never finished
- By Rob on 06-25-12
By: Jeffrey Kluger
-
The Inheritance
- A Family on the Front Lines of the Battle Against Alzheimer's Disease
- By: Niki Kapsambelis
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every 69 seconds, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Of the top 10 killers, it is the only disease for which there is no cure or treatment. For most people, there is nothing that they can do to fight back. But one family is doing all they can. The DeMoe family has the most devastating form of the disease that there is: early onset Alzheimer's, an inherited genetic mutation that causes the disease in 100 percent of cases, and has a 50 percent chance of being passed onto the next generation.
-
-
A Cover-to-Cover Slug in the Gut, but Inspiring
- By Gillian on 04-16-17
By: Niki Kapsambelis
-
Reclamation
- Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant's Search for Her Family's Lasting Legacy
- By: Gayle Jessup White
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings’ family explores America’s racial reckoning through the prism of her ancestors - both the enslaver and the enslaved.
-
-
Slow start, eventually a worthwhile story
- By ChocolateDweller on 12-17-21
-
One and Only
- The Freedom of Having an Only Child, and the Joy of Being One
- By: Lauren Sandler
- Narrated by: Lauren Sandler
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journalist Lauren Sandler is an only child and the mother of one. After investigating what only children are really like and whether stopping at one child is an answer to reconciling motherhood and modernity, she learned a lot about herself - and a lot about our culture's assumptions. In this heartfelt work, Sandler legitimizes a discussion about the larger societal costs of having more than one.
-
-
Data Driven
- By Meghan B on 01-11-22
By: Lauren Sandler
-
Wandering in Strange Lands
- A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots
- By: Morgan Jerkins
- Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times best-selling author of This Will Be My Undoing - a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned with” - comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her Northern and Southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America.
-
-
Not Just Black History -- It's All Of Our History
- By Ardee on 08-22-20
By: Morgan Jerkins
-
One Child
- The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment
- By: Mei Fong
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Communist Party leaders adopted the one-child policy in 1980, they hoped curbing birthrates would help lift China's poorest and increase the country's global stature. But at what cost? Now, as China closes the book on the policy after more than three decades, it faces a population grown too old and too male, with a vastly diminished supply of young workers. Mei Fong has spent years documenting the policy's repercussions on every sector of Chinese society.
-
-
Best Book Club Discussion Ever!!
- By Rachael W. Schettenhelm on 05-01-17
By: Mei Fong
-
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
- An American Controversy
- By: Annette Gordon-Reed
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Annette Gordon-Reed's groundbreaking study was first published, rumors of Thomas Jefferson's sexual involvement with his slave Sally Hemings had circulated for two centuries. Among all aspects of Jefferson's renowned life, it was perhaps the most hotly contested topic. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings intensified this debate by identifying glaring inconsistencies in many noted scholars' evaluations of the existing evidence. In this study, Gordon-Reed assembles a fascinating and convincing argument that the evidence for the affair has been denied a fair hearing.
-
-
Just people
- By Ben on 06-28-20
-
Life Before Life
- Children's Memories of Previous Lives
- By: Jim B. Tucker MD, Ian Stevenson - foreword MD
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This popular examination of research into children's reports of past-life memories describes a collection of 2,500 cases at the University of Virginia that investigators have carefully studied since Dr. Ian Stevenson began the work more than 40 years ago. The children usually begin talking about a past life at the age of two or three and may talk about a previous family or the way they died in a previous life. Their statements have often been found to be accurate for one particular deceased individual, and some children have recognized members of the previous family.
-
-
Heavy on the scientific process
- By Karilyn Schaffer on 02-19-19
By: Jim B. Tucker MD, and others
-
Viral Justice
- How We Grow the World We Want
- By: Ruha Benjamin
- Narrated by: Ruha Benjamin
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.
-
-
Fantastic book!
- By Avie Kearney on 05-21-23
By: Ruha Benjamin
-
Living the Secular Life
- New Answers to Old Questions
- By: Phil Zuckerman
- Narrated by: Andy Paris
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A guidebook for living a life without religion, combining sociological insight and personal inspiration. Over the last 25 years, "no religion" has become the fastest growing religion in the United States. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people have turned away from the traditional faiths of the past and embraced a secular - or nonreligious - life, generating societies vastly less religious than at any other time in human history.
-
-
Anecdotal based approach for understanding
- By Gary on 12-30-14
By: Phil Zuckerman
-
White like Her
- By: Gail Lukasik PhD, Kenyatta D. Berry - foreword
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother's decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother's fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother's racial lineage, tracing her family back to 18th-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage.
