The Secret Life of Dust
From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Consequences of Little Things
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Narrated by:
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Eliza Foss
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By:
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Hannah Holmes
About this listen
A mesmerizing expedition around our dusty world.
Some see dust as dull stuff, useless at best, and sneeze-inducing at worst. But in the hands of writer Hannah Holmes, dust becomes a dazzling and mysterious force. As Holmes says, dust is a messenger, and air is its medium. And by the end of this fascinating journey through The Secret Life of Dust, we cannot help but agree.
Humble dust, we discover, built the very planet we walk upon. It tinkers with the weather and it spices the air we breathe. Billions of tons of tiny particles rise into the air annually - the dust of deserts and forgotten kings mixing with volcanic ash, sea salt, leaf fragments, scales from butterfly wings, shreds of T-shirts, and fireplace soot. And eventually, of course, all this dust must settle.
The story of restless dust begins among exploding stars, then treks through the dinosaur beds of the Gobi Desert, digs into Antarctic glaciers - and probes the dark underbelly of the living-room couch. And there is good company on this journey: Holmes gathers for us a delightful, and, by necessity, highly inventive, cast of characters - the scientists who study dust. Some investigate its dark side: how it killed off dinosaurs and how its industrial descendants are killing us today. Others sample the shower of Saharan dust that nourishes Caribbean jungles; still others venture into the microscopic jungle of the bedroom carpet. Like The Secret Life of Dust, all of them unveil the mayhem - and the magic - wrought by little things.
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Look at the brightside always and die in a dream!
- By Darwin8u on 04-14-19
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The Ocean of Life
- The Fate of Man and the Sea
- By: Callum Roberts
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Who can forget the sense of wonder with which they discovered the creatures of the deep? In this vibrant hymn to the sea, Callum Roberts - one of the world’s foremost conservation biologists - leads listeners on a fascinating tour of mankind’s relationship to the sea, from the earliest traces of water on Earth to the oceans as we know them today. In the process, Roberts looks at how the taming of the oceans has shaped human civilization and affected marine life. Like Four Fish and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Ocean of Life takes a long view to tell a story in which each one of us has a role to play.
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Immediate fan of Mr Roberts
- By Anna on 06-25-24
By: Callum Roberts
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The Book of General Ignorance
- By: John Mitchinson, John Lloyd
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
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Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British best seller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.
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Interesting.
- By A. Hawkbird on 12-07-08
By: John Mitchinson, and others
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What Einstein Didn't Know
- Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions
- By: Robert L. Wolke
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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How does soap know what's dirt? How do magnets work? Why do ice cubes crackle in your glass? And how can you keep them quiet? These are questions that torment us all. Now Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, provides definitive - and amazingly simple - explanations for the mysteries of everyday life.
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A funny thing happened on the way to a great book
- By Joseph on 10-01-12
By: Robert L. Wolke
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Island on Fire
- The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World
- By: Alexandra Witze, Jeff Kanipe
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Laki is Iceland's largest volcano - and its most fearsome. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe.
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Interesting and Pertinent Topic!
- By Catherine Puma on 01-23-22
By: Alexandra Witze, and others
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The Knowledge
- How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch
- By: Lewis Dartnell
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Regarded as one of the brightest young scientists of his generation, Lewis Dartnell proposes that the key to preserving civilization in an apocalyptic scenario is to provide a quickstart guide, adapted to cataclysmic circumstances. The Knowledge describes many of the modern technologies we employ, but first it explains the fundamentals upon which they are built. The Knowledge is a brilliantly original guide to the fundamentals of science and how it built our modern world as well as a thought experiment about the very idea of scientific knowledge itself.
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We might be screwed, but... science!
- By Ryan on 11-28-15
By: Lewis Dartnell
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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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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 Disappearing Spoon
- And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
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Great Book, Great Narration, But...
