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Toms River
- A Story of Science and Salvation
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
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Publisher's summary
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • Winner of The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award • “A new classic of science reporting.”—The New York Times
The riveting true story of a small town ravaged by industrial pollution, Toms River melds hard-hitting investigative reporting, a fascinating scientific detective story, and an unforgettable cast of characters into a sweeping narrative in the tradition of A Civil Action, The Emperor of All Maladies, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
One of New Jersey’s seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest legal settlements in the annals of toxic dumping. A town that would rather have been known for its Little League World Series champions ended up making history for an entirely different reason: a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution. For years, large chemical companies had been using Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying tens of thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging billions of gallons of acid-laced wastewater into the town’s namesake river.
In an astonishing feat of investigative reporting, prize-winning journalist Dan Fagin recounts the sixty-year saga of rampant pollution and inadequate oversight that made Toms River a cautionary example for fast-growing industrial towns from South Jersey to South China. He tells the stories of the pioneering scientists and physicians who first identified pollutants as a cause of cancer, and brings to life the everyday heroes in Toms River who struggled for justice: a young boy whose cherubic smile belied the fast-growing tumors that had decimated his body from birth; a nurse who fought to bring the alarming incidence of childhood cancers to the attention of authorities who didn’t want to listen; and a mother whose love for her stricken child transformed her into a tenacious advocate for change.
A gripping human drama rooted in a centuries-old scientific quest, Toms River is a tale of dumpers at midnight and deceptions in broad daylight, of corporate avarice and government neglect, and of a few brave individuals who refused to keep silent until the truth was exposed.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND KIRKUS REVIEWS
“A thrilling journey full of twists and turns, Toms River is essential reading for our times. Dan Fagin handles topics of great complexity with the dexterity of a scholar, the honesty of a journalist, and the dramatic skill of a novelist.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Emperor of All Maladies
“A complex tale of powerful industry, local politics, water rights, epidemiology, public health and cancer in a gripping, page-turning environmental thriller.”—NPR
“Unstoppable reading.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Meticulously researched and compellingly recounted . . . It’s every bit as important—and as well-written—as A Civil Action and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”—The Star-Ledger
“Fascinating . . . a gripping environmental thriller.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“An honest, thoroughly researched, intelligently written book.”—Slate
“[A] hard-hitting account . . . a triumph.”—Nature
“Absorbing and thoughtful.”—USA Today
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“Toms River is an epic tale for our chemical age. Dan Fagin has combined deep reporting with masterful storytelling to recount an extraordinary battle over cancer and pollution in a New Jersey town. Along the way—as we meet chemists, businessmen, doctors, criminals, and outraged citizens—we see how Toms River is actually a microcosm of a world that has come to depend on chemicals without quite comprehending what they might do to our health.” (Carl Zimmer, author of A Planet of Viruses and Parasite Rex)
"At once intimate and objective, Toms River is the heartbreaking account of one town's struggle with a legacy of toxic pollution. Dan Fagin has written a powerful and important book.” (Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe)
“An engaging and well-documented exposé about chemical contamination and the discovery of a cancer cluster . . . Toms River is a cautionary tale about the Faustian tradeoffs between unfettered economic growth and industrial pollution.” (New Jersey Monthly)
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Tomorrowland
- Our Journey From Science Fiction to Science Fact
- By: Steven Kotler
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Discover bestselling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact...and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide listeners on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives.
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Covers a lot of different topics in many industries
- By ErnieA on 06-27-15
By: Steven Kotler
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The Great Influenza
- The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease.
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Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
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Splendid Solution
- Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
- By: Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Salk became a cultural hero and icon for a whole generation. Now, at the fiftieth anniversary of the first national vaccination program, and as humanity is tantalizingly close to eradicating polio worldwide, comes this unforgettable chronicle. Salk's work was an unparalleled achievement, and it makes for a magnificent listen.
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Excellent book
- By Tim on 08-10-06
By: Jeffrey Kluger
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Yellow Dirt
- An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed
- By: Judy Pasternak
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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From the 1930s to the 1960s, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe of people. The Navajo worked unprotected in the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Long after these mines were abandoned, Navajos in all four corners of the Reservation (which borders Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona) continued grazing their animals on sagebrush flats riddled with uranium that had been blasted from the ground.
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Dirty little secret of nuclear development
- By Buretto on 08-13-20
By: Judy Pasternak
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Epic Measures
- One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients.
- By: Jeremy N. Smith
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Moneyball meets medicine in this remarkable chronicle of one of the greatest scientific quests of our time - the groundbreaking program to answer the most essential question for humanity: How do we live and die? - and the visionary mastermind behind it.
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Fabulously insightful read!
- By Dr. Jack E. Fincham on 10-08-15
By: Jeremy N. Smith
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Paradise Falls
- The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe
- By: Keith O'Brien
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Lois Gibbs, Luella Kenny, and other mothers loved their neighborhood on the east side of Niagara Falls. It had an elementary school, a playground, and rows of affordable homes. In the spring of 1977, pungent odors began to seep into these little houses, and it didn’t take long for worried mothers to identify the curious scent. It was the sickly-sweet smell of chemicals.
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Informative!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-20-24
By: Keith O'Brien
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The Pandemic Century
- One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris
- By: Mark Honigsbaum
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu to the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles to the 1930 "parrot fever" pandemic, through the more recent SARS, Ebola, and Zika epidemics, the last one hundred years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms.
