The Ancestor's Tale Audiobook By Richard Dawkins cover art

The Ancestor's Tale

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The Ancestor's Tale

By: Richard Dawkins
Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
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The Ancestor's Tale is a pilgrimage back through time - a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about six million years in the past, gorillas at seven million years, orangutans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band.

The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales. Each explores an aspect of evolutionary biology through the stories of characters met along the way or glimpsed from afar: the Elephant Bird's Tale, the Marsupial Mole's Tale, the Lungfish's Tale. Together they give a deep understanding of the processes that have shaped life on Earth: convergent evolution, the isolation of populations, continental drift, and the great extinctions.

©2004 Richard Dawkins (P)2004 Orion Publishing Group Ltd Biological Sciences Biology Evolution Evolution & Genetics Genetics Science
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This audio version is a very much abridged version. It is frustrating when listening to the many parts and tales that are mentioned by title, but left out of this version. Because, Richard Dawkins is always a good listen. Occasionally he goes onto my nerves with his heightened language and strange poems added in weightfull speech. However, the story he has to tell is engaging, the perspective of a pilgrimage back through time, meeting common ancestors we have with all life on Earth is a unique one. Each and every one of the individual tales are a fascinating read. I was most intrigued by the discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of sexual reproduction - unbelievable that such a basic property of life is not understood - what a great problem to work on.
Did I mention that it is too bad that this book is abridged?

Very abridged, but fascinating anyway

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I've read the book and listened to the audio book.
Although the audio is an abridged version, I enjoyed it more.
Dawkins is as brilliant a speaker as he is a writer and Lalla Ward is the perfect complement.
One plus one = three.
Together they make the understanding of a complex subject effortless and pleasurable.

If all audio books were this good .....

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For those who accept Darwin's ideas this is a an entertaining and interesting book. Mr Dawkins does like to preach sometimes but he has a pleasant and engaging style and these passages are not uniteresting.

A pity that it is abridged.

For those (Americans) who don't accept Darwin, Dawkins's erudition will leave you seething. So best give it a miss.

For the converted

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a brilliant text on evolution.
very entertaining, with appropriate focus given to the most significant historical diversions.
a pleasure to have listened to

student of biological sciences

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Which character – as performed by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward – was your favorite?

Both were good readers. Obviously Dawkins is an experienced lecturer and reads his own book as well as anyone could. However, the constant change between the two readers (one might read the main text while the other reads quotations, and then this is reversed in next chapter) was annoying interruption in the flow of the narration.

Not-so-common perspective on evolution

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