Richard Dawkins deserved so much credit of my curious and confused mind. He is so brilliant that this audiobook once you start listening you just can't stop. Lalla Ward is splendid as Richard Dawkins. I love listening to her voice. But of course Richard Dawkins is unparallel.He is like listening to my High School teacher in Physics who is also from England. He has this teacher or professor sounding nice and kind voice.This book was well written and carefully scripted not to offend the creationist believers.
It will go down in history as the 21st century, the Age of Enlightment. Like Charles Darwin when his Theory of Evolution was first published in 1859. I was 13 years old when I started questioning about our creator. I had few catholic missionary friends when I was 13 yo and started asking questions of our creator. I was never satisfied of their answers. They all seems to have the same answer.."Faith"...a blind faith. It took me over 40 years to realize that I should not feel guilty that there's no such thing as Intelligent Design. Finally, all these clouds in my mind are 100% clear now. There's no such thing as Intelliget Design (ID) fun intented :) Bravo to Sir Richard Dawkins!

As a student of historical religions, and science as religion I find Darwin extremely compelling, and logical. Dawkins on the other hand, has truly drunk the Kool-aid. I realize that the work is a bit dated, so some inaccuracies, for example his near ridicule of epi-genetics and Lemarkism, by focus on genes rather than switches. However, as a scientist I have learned that absolute certainty is only for mountebanks. I must say however, that I learned a lot, despite the fact that I have read most of Darwin's works, and many related texts. Unfortunately it is easy to get riled up by his everyone else is an idiot tone, and miss many of the startling insights of the work. I have a lot of respect for Mr.Dawkins, so I truly hope that this was more of a show than his true scientific point of view. And yet, all in all, I would recommend the book to all who have an interest.

Having the actual author read is moving.

No ! I can't mentally keep up and had to work through in smaller chunks.

I had a poor understanding of evolution, this has help me understand.

For all the creationists out there and for smart people who want a good read, this should be mandatory in high school science classes.

Extremely dated. Unnecessarily laborious in a-b-c logic. I have read more recent books by Dawkins and thought this would prove entertaining; it wasn't. I am a university professor in a surgical field. Although I personally am an atheist who marvels at those who refer to the "theory of evolution", I make no effort to convert others to my own philosophy of life and man's rather limited and transient role in the universe. Dawkin's dawdled on details of his arguments to the point I forgot what his original argument was. He became more entertaining and mercurial in his later years, but evidently started off slowly. I thought this would give me some historical context of Dawkins but instead gave me a nap.

No further Dawkins or Hitchens. I'm comfortable with my beliefs and don't require further validation.

How could it have been worse?

Disappointment.

Maybe a good book on membrane theory?

This book is definitely among my favorites to listen to, ever. I have listened to it at least three times through now and it delivers something new every time. It is very well written in Richard Dawkins' distinctive style - smart, humorous, thoughtful and engaging. I can imagine Dawkins to be a superb teacher who makes his students fall in love with the subject.The narration is amazing. The best out of all the books I have ever listened to. In fact all of Dawkins' books are a true pleasure to listen - he is very passionate about his subject and knows it inside and out. Sometimes i listen to one of his books (I have bought every single one of them and they are all fantastically narrated) just because it is such a pleasure to listen to him and Lalla Ward perform it.

The story comes to life when narrated by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward. I have read all of Dawkins' books and they are brilliant, but I definitely prefer to listen to him narrate, so I have bought and listened to all of the available audio versions as well. Ever since getting an audio version of a book i never went back to the paper version. That is probably because the books are written in a conversational style (which makes them so lovely to read) so to listen to an actual conversation is real fun.

Definitely yes, it didn't take me long to finish - and start again - it kept me up some nights

Maybe Richard Dawkins but not Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward

No

The story does not flow. There is poor timing regarding the inputs from Lalla Ward. The changes between the two are abrupt. A different combination of readers may have been better. The two voices and expressions do not compliment each other. It is just not the right combination.

It is a good topic and there are good points put forward but extremely repetitive. Maybe it is for people who understand less about the topic. It comes across as the author is being condescending or making things oversimplified. It appears as though the author is belittling the readers' intelligence/intellect.

Suggestions on higher order books in this genre?

Near the top

(Not a story) A non fiction piece that was easy to listen to, and an excellent explanation of evolution,

I've listened to a few books by Dawkins and feel that this is the weakest of them so far. I particularly enjoyed the Selfish Gene, however I didn't really learn anything "new" in this book and found it to drag on. I started listening at 2x speed just to get through it. Nonetheless, there were a few points where I stopped, slowed down and listened intently and very much enjoyed those segments. There just were not enough of them for me to give the book more than a two star rating. Others may well enjoy the book, especially if they have not read any other works by Dawkins.

The basic information is fine, but the author spends at least 50% of the time on distractions, tangents, superfluous information, and digressions.