-
-
Disappointed
- By Yoli on 06-06-18
By: Gail Lukasik PhD, and others
-
Galileo's Middle Finger
- Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science
- By: Alice Dreger
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful defense of intellectual freedom told through the ordeals of contemporary scientists attacked for exploring controversial ideas, by a noted science historian and medical activist.
-
-
Engrossing but...
- By Lilly F. on 12-30-20
By: Alice Dreger
-
I Want You to Know We're Still Here
- A Post-Holocaust Memoir
- By: Esther Safran Foer
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer, Esther Safran Foer
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching.
-
-
Interesting but…
- By mk on 08-23-21
-
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
- By: Alicia Elliott
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mohawk phrase for depression can be roughly translated as a mind spread out on the ground. In this urgent, visceral work, Alicia Elliott explores how apt a description that is for the ongoing effects of the personal, intergenerational, and colonial traumas experienced by her so many Native people. Elliott's deeply personal writing details a life spent between Indigenous and White communities - a divide reflected in her own family - and engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, art, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, and representation.
-
-
Well written, heartfelt, revealing
- By KWK on 07-15-24
By: Alicia Elliott
What listeners say about The Lost Family
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Melisa
- 09-01-21
Wonderful Insight
I’m a recent NPE and I loved hearing other stories about people whose lives were changed from DNA testing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kelly A.
- 10-05-21
Interesting and timely read!
Really enjoyed this book! Libby Copeland did a nice job in explaining genetics and genealogy in a way that was simple, but also highlighted the nuances well. Really interesting read for anyone considering DNA testing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dorothy K. Lehman
- 03-21-21
Catnip to genealogists
Well written, deeply engaging survey of the advances in genetics, DNA and the companies that make it easy for us to build our family trees. And if that is not intriguing enough, there is a family mystery woven through the book. Great read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tom Kreykes
- 08-04-21
Wonderfully written!
Libby did a wonderful job of keeping the reader interested. She wove together detailed scientific information, revealing stories, and psychological issues that arise when DTC testing doesn’t go as planned.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brower’s Burgers
- 02-22-22
Fine
A lot more scientific information than I was expecting. The main story is split up so it was a little hard to follow listening to it, figuring out who's who. Even some of the smaller stories were hard to keep names straight. The narration was fine. Overall it was fine, I only chose it as a book to read with my mother who had her own DNA mystery.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nancy
- 03-03-21
Interesting and enlightening
My initial, gut response to the ads for "Give Us Your DNA, and We'll Give You Your Heritage. It'll Be Fun!", was "No, No Thank You". I didnt have to think through all my objections to know it was just too intrusive. Reading this book just confirmed my instinct.
Let me say that I enjoy the study of ancestry and I am not worried about any big surprises, certainly not in my immediate family. I'm also not a conspiracy theorist, and I'm not anti government. But I do fugure my DNA, along with plenty of other info is no doubt already out there and accessible to the government or anyone else who really wants it. All the same, why hand it over on a silver platter?
All these sites gathering our DNA for fun at profit set off alarms in the back of my history loving head, and this book just confirmed many of the reasons why.
One thing I hadn't really thought of was that you arent just sharing your own unique info, but that of everyone related to you, even distant relatives, many you know nothing about. You might be intruding on their priivacy.
I can understand why others, especially those looking for answers, might feel differently. To them I say, read this book first, or just think through some of the possible consequences, then. if it still seems important to you, go for it.
But for me, it seems like privacy is going the way of good manners and respect for the social contract. I personally dont want to be a part of rushing them out the door.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- D.Ryan
- 01-13-22
You may not be who you thought you were!
A great read and lots of information. Made me feel better at not being “more Italian”
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gayle Old-Smith
- 04-30-21
5 stars in every way
Excellent and informative book. Excellent narration.
I will listen again.
The conclusion of the book provides a resource for updates to findings.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Booreiss
- 08-12-22
The perfect title
As someone who got unexpected results when just taking the test to find out more about my ancestry, Copeland explains so well the landmines that can explode when just taking the test for fun. I no longer freely encourage people to take a test without explaining the risks. The book is a great overview of genetics, how commercial tests came about, what can be " found out" and how to find out more with anecdotes throughput.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- steve
- 07-14-22
Excellent book
The narration is well done
The author does an excellent job describing the DNA process yet makes the info weave perfectly into the personal stories.
Well worth your time
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful