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Junkyard Planet
- Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade
- Narrated by: William Elsman
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
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Junkyard Planet
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Publisher's summary
With unmatched access to and insight on the waste industry, and the explanatory gifts and an eye for detail worthy of a John McPhee or a William Langewiesche, Minter traces the export of America’s junk and the massive profits that China and other rising nations earn from it. What emerges is an engaging, colorful, and sometimes troubling tale of how the way we consume and discard stuff fuels a world that recognizes value where Americans don’t. Junkyard Planet reveals that Americans might need to learn a smarter way to take out the trash.
Critic reviews
"Eye-opening.... [Minter is] an excellent guide to this sprawling and bewildering trade." (Wall Street Journal)
"Superbly researched." (Financial Times)
"Minter’s skillful compilation of trade statistics in and of itself would make Junkyard Planet a strong book. But what tips it into greatness is the confident, sympathetic voice in which he narrates his peripatetic odyssey through the world’s junkyards." (Los Angeles Review of Books)
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Almost too geeky for geeks
- By Norman B. Bernstein on 03-26-15
By: Jonathan Waldman
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Visit Sunny Chernobyl
- And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places
- By: Andrew Blackwell
- Narrated by: Ax Norman
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 79
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 78
For most of us, traveling means visiting the most beautiful places on Earth - Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. It’s rare to book a plane ticket to visit the lifeless moonscape of Canada’s oil sand strip mines, or to seek out the Chinese city of Linfen, legendary as the most polluted in the world. But in Visit Sunny Chernobyl, Andrew Blackwell embraces a different kind of travel, taking a jaunt through the most gruesomely polluted places on Earth.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Better than I predicted
- By Paul Luthi on 08-23-13
By: Andrew Blackwell
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
- The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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Garbology
- Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash
- By: Edward Humes
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 130
The average American produces 102 tons of garbage across a lifetime, and $50 billion in squandered riches are rolled to the curb each year. But our bins are just the starting point for a strange, impressive, mysterious, and costly journey that may also represent the greatest untapped opportunity of the century. In Garbology, Edward Humes investigates trash - what's in it; how much we pay for it; how we manage to create so much of it; and how some families, communities, and even nations are finding a way back from waste to discover a new kind of prosperity.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A phenomenal read & serious eye-opener
- By Andy Feicht on 10-07-18
By: Edward Humes
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On the Grid
- A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work
- By: Scott Huler
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 57
In our daily lives, we're surrounded by wires, pipes, utility poles, cell phone towers, and myriad other infrastructure that facilitates almost everything we do. Even though these systems are essential, when was the last time you gave them much thought? In On the Grid, Scott Huler sets out to understand all of the systems that shape our society - from transportation, water, and garbage to the Internet coming through our cable lines.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing!
- By Skippy the Okie on 01-27-16
By: Scott Huler
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Train
- Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new audiobook he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid Trans-Siberian Railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic maglev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The world history of trains up to the present
- By matthew on 03-06-14
By: Tom Zoellner
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Strange Stones
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 135
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 138
Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage - a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions.
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4 out of 5 stars
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funny, entertaining
- By Katherine on 08-02-13
By: Peter Hessler
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The Boom
- How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World
- By: Russell Gold
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 250
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 209
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 210
Russell Gold, a brilliant and dogged investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal, has spent more than a decade reporting on one of the biggest stories of our time: the spectacular, world-changing rise of "fracking". Recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a recipient of the Gerald Loeb Award for his work, Gold has traveled along the pipelines and into the hubs of this country’s energy infrastructure; he has visited frack sites from Texas to North Dakota; and he has conducted thousands of interviews with engineers and wildcatters, CEOs and roughnecks, environmentalists and politicians.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Somehow the author manages to stay balanced
- By Emily C on 05-28-14
By: Russell Gold
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Auto Biography
- A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream
- By: Earl Swift
- Narrated by: Greg Itzin
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
A brilliant blend of Shop Class as Soulcraft and The Orchid Thief, Earl Swift’s wise, funny, and captivating Auto Biography follows an outlaw-genius auto mechanic as he painstakingly attempts to restores a classic 1957 Chevy to its former glory - all while the FBI and local law enforcement close in.
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5 out of 5 stars
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epic story of man and machine.
