
The Sirens of Mars
Searching for Life on Another World
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Narrated by:
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Cassandra Campbell
About this listen
“Sarah Stewart Johnson interweaves her own coming-of-age story as a planetary scientist with a vivid history of the exploration of Mars in this celebration of human curiosity, passion, and perseverance.”—Alan Lightman, author of Einstein’s Dreams
WINNER OF THE PHI BETA KAPPA AWARD FOR SCIENCE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Times (UK) • Library Journal
“Lovely . . . Johnson’s prose swirls with lyrical wonder, as varied and multihued as the apricot deserts, butterscotch skies and blue sunsets of Mars.”—Anthony Doerr, The New York Times Book Review
Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty. And yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum—on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find, one that would inspire humankind as much as any discovery in the history of modern science.
In this beautifully observed, deeply personal book, Georgetown scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a world of its own.
Johnson’s fascination with Mars began as a child in Kentucky, turning over rocks with her father and looking at planets in the night sky. She now conducts fieldwork in some of Earth’s most hostile environments, such as the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and the salt flats of Western Australia, developing methods for detecting life on other worlds. Here, with poetic precision, she interlaces her own personal journey—as a female scientist and a mother—with tales of other seekers, from Percival Lowell, who was convinced that a utopian society existed on Mars, to Audouin Dollfus, who tried to carry out astronomical observations from a stratospheric balloon. In the process, she shows how the story of Mars is also a story about Earth: This other world has been our mirror, our foil, a telltale reflection of our own anxieties and yearnings.
Empathetic and evocative, The Sirens of Mars offers an unlikely natural history of a place where no human has ever set foot, while providing a vivid portrait of our quest to defy our isolation in the cosmos.
©2020 Sarah Stewart Johnson (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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“[Johnson] manages to press moments in time together as closely as the sedimentary rocks on Mars, revealing its history just as the rocks do.”—The New Scientist
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Story
Madison’s “insightful memoir” (The Wall Street Journal) is “a true delight to read as she uncovers her love for all real foods, peeling off layer by layer like an onion, recounting her own personal, culinary, and gardening experiences” (Lidia Bastianich). Thanks to her beloved cookbooks and groundbreaking work as the chef at Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, Deborah Madison, though not a vegetarian herself, has long been revered as this country's leading authority on vegetables.
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A little hard to listen to
- By Linda D. Tillman on 04-26-21
By: Deborah Madison
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The Wild Silence
- A Memoir
- By: Raynor Winn
- Narrated by: Raynor Winn
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Nature holds the answers for Raynor and her husband, Moth. After walking 630 miles homeless along The Salt Path, the windswept and wild English coastline now feels like their home. And despite Moth's terminal diagnosis, against all medical odds, he seems revitalized in nature - outside, they discover that anything is possible. Now, life beyond The Salt Path awaits. As they return to four walls, the sense of home is illusive and returning to normality is proving difficult - until an incredible gesture by someone who reads their story changes everything.
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Another great book!!
- By Anthony Mayfield on 01-04-23
By: Raynor Winn
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The World in Six Songs
- How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
- By: Daniel J. Levitin
- Narrated by: Daniel J. Levitin
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut best seller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted audiences as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times best seller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history.
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Scattershot Analysis, Hit or Miss
- By Dubi on 03-22-24
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The Code
- Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
- By: Margaret O'Mara
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before Margaret O'Mara became one of our most consequential historians of the American-led digital revolution, she worked in the White House of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the earliest days of the commercial Internet. There, she saw firsthand how deeply intertwined Silicon Valley was with the federal government - and always had been - and how shallow the common understanding of the secrets of the Valley's success actually was.
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Mostly good, but also irrating
- By Rodney on 12-20-20
By: Margaret O'Mara
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Rationality
- What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 21st century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing? Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are an irrational species - cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions.
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Steven Pinker's Frozen Worldview from the 90s
- By Ryan Booth on 11-12-21
By: Steven Pinker
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The Note Through the Wire
- The Incredible True Story of a Prisoner of War and a Resistance Heroine
- By: Doug Gold
- Narrated by: Conrad Coleby
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe, two people meet fleetingly in a chance encounter. One an underground resistance fighter, a bold young woman determined to vanquish the enemy occupiers; the other a prisoner of war, a man longing to escape the confines of the camp so he can battle again. A crumpled note passes between these two strangers, slipped through the wire of the compound, and sets them on a course that will change their lives forever.
