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Comet Madness
- How the 1910 Return of Halley's Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 10 hrs
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Comet Madness
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Publisher's summary
Since the dawn of civilization, humans had believed comets were evil portents. In 1705, Edmond Halley liberated humanity from these primordial superstitions, proving that Newtonian mechanics rather than the will of the gods brought comets into our celestial neighborhood. Despite this scientific advance, when Halley's Comet returned in 1910, newspapers gleefully provoked a global hysteria that unfolded with tragic consequences.
In Comet Madness, author and historian Richard J. Goodrich examines the 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet and the ensuing frenzy sparked by media manipulation, bogus science, and outright deception.
As the comet neared Earth, scientists and journalists alike scrambled to get the story straight as citizens the world over panicked.
As a result, workmen shelved their tools, farmers refused to plant crops they would never harvest, and formerly reliable people stopped paying their creditors. Others suffered mental breakdowns, and some took their own lives.
Comet Madness reveals how humans confront the unknown, how scientists learn about the world we inhabit, and how certain people—from outright hucksters to opportunistic journalists—harness fear to produce a profit.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
Isaac's Storm meets The Age of Wonder in Lee Sandlin's Storm Kings, a riveting tale of the weather's most vicious monster - the super cell tornado - that recreates the origins of meteorology, and the quirky, pioneering, weather-obsessed scientists who helped change America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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American Meteorological History at its best
- By Leslye Sinn on 10-23-16
By: Lee Sandlin
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Krakatoa
- The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 719
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 717
The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa - the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster - was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly 40,000 people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round die planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great subject, great writing, great voice
- By rwise on 01-26-04
By: Simon Winchester
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Seeing in the Dark
- How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril
- By: Timothy Ferris
- Narrated by: Timothy Ferris
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 61
Anyone can get started in astronomy, just by going outside on a dark night with a star chart and learning their way around. Timothy Ferris tells us what's been seen out there - the Ring nebula, the Silver Coin galaxy, the Virgo supercluster, and how to find them.
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3 out of 5 stars
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About astronomy as well as astronomers
- By Gary on 04-09-03
By: Timothy Ferris
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The Age of Wonder
- How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
- By: Richard Holmes
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 338
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 292
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 291
When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Misleading title
- By Diane on 08-04-11
By: Richard Holmes
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The Mind Parasites
- The Supernatural, Metaphysical Cult Thriller
- By: Colin Wilson
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4 out of 5 stars 63
Wilson has blended H. P. Lovecraft's dark vision with his own revolutionary philosophy and unique narrative powers to produce a stunning, high-tension story of vaulting imagination. A professor makes a horrifying discovery while excavating a sinister archaeological site. For over 200 years, mind parasites have been lurking in the deepest layers of human consciousness, feeding on human life force and steadily gaining a foothold on the planet. Now they threaten humanity's extinction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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wow
- By Esmeralda on 09-26-18
By: Colin Wilson
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Chariots of the Gods
- By: Erich von Däniken
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,765
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,385
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,379
Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods is a work of monumental importance---the first book to introduce the shocking theory that ancient Earth was visited by aliens. This world-famous best seller has withstood the test of time, inspiring countless books and films, including the author's own popular sequel, The Eye of the Sphinx.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Answers? No. But if you wish to think it's great!
- By Neal on 09-10-12
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Island on Fire
- The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World
- By: Alexandra Witze, Jeff Kanipe
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 246
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 210
Laki is Iceland's largest volcano - and its most fearsome. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting and Pertinent Topic!
- By Catherine Puma on 01-23-22
By: Alexandra Witze, and others
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Falling Upwards
- How We Took to the Air
- By: Richard Holmes
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
Falling Upwards tells the story of the enigmatic group of men and women who first risked their lives to take to the air and so discovered a new dimension of human experience. Why they did it, what their contemporaries thought of them, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet in wholly unexpected ways is its subject.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A Significant Factual-Interpretative Error
- By William P. Mitchell on 04-01-20
By: Richard Holmes
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A Furious Sky
- The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
With A Furious Sky, Eric Jay Dolin has created a vivid, sprawling account of our encounters with hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus's New World voyages to the destruction wrought in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. Weaving a story of shipwrecks and devastated cities, of heroism and folly, Dolin introduces a rich cast of unlikely heroes and puts us in the middle of the most devastating storms of the past, none worse than the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed at least 6,000 people, the highest toll of any natural disaster in American history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good start but went political at the end.
- By thebreeze on 03-24-21
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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The Day We Found the Universe
- By: Marcia Bartusiak
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 143
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
From one of our most acclaimed science writers: a dramatic narrative of the discovery of the true nature and startling size of the universe, delving back past the moment of revelation to trace the decades of work--by a select group of scientists--that made it possible.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Worth the Effort
- By Roy on 08-13-09
By: Marcia Bartusiak
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The Sun and the Moon
- Hoaxers, Showmen, and Lunar Man-Bats in 19th-Century New York
- By: Matthew Goodman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The Sun and the Moon tells the delightful and surprisingly true story of how a series of articles in the Sun newspaper in 1835 convinced the citizens of New York that the moon was inhabited. Purporting to reveal discoveries of a famous British astronomer, the series described such moon life as unicorns, beavers that walked upright, and four-foot-tall flying man-bats. It quickly became the most widely circulated newspaper story of the era.
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3 out of 5 stars
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some very good some very bad
- By peter on 10-30-10
By: Matthew Goodman
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Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
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The Human Cosmos
- Civilization and the Stars
- By: Jo Marchant
- Narrated by: Jo Marchant
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 198
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 167
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
For at least 20,000 years, we have led not just an earthly existence, but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are - our art, religious beliefs, social status, scientific advances, and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. It's a disconnect with a dire cost.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This book has changed the way I think about my own mortality!
- By Jerry on 02-04-21
By: Jo Marchant
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A Crack in the Edge of the World
- America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 584
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 328
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 324
San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.
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2 out of 5 stars
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7 Hours and 45 minutes . . .
- By Tim on 12-09-05
By: Simon Winchester
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Tambora
- The Eruption That Changed the World
- By: Gillen D'Arcy Wood
- Narrated by: Tom Pile
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 82
When Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, it unleashed the most destructive wave of extreme weather the world has witnessed in thousands of years. The volcano's massive sulfate dust cloud enveloped the Earth, cooling temperatures and disrupting major weather systems for more than three years. Amid devastating storms, drought, and floods, communities worldwide endured famine, disease, and civil unrest on a catastrophic scale.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An unexpected pleasure
- By Anonymous User on 09-04-16
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18 Miles
- The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere and Its Weather
- By: Christopher Dewdney
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
We live at the bottom of an ocean of air - 5,200 million million tons, to be exact. It sounds like a lot, but Earth’s atmosphere is smeared onto its surface in an alarmingly thin layer - 99 percent contained within 18 miles. Yet, within this fragile margin lies a magnificent realm - at once gorgeous, terrifying, capricious, and elusive. With his keen eye for identifying and uniting seemingly unrelated events, Chris Dewdney reveals to us the invisible rivers in the sky that affect how our weather works and the structure of clouds and storms and seasons, the rollercoaster of climate.
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1 out of 5 stars
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10% science, 90% other stuff
- By Daniel W. Fox, Jr. on 10-09-20