- By D.Streeter on 07-01-22
By: Earl Swift
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China's Second Continent
- How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa
- By: Howard W. French
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 293
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 256
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 251
An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa - a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people. A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting, French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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He knows Both Africa and China
- By Malick Tchakpedeou on 12-01-16
By: Howard W. French
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LEGO
- A Love Story
- By: Jonathan Bender
- Narrated by: Jeremy Gage
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 135
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 109
There are 62 LEGO bricks for every person in the world, and at age 30, Jonathan Bender realized that he didn't have a single one of them. While reconsidering his childhood dream of becoming a master model builder for The LEGO Group, he discovers the men and women who are skewing the averages with collections of hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks. What is it about the ubiquitous, brightly colored toys that makes them so hard for everyone to put down?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Be careful if you already like Lego
- By Matthew Center on 03-14-11
By: Jonathan Bender
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Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 355
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 304
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 302
Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy paints an epic picture of change in an intimate way by telling the stories of the tools, people, and ideas that had far-reaching consequences for all of us. From the plough to artificial intelligence, from Gillette's disposable razor to IKEA's Billy bookcase, best-selling author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford recounts each invention's own curious, surprising, and memorable story.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thought provoking
- By Paul Norris on 09-10-17
By: Tim Harford
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The Big Necessity
- The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
- By: Rose George
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
We prefer not to talk about it, but we should. Disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, nearly two million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable. Moving from the underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York (an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen) to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, The Big Necessity breaks the silence, revealing everything that matters about how people do - and don't - deal with their own waste.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Utterly fascinating
- By Clayton on 03-31-19
By: Rose George
-
Fins
- Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit
- By: William Knoedelseder
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 97
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 97
This audiobook chronicles the birth and rise to greatness of the American auto industry through the life of Harley Earl, an eccentric six-foot-five, stuttering visionary who dropped out of college and went on to invent the profession of automobile styling, thereby revolutionized the way cars were made, marketed, and even imagined. Harleys Earl’s story qualifies as a bona fide American family saga. It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in Hollywood, California.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great report of amazing history but could do without the WOKE lean..
- By joshua Shaw on 07-02-22
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I Invented the Modern Age
- The Rise of Henry Ford and the Most Important Car Ever Made
- By: Richard Snow
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 722
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 628
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 623
In many ways, Henry Ford's story is well-known; in many more ways, it is not. Richard Snow masterfully weaves together a fascinating narrative of Ford's rise to fame through his greatest invention, the Model T. A highly pleasurable listen, filled with scenes and incidents from Ford's life, I Invented the Modern Age shows Richard Snow at the height of his powers as a popular historian and reclaims from history Henry Ford, the remarkable man who, indeed, invented the modern world as we know it.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A Complicated Man
- By Jean on 11-23-13
By: Richard Snow
-
The Meat Racket
- The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business
- By: Christopher Leonard
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 199
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 170
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 171
How much do you know about the meat on your dinner plate? Journalist Christopher Leonard spent more than a decade covering the country's biggest meat companies, including four years as the national agribusiness reporter for the Associated Press. Now he delivers the first comprehensive look inside the industrial meat system, exposing how a handful of companies executed an audacious corporate takeover of the nation's meat supply.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Hits the nail on the head.
- By Anonymous 8888 on 02-04-15
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1 out of 5 stars
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Very enlightening and information well supported
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Very informative and optimistic
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Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of 17 groups of molecules that have greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. The molecules resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and law; they determined what we now eat, drink, and wear. A change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a substance.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Wish one of the authors would have read this book
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1 out of 5 stars
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History given is only reason it gets 2 stars.
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Culinary Reactions
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 180
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When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Culinary Reactions - The Chemical Formulas to Cook
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The Master Switch
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- By: Tim Wu
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,417
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,014
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,013
Could history repeat itself, with one giant entity taking control of American information? Most consider the Internet Age to be a moment of unprecedented freedom in communications and culture. But as Tim Wu shows, each major new medium, from telephone to cable, arrived on a similar wave of idealistic optimism only to become, eventually, the object of industrial consolidation profoundly affecting how Americans communicate.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Read
- By Roy on 11-12-10
By: Tim Wu
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The Attention Merchants
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- By: Tim Wu
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- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 724
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 625
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 626
In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of advertising enticements, branding efforts, sponsored social media, commercials, and other efforts to harvest our attention. Over the last century, few times or spaces have remained uncultivated by the "attention merchants", contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times. Tim Wu argues that this is not simply the byproduct of recent inventions, but the end result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention.
