
The Universe in Verse
15 Portals to Wonder Through Science & Poetry
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Narrated by:
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Maria Popova
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Lili Taylor
About this listen
In this audiobook Maria Popova, creator of The Marginalian, presents a celebration of the human search for truth and beauty through the lenses of science and poetry.
Poetry and science, as Popova writes in her introduction, "are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply." In 15 short essays on subjects ranging from the mystery of dark matter and the infinity of pi to the resilience of trees and the intelligence of octopuses, Popova tells the stories of scientific searching and discovery. These stories are interwoven with details from the very real and human lives of scientists—many of them women, many underrecognized—and poets inspired by the same questions and the beauty they reveal. Each essay is paired with a poem reflecting its subject by poets ranging from Emily Dickinson, W. H. Auden, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to Maya Angelou, Diane Ackerman, and Tracy K. Smith. Together, they wake us to a "reality aglow with wonder."
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“This book is a wonder. Science writing so often negates the inherent wonder of science, which comes so brilliantly alive here. Something bursts open in the mind. And let me say this: Maria Popova has the rare gift of starting a sentence and leaving you in trance by its end. I'd read anything she writes.”—Jad Abumrad, creator, Radiolab
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Story
After experiencing a terrible loss, New York City psychiatrist Meredith McCall feels painfully adrift. When she crosses paths with a man with whom she has a tragic connection, she follows him, sparking an unhealthy obsession with Gabriel Wright. How is he doing so well while her life is in shambles? But when Gabriel walks into her office as a patient, seemingly unaware of who she is, she knows it crosses all ethical and moral bounds to treat him. Yet, Meredith can’t bring herself to turn him away and becomes further entangled.
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The author did ZERO research for her book
- By Jon Blowers on 08-19-24
By: Vi Keeland
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Figuring
- By: Maria Popova
- Narrated by: Natascha McElhone
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries - beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the environmental movement.
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Stunning
- By Laura on 03-12-19
By: Maria Popova
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I'm Almost There
- By: Todd Almond
- Narrated by: Todd Almond
- Length: 59 mins
- Original Recording
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All he wants to do is let the perfect man in, but can he overcome his unhinged neighbor, a seductive cult, a self-obsessed vampire, and a cat intent on dragging him to hell?
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funny moving great performance and material
- By Lady Max on 04-15-25
By: Todd Almond
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The Demon in the Machine
- How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life
- By: Paul Davies
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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What is life? In this penetrating and wide-ranging book, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name; it is a domain where biology, computing, logic, chemistry, quantum physics, and nanotechnology intersect.
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Thought Provoking
- By Amazon Customer on 08-26-24
By: Paul Davies
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The Best Poems of All Time, Volume 2
- By: Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Natalie Cole, D.B. Sweeney
- Length: 1 hr and 33 mins
- Abridged
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This poetry companion puts favorite poetry and poets from around the world at your fingertips, enabling you to revisit the classics, encounter unfamiliar masterworks and rediscover old favorites.
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Lines of rhymes Victorian times to modern climes
- By Marius on 04-21-04
By: Robert Frost, and others
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Poetry for Thinkers & Feelers
- The Collected Works of Melody Godfred
- By: Melody Godfred
- Narrated by: Melody Godfred
- Length: 2 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In Self Love Poetry, Melody introduces her signature style of dual poetry, with each pair of poems speaking to left brain thinkers and right brain feelers, and takes listeners on a self-love journey that activates not just the left and right brain, but the heart, body, and soul. In The Shift, Godfred again uses a dual style, this time using her poetry pairs to reframe how listeners move through a brave, new, post-pandemic world.
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Poetry for the soul
- By mmleon2 on 01-26-25
By: Melody Godfred
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Something in the Woods Loves You
- By: Jarod K. Anderson
- Narrated by: Jarod K. Anderson
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Bats can hear shapes, plants can eat light, and bees can dance maps. When his life took him to a painfully dark place, the poet behind The CryptoNaturalist, Jarod K. Anderson, found comfort and redemption in these facts and the shift in perspective that comes from paying a new kind of attention to nature. Something in the Woods Loves You tells the story of the darkest stretch of a young person’s life, and how deliberate and meditative encounters with plants and animals helped him see the light at every turn.
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Great book, great narrator
- By Brandon on 09-13-24
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The Odyssey
- By: Homer, Daniel Mendelsohn - translator
- Narrated by: Daniel Mendelsohn
- Length: 19 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1961, the University of Chicago Press published Richmond Lattimore's translation of Homer’s The Iliad. For more than sixty years, it has served to introduce readers to the ancient Greek world of gods and heroes and has been one of the most popular and respected versions of the work. Yet through all those decades, Chicago never published a companion translation of the best-known epic in the Western canon, The Odyssey—until now.
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overall good
- By A.M Nelson on 04-29-25
By: Homer, and others
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Changing Planes
- By: Ursula Le Guin
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Sita Dulip has missed her flight out of Chicago. But instead of listening to garbled announcements in the airport, she discovers a method of bypassing the crowds at the desks, a nasty lunch, whimpering children, their punitive parents, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor: she changes planes—literally. Sita discovers entire planes of existence and visits societies not found on Earth—bizarre societies that share similarities with Earth's cultures and sometimes open doors into the alien.
