
This Ordinary Stardust
A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder
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Narrated by:
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Alan Townsend PhD
About this listen
"[A] remarkable account of a shifting consciousness” - Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
“An extraordinary, powerful book” - David Quammen, author of The Heartbeat of the Wild and Breathless
A compassionate exploration of scientific wonder that offers “a fresh perspective on life, death, and the bittersweet consequences of impermanence,” (Jon Krakauer) as illuminated through the tragic dual cancer diagnoses of author Dr. Alan Townsend’s wife and daughter.
A decade ago, Dr. Alan Townsend’s family received two unthinkable, catastrophic diagnoses: his 4-year-old daughter and his brilliant scientist wife developed unrelated, life-threatening forms of brain cancer. As he witnessed his young daughter fight during the courageous final months of her mother’s life, Townsend – a lifelong scientist – was indelibly altered. He began to see scientific inquiry as more than a source of answers to a given problem, but also as a lifeboat: a lens on the world that could help him find peace with the painful realities he could not change. Through scientific wonder, he found ways to bring meaning to his darkest period.
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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Critic reviews
"Alan Townsend's This Ordinary Stardust is an immortal monument to one man's daughter and late wife as well as one scientist's impassioned hopes for humanity and the planet. A towering achievement."—Jayson Greene, author of Once More We Saw Stars
“In sharing his own story through searing grief, Alan Townsend shows us—in a way that nobody else could—how scientists are first and foremost people, with hearts both delicate and resilient.”—Hope Jahren, author of National Book Critic’s Circle Award-winning Lab Girl
"This is an extraordinary, powerful book full of science and suffering, spirit and love. It’s rare to encounter such a rich mix, and Alan Townsend’s steady voice makes it all work."—David Quammen, author of The Heartbeat of the Wild and Breathless
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The Gilded Edge
- Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America
- By: Catherine Prendergast
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Nora May French and Carrie Sterling arrive at Carmel-by-the-Sea at the turn of the twentieth century with dramatically different ambitions. Nora, a stunning, brilliant, impulsive writer in her early twenties, seeks artistic recognition and Bohemian refuge among the most celebrated counter-culturalists of the era. Carrie, long-suffering wife of real estate developer George Sterling, wants the opposite: a semblance of the stability she thought her advantageous marriage would offer, threatened now that her philandering husband has taken to writing poetry.
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Why?
- By UMICHReader on 01-18-22
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Possessed by Memory
- The Inward Light of Criticism
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.
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What an endowment!
- By Norman on 04-03-21
By: Harold Bloom
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Projections
- A Story of Human Emotions
- By: Karl Deisseroth
- Narrated by: Karl Deisseroth, Natalie Naudus, Karen Chilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Karl Deisseroth has spent his life pursuing truths about the human mind, both as a renowned clinical psychiatrist and as a researcher creating and developing the revolutionary field of optogenetics, which uses light to help decipher the brain’s workings. In Projections, he combines his knowledge of the brain’s inner circuitry with a deep empathy for his patients to examine what mental illness reveals about the human mind and the origin of human feelings - how the broken can illuminate the unbroken.
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Authors, USE BETTER NARRATORS!!
- By aaron on 08-28-21
By: Karl Deisseroth
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Learning by Heart
- An Unconventional Education
- By: Tony Wagner
- Narrated by: Tony Wagner
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Tony Wagner is an eminent education specialist: He has taught at every grade level from high school through graduate school; worked at Harvard; done significant work for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and speaks across the country and all over the world. But before he found his success, Wagner was kicked out of middle school, expelled from high school, and dropped out of two colleges. Learning by Heart is his powerful account of his years as a student and teacher.
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A great story of a great educator
- By Elizabeth on 12-31-24
By: Tony Wagner
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Stronghold
- One Man's Quest to Save the World's Wild Salmon
- By: Tucker Malarkey
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Orchid Thief, Stronghold is Tucker Malarkey’s eye-opening account of one of the world’s greatest fly fishermen and his crusade to protect the world’s last bastion of wild salmon. From a young age, Guido Rahr was a misfit among his family and classmates, preferring to spend his time in the natural world. When the salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest began to decline, Guido was one of the few who understood why.