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Power of love and anguish
- By CL on 04-05-25
By: Doug Gold
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Honey and Venom
- Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper
- By: Andrew Coté
- Narrated by: Andrew Coté
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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From the humble drone to the fittingly named worker to the queen herself - who is more a slave than a monarch - the hive world, Andrew Coté reveals, is full of strivers and slackers, givers and takers, and even some insect promiscuity (startlingly similar to the prickly human variety). Written with Coté’s trademark humor, acumen, and a healthy dose of charm, Honey and Venom illuminates the obscure culture of New York City “beeks” and the biology of the bees themselves for both casual readers and bee enthusiasts.
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Ego gets in the way
- By Gregory Lehman on 10-12-22
By: Andrew Coté
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London's Number One Dog-Walking Agency
- A Memoir
- By: Kate MacDougall
- Narrated by: Anna Popplewell
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2006, Kate MacDougall was working a safe but dull job at the venerable auction house Sotheby’s in London. After a clumsy accident nearly destroyed a precious piece of art, she quit Sotheby’s and set up her own dog-walking company. Kate knew little about dogs and nothing about business, and no one thought being a professional dog walker was a good use of her university degree. Nevertheless, Kate embarked upon an entirely new and very much improvised career walking some of the city’s many pampered pooches, branding her company "London's Number One Dog Walking Agency".
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Entertaining light read
- By Amy D. on 07-10-21
By: Kate MacDougall
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This Ordinary Stardust
- A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder
- By: Alan Townsend PhD
- Narrated by: Alan Townsend PhD
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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At a time when society’s relationship with science is increasingly polarized while threats to human life on earth continue to rise, Townsend offers a balanced, moving perspective on the common ground between science and religion through the spiritual fulfillment he found in his work. Awash in Townsend's electrifying and breathtaking prose, THIS ORDINARY STARDUST offers hope that life can carry on even in the face of near-certain annihilation.
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Inspirational and touching!
- By Grace M on 08-18-24
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Land
- How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Land - whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city - is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing - and have done - with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet.
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Audiobook Version is the Best!
- By semarla on 01-31-21
By: Simon Winchester
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Metropolis
- A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention
- By: Ben Wilson
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 17 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In a captivating tour of cities famous and forgotten, acclaimed historian Ben Wilson tells the glorious, millennia-spanning story how urban living sparked humankind's greatest innovations.
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Sorry that I can’t rate it higher
- By BCM on 12-28-20
By: Ben Wilson
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The Sleepwalkers
- How Europe Went to War in 1914
- By: Christopher Clark
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 23 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is historian Christopher Clark’s riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I. Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I, focusing not on the battles and atrocities of the war itself, but on the complex events and relationships that led a group of well-meaning leaders into brutal conflict.
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Excellent, but
- By James A. Nietopski on 03-12-22
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Finding the Mother Tree
- Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
- By: Suzanne Simard
- Narrated by: Suzanne Simard
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. In this, her first book, now available in audio, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths—that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life.
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Couldn't finish, will try the hard copy
- By primrose on 07-22-21
By: Suzanne Simard
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Welcome Home
- A Guide to Building a Home for Your Soul
- By: Najwa Zebian
- Narrated by: Najwa Zebian
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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With practical tools, poetry, and prompts for journaling and meditation to lead to self-understanding in each chapter, Zebian shows you how to build each room in your house. Written with her trademark power, candor, and warmth, Welcome Home is an answer to the pain we all experience when we don't feel at peace with ourselves.
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Deeply and practically helpful
- By M O on 06-02-21
By: Najwa Zebian
Like a great friend ….
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informative and interesting
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Brilliant take on Mars exploration
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What I found was a deeply personal memoir of a young female scientist, explaining why she got involved in the Martian exploration. Lots of personal details regarding childhood and family, important for understanding her path, but with no relevance whatsoever for Mars science.
You'll find in the book a big chunk of astronomical history beginning from Galileo, as it is something that ultimately influenced the author to take up the challenge. On the other hand, the book is a bit underwhelming on recent Mars research including rovers. Indeed, I was particularly disappointed with that part.
To sum up, a good book for somebody considering a planetary science career. Not great if you just want science.
Not what I was looking for
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Just great!
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Amazing Mars Science Book!
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Good, almost great
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Too many personal stories
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Loved this one!
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Fascinating
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