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Pretty good
- By Baz 12345 on 04-03-20
By: Mark Honigsbaum
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The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- A Medical Mystery
- By: D.T. Max
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.
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A great scientific mystery
- By David on 11-04-06
By: D.T. Max
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The Fatal Strain
- On the Trail of Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic
- By: Alan Sipress
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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When avian flu began spreading across Asia in the early 2000s, it reawakened fears that had lain dormant for nearly a century. During the outbreak's deadliest years, Alan Sipress chased the virus as it infiltrated remote jungle villages and teeming cities and saw its mysteries elude the world's top scientists. In The Fatal Strain, Sipress details how socioeconomic and political realities in Asia make it the perfect petri dish in which the fast-mutating strain can become easily communicable among humans.
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Narrator comments
- By Don on 01-10-10
By: Alan Sipress
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The Poisoner's Handbook
- Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
- By: Deborah Blum
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Poisoner's Handbook, Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.
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Fascinating book marred by production errors
- By Reagan Kelly on 03-02-10
By: Deborah Blum
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Denialism
- How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives
- By: Michael Specter
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter has twice won the Global Health Council’s Excellence in Media Award, as well as the Science Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In Denialism, he fervently argues that people are turning away from new technologies and engaging in a kind of magical thinking that is hindering scientific progress.
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A compelling read
- By S on 05-17-11
By: Michael Specter
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What listeners say about Toms River
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- jamesh-lantern-media
- 06-07-14
Wonderful writing - way too long and repetitive
Would you listen to Toms River again? Why?
No, I feel like I got everything I needed out of the story in one shot.
What did you like best about this story?
I loved to hear the very researched and interesting story of what CIBA-GEIGY did to Toms River, NJ - I was on the edge of my seat for the first half of the book
What does Dan Woren bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I wouldn't have had the time to read it. However on my hour and a half drive to and from work, it was perfect to listen to.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, but it would need to be seriously edited for that to happen.
Any additional comments?
I really loved the beginning of this book, and have recommended it to everyone I know... That being said, I decided to stop listening to it midway thru... It didn't need to be as long as it was - There was a lot of information repeated over and over with slight differences, and I just didn't want to hear them again. Now, I LOVED to hear the accounts the first time tho, so I do recommend the book... I just wish it was at least half the length it was...
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6 people found this helpful
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- mary beth pfau
- 03-31-17
Too technical!
It was somewhat interesting, but way to technical and way too long. I understand the importance of the situation but as a reader I feel it could have been condensed.
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- Darla
- 09-07-24
Great read
Toms River is a story about the scientists and doctors who identified pollutants that caused cancer only to be ignored for years.
This is about the residents of a small town that were lied to by a mega corporation.
The book chronicles the life of a young boy whose body was ravaged with cancer since birth.
The story details a handful of strong determined towns people who stayed brave , didn’t give up and refused to keep quiet so the truth finally could be exposed.
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- Derek Long
- 07-31-18
Fascinating, and Upsetting
This novel's kindled inside me a new fascination with industrial waste, and I never thought I'd be writing that sentence. As a homeowner with two little girls though, this book showed me how complacency in current local events can literally kill, while having wherewithal to stand up against the powers that be (big business, politics) is sometimes all that can save a few lives. I'd rate this five stars, but the narrator's voice--while professional--does come off a little dry. That might be because of the subject matter, hence just one star off 5, but I did have to change the book to podcasts a couple times while driving long distance. I will say though this novel has profoundly impacted me, and I am strongly considering purchasing this for all the members of my town board.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-22-23
Complex but extremely well researched & written
I live in neighboring Lavallette NJ and had vaguely heard about the Toms River cancer cluster over the years. This book is an amazing and detailed account of the whole story. My heart breaks for the families affected. Dan Fagin is to be applauded for this work. Dan Woren’s narration is well done.
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- Amazon user
- 06-27-16
Epic, frightening and eye opening
An excellently executed well rounded true story which you wish was fiction. I'm sure this is the tip of the iceberg that we have already hit but we are too busy feasting and dancing on deck to notice. So well done and presented but a long and arduous story to endure....a must read though
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1 person found this helpful
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- Victoria Sun
- 05-14-16
Well researched and told
Even though this fine piece of environmental journalism is a horror story, I didn't shrink from it. Events and eras unfold in a compelling way.
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1 person found this helpful
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- wayne
- 05-31-22
Emotional read that will leave you
Tom’s River is a must-read for anyone interested in public health. I felt a range of emotions, mostly disappointment, as I listened to what the families of Tom’s River endured. They never really got the answers they had hoped for. This was also a very eye opening tale of how enough money can make issues just disappear.
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- Anna Jolly
- 06-05-15
Wow, how did I miss Toms River?
Any additional comments?
I thought this was a fascinating and well-written book. I never found it boring. Of course I have been in the environmental, health and safety business for over 30 years, so it is right in my main area of interest. Somehow, during that period, I missed all the Toms River press, I really liked the way he brought in the science in an easy to understand fashion, especially the epidemiology discussion..
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3 people found this helpful
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- D. Zimmerle
- 03-14-16
great story about science and environment
well told story that puts the pieces together over an extended period. The author does a good job of illustrating why uncertainty remains despite significant efforts to determine what caused the cancers in Tom's River.
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1 person found this helpful