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Breathtakingly Brilliant
- By Stephen Victor on 08-21-21
By: Tucker Malarkey
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Once More We Saw Stars
- A Memoir
- By: Jayson Greene
- Narrated by: Jayson Greene
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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As the story opens: Two-year-old Greta Greene is sitting with her grandmother on a park bench on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A brick crumbles from a windowsill overhead, striking her unconscious, and she is immediately rushed to the hospital. But although it begins with this event and with the anguish Jayson and his wife, Stacy, confront in the wake of their daughter's trauma and the hours leading up to her death, Once More We Saw Stars quickly becomes a narrative that is as much about hope and healing as it is about grief and loss.
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It will open your heart if you let it.
- By Rachel on 09-23-19
By: Jayson Greene
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Love, Teach
- Real Stories and Honest Advice to Keep Teachers from Crying Under Their Desks
- By: Kelly Treleaven
- Narrated by: Kelly Treleaven
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Every teacher will tell you the first years are the hardest, and even the most confident of the pack sometimes ask themselves, Am I cut out for this? Kelly Treleaven, the teacher behind Love, Teach, wants you to know that you're not alone, and that yes, she has cried under her desk, too. Treleaven's blog has become a sensation in the education world, known for its heartfelt, high-spirited dispatches straight from the trenches and its practical advice. Here, she gives rookie teachers the advice she wishes she'd had when she started out in a large district in Houston.
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Best Teaching Guidance Book Ever!!!
- By Anonymous User on 11-07-23
By: Kelly Treleaven
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Unsolaced
- Along the Way to All That Is
- By: Gretel Ehrlich
- Narrated by: Gretel Ehrlich
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of the enduring classic The Solace of Open Spaces, here is a wondrous meditation on how water, light, wind, mountain, bird, and horse have shaped her life and her understanding of a world besieged by a climate crisis. Amid species extinctions and disintegrating ice sheets, this stunning collection of memories, observations, and narratives is acute and lyrical, Whitmanesque in breadth, and as elegant as a Japanese teahouse.
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A journey worth taking
- By Jay on 10-30-23
By: Gretel Ehrlich
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Let Me Not Be Mad
- My Story of Unraveling Minds
- By: A. K. Benjamin
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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What do doctors actually think about when you list your problems in the consulting room? Are they really listening to you? Is the connection all in your head? Every day for 10 years - even while his hospital became the set for a reality television series - clinical neuropsychologist A. K. Benjamin confronted these questions, and this book is his attempt to tell the truth about what happens in these rooms in hospitals the world over.
By: A. K. Benjamin
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The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames
- A Memoir
- By: Justine Cowan
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Justine had always been told that her mother came from royal blood. The proof could be found in her mother’s elegance, in the upper-crust London accent she had never shed - and in a cryptic letter hinting at her claim to a country estate. But beneath the polished veneer lay a fearsome, unpredictable temper that drove Justine from home the moment she was old enough to escape. Years later, when her mother sent her an envelope filled with secrets from a past that had never been spoken about, Justine buried it in the back of an old filing cabinet.
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Enlightening
- By May L. on 06-29-22
By: Justine Cowan
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Beyond the Throne
- Epic Journeys, Enduring Friendships, and Surprising Tales
- By: Kristian Nairn
- Narrated by: Kristian Nairn
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of an unlikely hero who fulfilled his destiny… Fans will be fascinated by Kristian Nairn’s experience on Game of Thrones, from his unlikely audition to his on-the-job training as an actor to his ascendance as one of the most beloved and pivotal characters on the show. Nairn details the camaraderie that develops as the actors face the elements on set, not entirely unlike the ones their characters must endure on screen, as well as the life-altering effects of worldwide stardom.
By: Kristian Nairn
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Five Days
- The Fiery Reckoning of an American City
- By: Wes Moore, Erica L. Green
- Narrated by: Wes Moore
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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A kaleidoscopic account of five days in the life of a city on the edge, told through eight characters on the front lines of the uprising that overtook Baltimore and riveted the world, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Other Wes Moore.
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Great book
- By Ms Moni on 07-06-20
By: Wes Moore, and others
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Sleeping with Strangers
- How the Movies Shaped Desire
- By: David Thomson
- Narrated by: David Thomson
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In this wholly original work of film criticism, David Thomson, celebrated author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, probes the many ways in which sexuality has shaped the movies - and the ways in which the movies have shaped sexuality.
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Another good read from David Thomson
- By Boxing Fan on 07-23-23
By: David Thomson
I want to thank Allen for sharing their story with us! I want to wish them all peace and happiness.
Inspirational and touching!
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The spirituality of science
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Nothing ordinary about this incredible story
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