- By Henny Button on 09-18-10
By: Sam Kean
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Feathers
- The Evolution of a Natural Miracle
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Andy Ingalls
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: Aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling. They date back more than 100 million years. Yet their story has never been fully told. In Feathers, biologist Thor Hanson details a sweeping natural history, as feathers have been used to fly, protect, attract, and adorn through time and place. Applying the research of paleontologists, ornithologists, biologists, engineers, and even art historians, Hanson asks: What are feathers? How did they evolve? What do they mean to us?
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Fantastic Science and Fun
- By Chris Reich on 12-28-14
By: Thor Hanson
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Krakatoa
- The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa - the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster - was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly 40,000 people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round die planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light.
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Great subject, great writing, great voice
- By rwise on 01-26-04
By: Simon Winchester
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Slime
- How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us
- By: Ruth Kassinger
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In Slime we'll meet the algae innovators working toward a sustainable future: from seaweed farmers in South Korea, to scientists using it to clean the dead zones in our waterways, to the entrepreneurs fighting to bring algae fuel and plastics to market. Ruth Kassinger takes listeners on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes, and into-the-kitchen tour. Whether you thought algae was just the gunk in your fish tank or you eat seaweed with your oatmeal, Slime will delight and amaze with its stories of the good, the bad, and the up-and-coming.
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Fairly entertaining and informative...but
- By Timothy on 08-27-19
By: Ruth Kassinger
What listeners say about The Secret Life of Dust
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- S. Yates
- 04-20-16
Informative and fun exploration of our dusty lives
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Secret Life of Dust?
The tour through the dusty bits and bobs that make up our homes. Memorable and unsettling!
Have you listened to any of Eliza Foss’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have not, but I thought she did an admirable job. Her voice was pleasant and made the subject matter interesting, with just the right amount of humor and seriousness. The only complaint I have is that she read "OSHA" as "O-S-H-A" when pretty much everyone just says it phonetically. But that is a tiny, nitpicking complaint. The performance was, on the whole, excellent.
Any additional comments?
Very interesting book exploring many different kinds of dust (from the dust that formed the planets and stars, to the pollutants in the air, to the remnants of dust particles, to the ground up bits of living creatures) and the way they impact our lives. The author manages to have fun with the subject while marshalling interviews with many scientists for candid and informative explanations ranging across various specialties. The chapters on the dusts in our homes and how much dust, in general, ends up in our bodies, are not for the squeamish. But overall, it was a learning experience, enjoyable, and has aged well since its 2003 publication (much of the science is still good and, perhaps unfortunately, we still don't know exactly how dust interacts with the skyrocketing rates of asthma). Recommended for nerds who like to know about the minutiae all around us.
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- Chrissie
- 08-16-15
I like to be made think from new angles.
What did you love best about The Secret Life of Dust?
It was different.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Not that kind of book, but I suppose I could say "dust" played a key roll :)
Which character – as performed by Eliza Foss – was your favorite?
Fairly easy to listen to.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
I think a few gaps to think on it add to it.
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- Dennis L. Joyce
- 11-12-12
Breathe at your own risk
What did you love best about The Secret Life of Dust?
the amount of information and the orderly manner of said information.
What did you like best about this story?
learning how big a role dust plays in everyday life.
What about Eliza Foss’s performance did you like?
her voice and inflections were so close to perfect.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
you never know what you maybe inhaling.
Any additional comments?
great book. learned more as i was listening while hiking in Sedona, AZ.
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2 people found this helpful
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- kieron t.
- 10-25-12
Don't be fooled by the title!
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
If the book had lived up to the title
Would you ever listen to anything by Hannah Holmes again?
No.
Would you be willing to try another one of Eliza Foss’s performances?
No.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Absolutely no redeeming qualities.
Any additional comments?
I feel as though I've been duped.
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Overall
- Nick
- 01-07-11
Awful Environmentalist Diatribe
Absolutely horrible! Just goes on and on about man-made this and man-made that! Has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of "science writing" at all! Angry with myself I wasted a credit on it!
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15 people found this helpful