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5 out of 5 stars
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It's Been Sold
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How Music Got Free
- The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy
- By: Stephen Witt
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- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 501
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 451
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 450
How Music Got Free is a riveting story of obsession, music, crime, and money, featuring visionaries and criminals, moguls and tech-savvy teenagers. It's about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, a revolutionary invention, and an illegal website four times the size of the iTunes music store.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Compelling Story about Technology and the Recording Industry
- By Sara Graffunder on 06-20-15
By: Stephen Witt
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Wasteland
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- By: Oliver Franklin-Wallis
- Narrated by: Chris Harper
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- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 17
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 14
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Story5 out of 5 stars 14
In Wasteland, journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis takes us on a shocking journey inside the waste industry—the secretive multi-billion dollar world that underpins the modern economy, quietly profiting from what we leave behind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Our Trash
- By Bookworm on 12-20-23
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Nothing Like It in the World
- The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,080
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 768
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 768
Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise comes to life. The U.S. government pitted two companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads - against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. As its peak the work force approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as 15,000 workers on each line. The surveyors, the men who picked the route, lived off buffalo, deer, and antelope.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A tragic waste
- By Joshua Tretakoff on 04-11-03
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What Einstein Didn't Know
- Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions
- By: Robert L. Wolke
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 205
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 182
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 181
How does soap know what's dirt? How do magnets work? Why do ice cubes crackle in your glass? And how can you keep them quiet? These are questions that torment us all. Now Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, provides definitive - and amazingly simple - explanations for the mysteries of everyday life.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A funny thing happened on the way to a great book
- By Joseph on 10-01-12
By: Robert L. Wolke
-
The Disappearing Spoon
- And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,026
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,759
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,768
Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great Book, Great Narration, But...
- By Henny Button on 09-18-10
By: Sam Kean
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Masters of Doom
- How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
- By: David Kushner
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,350
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,860
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,838
Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to produce the most notoriously successful game franchises in history - Doom and Quake - until the games they made tore them apart. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry.
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4 out of 5 stars
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How it was
- By Ryan on 08-27-13
By: David Kushner
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That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles
- 65 All New Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life
- By: Dr. Joe Schwarcz
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Interesting anecdotes and engaging tales make science fun, meaningful, and accessible. Separating sense from nonsense and fact from myth, these essays cover everything from the ups of helium to the downs of drain cleaners and provide answers to numerous mysteries, such as why bug juice is used to color ice cream and how spies used secret inks. Mercury in teeth, arsenic in water, lead in the environment, and aspartame in food are discussed.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Very cavalier attitude
- By Paula on 11-14-14
By: Dr. Joe Schwarcz
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A Grain of Salt
- The Science and Pseudoscience of What We Eat
- By: Dr. Joe Schwarcz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story5 out of 5 stars 20
Of all the dietary and nutritional claims pitched to us, what can we believe? How does cinnamon affect your health? How splendid is Splenda? Should you buy farmed, wild, or canned food? What's fishy about fish-oil supplements? Will a diet of Twinkies and M&M's lead to weight loss? Water from a tap or from a plastic bottle - which should you choose, and which is better for the environment? Should you carry your groceries home in plastic or brown paper? We all have questions, and Dr. Joe Schwarcz has the answers, some of which will astonish you.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent! Science-baced nutritional information.
- By Amazon Customer on 02-05-20
By: Dr. Joe Schwarcz
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The Secret Life of Groceries
- The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket
- By: Benjamin Lorr
- Narrated by: Benjamin Lorr
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,699
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,484
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,481
The American supermarket is an everyday miracle. But what does it take to run one? What are the inner workings of product delivery and distribution? Who sets the price? And who suffers for the convenience and efficiency we’ve come to expect? In this rollicking exposé, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on this highly secretive industry.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fucking Exceptional
- By Amazon Customer on 02-23-21
By: Benjamin Lorr
What listeners say about Junkyard Planet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Matthew K Wendelken
- 12-28-22
has been updated!
so important to know where our garbage goes! it's going to outlive us if we don't do better
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ter
- 12-07-22
I was in the business and I had it all wrong.
This book was very well researched and documented. I have been scrapping for decades as a customer and for a short while as a primary first level buyer at the neighborhood level. The whole system is much different than I thought. It seams that when we are told we are “DUMPING” it can be the most efficient best use of an item we are done with but still has useful value.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Danielle C.
- 06-24-21
Very Interesting, Very Detailed
Adam Minter's book on the secondhand market is much more engaging, but this one is good, too.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-04-21
Fascinating industry that impacts us all !
Very well written account of the ins and outs of the scrap industry and its significant role in worldwide macroeconomics.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Erin M Carris
- 01-25-22
Fascinating
Fascinating story about what recycling really is. Makes you think about your own decisions. I wish that there was more to the story and there sure is!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- William J Waite
- 11-08-23
Start Here to Learn about Recycling!
I just ended a short career in recycling coordination. Adam Minter’s 2 books were probably the 2 most reliable and thought out examinations of the industry.
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