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Lovely
- By Laura Sharp on 12-07-23
By: Ursula Le Guin
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150 Most Famous Poems
- Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman and many more
- By: Poetry House
- Narrated by: Samuel Casey
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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"150 Most Famous Poems: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman and Many More" is a timeless anthology that brings together some of the most celebrated and influential poems in the English language.
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Great poems; mediocre narrator
- By Milton Lewis on 04-13-25
By: Poetry House
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Journey of the Mind
- How Thinking Emerged from Chaos
- By: Ogi Ogas, Sai Gaddam
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Why do minds exist? How did mud and stone develop into beings that can experience longing, regret, love, and compassion - beings that are aware of their own experience? Until recently, science offered few answers to these existential questions. Journey of the Mind is the first book to offer a unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, the Self, and civilization emerged incrementally out of chaos.
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Consciousness: objectively physical yet subjective
- By Jeffrey W. Rudisel on 04-16-22
By: Ogi Ogas, and others
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Poetry Unbound
- 50 Poems to Open Your World
- By: Pádraig Ó Tuama
- Narrated by: Pádraig Ó Tuama
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tumult of our contemporary moment, poetry has emerged as an inviting, consoling outlet with a unique power to move and connect us, to inspire fury, tears, joy, laughter, and surprise. This generous anthology pairs fifty illuminating poems with poet and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama's appealing, unhurried reflections. With keen insight and warm personal anecdotes, Ó Tuama considers each poem's artistry and explores how its meaning can reach into our own lives.
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Praise to Pádraig O Tuama
- By Marilyn Hargrove on 02-01-23
By: Pádraig Ó Tuama
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Love Unknown
- The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop
- By: Thomas Travisano
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Elizabeth Bishop's friend James Merrill once observed that "Elizabeth had more talent for life - and for poetry - than anyone else I've known." This new biography reveals just how she learned to marry her talent for life with her talent for writing in order to create a brilliant array of poems, prose, and letters - a remarkable body of work that would make her one of America's most beloved and celebrated poets. In Love Unknown, Thomas Travisano, founding president of the Elizabeth Bishop Society, tells the story of the famous poet and traveler's life.
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Love the book, just OK with the narration
- By Amazon Customer on 06-05-20
By: Thomas Travisano
What listeners say about The Universe in Verse
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tebogo
- 10-28-24
Deeply inspiring
A deeply inspiring creative output, beautifully combining poetry and science. This publication is most sincere and lovely
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6 people found this helpful
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- WG Maverick
- 04-28-25
Power of the Poetry
I wished I had the book to read along as the author spoke. Some times it was too deep for me; other times a poem moved me and I wanted to gaze at the Milky Way at midnight in order to see the stars the way astronomers and poet saw it.
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- Happy Woman
- 03-19-25
So much beauty in the natural world
Thoroughly enjoyed this selection of poems inspired by nature and math. As a scientist, I reveled in the beauty
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- Lauren Artress
- 04-24-25
Magical Brew of Poetry, History, and Science
Maria Popova’s work is a new discovery to me. Her work was highlighted through the DeepTime Network. She is able to explain and help us explore the Cosmos with a keen knowledge of the emerging science and expand one’s imaginal grasp of this knowledge through the poetic expression of the greatest of our poets. Popova is able to weave a web of historical background fore-mostly highlighting the women neglected by the ignorance of the patriarchal mind set.
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- CVC
- 11-22-24
Big Bang of a tender book!
Wonderful work beauty combined in poetry and science. Plus the offer overlooked contributions women brought and bring to the studies of our existence and the universe. Beautiful.
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7 people found this helpful
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- melody sheldon
- 12-25-24
Maria Popova Curates More than Poetry
Maria Popova curated life. Though this collection I have discovered poems to celebrate births, weddings and what I hope will be read at my memorial party.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Susan Catanese Hamilton
- 02-25-25
As usual, Maria is brilliant!
I so loved this fascinating short book on so many things! I will be listening to it again, to absorb much better all that is offered here. I was so happy to find it on Audible as I do love Maria's online posts already for years now. I hope she brings forth more to Audible!
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- 🔥 Phx17 🔥
- 02-15-25
Is it weird I wanted Morgan Freeman to narrate?
“My business is circumference, Emily Dickenson wrote.”
If a college course on science and poetry was offered by this author, I’d totally be on board. This novella is chock full of science and nature and things that make you go hmmm. Given the heaviness of the material, however, with science-y terms ending in y (entropy, infinity, singularity), I found myself craving Morgan Freeman’s uniquely identifiable god voice to liven up the narration.
“Octopuses: the Descartes of the ocean”
My favorite poem was written by this author- and not just because it was about octopuses (octopi?).
Beyond that, I enjoyed ones by Maya Angelou and Stephen Hawkins.
“The body is quieted in awe.”
Overall, however, most of the poems were just okay. The ratio of essay to poem, moreover, was unbalanced in favor of the essays. Thus, we hear five minutes of lecture about a topic before listening to the minute of poetry featuring the same.
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4 people found this helpful