Custodians of Wonder

Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive

De: Eliot Stein

Narrado por: Danny Hughes

Eliot Stein has traveled the globe in search of remarkable people who are preserving some of our most extraordinary cultural rites. In Custodians of Wonder, Stein introduces listeners to a man saving the secret ingredient in Japan's 700-year-old original soy sauce recipe. In Italy, he learns how to make the world's rarest pasta from one of the only women alive who knows how to make it. And in India, he discovers a family rumored to make a mysterious metal mirror believed to reveal your truest self. From shadowing Scandinavia's last night watchman to meeting a 27th-generation West African griot to tracking down Cuba's last official cigar factory "readers" more than a century after they spearheaded the fight for Cuban independence, Stein uncovers an almost lost world.

Climbing through Peru's southern highlands, he encounters the last Inca bridge master who rebuilds a grass-woven bridge every year. He befriends a British beekeeper who maintains a touching custom of "telling the bees" important news. And he crunches through a German forest to find the official mailman of the only tree in the world with its own address—to which people from across the world have written in hopes of finding love. These are just some of the last custodians preserving age-old rites on the brink of disappearance against all odds. Let Eliot Stein introduce you to all of them.

©2024 Eliot Stein (P)2025 Tantor Media

Great stories but bad pronunciation

If I had read this book on paper, I would think nothing but good things. The author wrote a great book chronicling these dying traditions with care, curiosity, and reverence. However, as a German speaker, the last chapter (as read by the audiobook reader) annoyed me. The pronunciation of the German was not even close to correct. It was so distracting and irritating that it took me out of the moment. Again, not the author's fault. That said, we live in an age where you could just easily ask someone or the internet to help with the pronunciation. Other than that, I found this book so charming and a fun listen.

The beauty of the human heart resonates through each story.

Each person's unique talent is nestled within the broader historical and cultural tapestry. Charming read.

What stood out the most to me were things I didn't realize and take for granted.

I really enjoyed this book, the details, people and stories behind them. The author gave immense information.

Awonderful uplifting book!

I loved this collection of touching true stories about what is good in the world and how people are trying to save it!

Fascinating Book. Awful Narration.

I read Eliot Stein's BBC article about the world's rarest pasta back in 2022, and then heard him interviewed about this book on Rick Steve's show last week. His stories are fascinating, and I was excited to pick up the book.

The book itself is excellent, but I couldn't make it through the first chapter of the narrator. The narrator reads as though he is reading a particular distasteful essay. The pronunciation and flow is unnatural and stilted. The way you might read a legal document you didn't fully understand, or participate in a diction exercise.

I've honestly never dropped an audiobook before JUST because of the narrator. This is the first.

It's a shame. Stein's engaging stories deserve better. I'll pickup the ebook and finish it that way.