Banks

By: Grantlee Kieza

Narrated by: Patrick Harvey

By award-winning best-selling writer Grantlee Kieza, Banks is a rich and rollicking biography of one of Britain's most colourful and successful scientists.

Lust, science, adventure - Joseph Banks and his voyages of discovery.

Explorer, naturalist and president of Britain's Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks was a larger-than-life character best known for his promotion of science. In 1768 Banks joined Captain James Cook's expedition to the South Pacific. The 30,000 specimens he brought back generated enormous interest, as did the sometimes racy written account of the journey, which chronicled his frequent amorous exploits.

Banks' passion for the new and unusual flora of Australia led him to recommend Botany Bay to parliament as an excellent place for a penal settlement, despite the fact the soil was poor and there was no fresh running water, but he later became the foremost expert on everything Australian.

©2020 Grantlee Kieza (P)2020 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Endeavor trip

First part of the on the trip at sea was the best part of the book.

So fresh I felt the Ocean Mist!

This biography is like a film in book form. I listened to it in three sittings, and felt very satisfied by the close. It will give you an fantastic overview of Banks's voyages, specifically with Cook, his botany, indigenous encounters, and his later involvement with the agronomic colonization of Australia. Grantlee's perspective sticks to the primary source material and let it speak. Ideology and narrative extrapolation are kept to a minimum. Maybe i felt like there was more going on with Solander and Banks, however, but this is the best Banks biography on Audible. The other two are good, but this book is less of a boring history lesson told to you by Mrs Lugubrious and more of a wonderful adventure!!! What a Man, what a life!