When We Cease to Understand the World Audiobook By Benjamín Labatut cover art

When We Cease to Understand the World

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When We Cease to Understand the World

By: Benjamín Labatut
Narrated by: Adam Barr
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Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize.

A Guardian Fiction Book of the year.

Sometimes discovery brings destruction.

When We Cease to Understand the World shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain.

Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger: these are among the luminaries into whose troubled minds we are thrust as they grapple with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, they alienate friends and lovers, they descend into isolated states of madness. Some of their discoveries revolutionise our world for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear.

With breakneck pace and wondrous detail, Benjamín Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to break open the stories of scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.

©2020 Benjamín Labatut (P)2021 Pushkin Press Biographical Fiction Contemporary Fiction Genre Fiction Psychological

Critic reviews

A monstrous and brilliant book.
-- Philip Pullman

Wholly mesmerising and revelatory... Completely fascinating.
-- William Boyd
All stars
Most relevant  
This is a beautifully written, mind expanding book that to me is the read of the year.

Read of the year

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Beautifully woven story around real events and influential people. A factual based fiction book. Starts with almost no fiction and adds more embellishment as the story progresses. A treasure for nerds with a love of literature.

Amazing, informative

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Thank you Benjamin Labatut for telling the stories of science, for better or worse,
in such a brilliant way.

Science for better or worse

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Incredible stories about the lives and inventions of the top minds of the last century. Even though partially fictional, it transports the listener to the time when science history was made.

Amazing stories about extraordinary minds

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Performance is great, as is the writing style. Personally, I didn't enjoy how fact and fiction are blended together. Also, the author seems convinced that truly genius breakthroughs require a scientist to push themself to the edge of the abyss. An overdone trope imo.

Not a fan of how reality and fiction are blended

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