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Gratuitous Serendipity
- The Right Place, the Right Time
- Narrated by: Brian Thomas
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
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Gratuitous Serendipity
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Publisher's summary
Gratuitous Serendipity is an intriguing compilation of actual accounts of events in one man's life that both changed his life and changed the world (just a little). Gratuitous Serendipity will leave you wondering just how much each of us play in the role of creating and influencing history. Some stories just take a different look at the world around us, and how information can be put together in a slightly different way. Often, just by looking at something differently, the same data can produce significantly changed results.
Gratuitous Serendipity is about being in the right place at the right time, and taking action. By the end of this book, you will have a different appreciation of how influential you can be on the events of today that will become tomorrow's history.
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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 Man Who Walked Through Time
- The Story of the First Trip Afoot Through the Grand Canyon
- By: Colin Fletcher
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
In 1963 Colin Fletcher became the first man to walk the length of Grand canyon, below the Rim. It began with a dream, when he and a friend detoured from a cross-country trip to take a hurried look at the great natural wonder. Standing on the Rim, surrounded by the profound and almost mystical silence, Fletcher knew that something had happened to the way he looked at things. He also knew that the Canyon, with its depths and distances, cliffs, buttes, and hanging terraces, beckoned to him, calling him on a journey that would challenge both his body and his mind.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Eloquent
- By Bill J on 07-20-20
By: Colin Fletcher
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House of Rain
- Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest
- By: Craig Childs
- Narrated by: Craig Childs
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 251
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 211
In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head-on into the mysteries of this vanished people. The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the Las Vegas of its day", a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, and a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. By the 13th century, however, Chaco's vibrant community had disappeared without a trace.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Poetic Travel Log
- By Staci Adleman on 01-09-19
By: Craig Childs
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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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The Hour of Land
- A Personal Topography of America's National Parks
- By: Terry Tempest Williams
- Narrated by: Terry Williams
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 296
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 263
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 261
For years, America's national parks have provided public breathing spaces in a world in which such spaces are steadily disappearing, which is why close to 300 million people visit the parks each year. Now, to honor the centennial of the National Park Service, Terry Tempest Williams, the author of the beloved memoir When Women Were Birds, returns with The Hour of Land, a literary celebration of our national parks, what they mean to us, and what we mean to them.
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2 out of 5 stars
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It could have been good.
- By udzuzu on 04-14-18
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The Old Ways
- A Journey on Foot
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 719
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 632
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 636
In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pilgrimage and ritual. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive voice, The Old Ways folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology, and literature.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A perfect pairing of prose and narrator
- By chris on 11-05-12
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Oak Flat
- A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West
- By: Lauren Redniss
- Narrated by: Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, Kyla Garcia, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
Oak Flat is a serene high-elevation mesa that sits above the Southeastern Arizona desert, 15 miles to the west of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. For the San Carlos tribe, Oak Flat is a holy place, an ancient burial ground and religious site where Apache girls celebrate the coming-of-age ritual known as the Sunrise Ceremony. In 1995, a massive untapped copper reserve was discovered nearby.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful Story
- By Amazon Customer on 11-23-21
By: Lauren Redniss
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The Men Who United the States
- America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,177
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,074
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,068
How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Sarcastic
- By Cynthia Hartman on 06-16-16
By: Simon Winchester
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Lasso the Wind
- Away to the New West
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Egan leads us on an unconventional, freewheeling tour: from America's oldest continuously inhabited community, the Ancoma Pueblo in New Mexico, to the high kitsch of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where London Bridge has been painstakingly rebuilt stone by stone; from the fragile beauty of Idaho's Bitterroot Range to the gross excess of Las Vegas, a city built as though in defiance of its arid environment.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Narrator mispronounces everything
- By Catherine on 01-27-22
By: Timothy Egan
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The Wild Places
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Simon Bubb
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story5 out of 5 stars 70
Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Or have we tarmacked, farmed and built ourselves out of wildness? In his vital, bewitching, inspiring classic, Robert Macfarlane sets out in search of the wildness that remains.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Magical
- By Jennifer on 01-27-22
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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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Northland
- A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America's Forgotten Border
- By: Porter Fox
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 84
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Story4 out of 5 stars 84
America's northern border is the world's longest international boundary, yet it remains obscure even to Americans. Travel writer Porter Fox spent two years exploring its length by canoe, freighter, and car - and in Northland, he delivers the little-known history of the region and a riveting account of his travels. Fox follows explorer Samuel de Champlain's adventures; recounts the rise and fall of the iron, wheat, and timber industries; crosses the Great Lakes on a freighter; and tracks America's fur traders through the Boundary Waters.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great listen - great narrator
- By Jonathan on 01-10-19
By: Porter Fox
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We Stood upon Stars
- Finding God in Lost Places
- By: Roger W. Thompson
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
You are made for freedom and adventure, friendship and romance. Yet too much of your life is spent unfulfilled at work, restless at home, and bored at church. All the while, you know there is something more. You'll find some of life's best moments waiting for you over a campfire, on a river - even in that coffee shop or brewery you didn't know you'd discover along the way. It's time to begin the search.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Such a good book
- By The Great Bambino on 06-16-21
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In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond
- In Search of the Sasquatch
- By: John Zada
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
On the central and north coast of British Columbia, the Great Bear Rainforest is the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world, containing more organic matter than any other terrestrial ecosystem on the planet. The area plays host to a wide range of species, from thousand-year-old western cedars to humpback whales to iconic white Spirit bears. According to local residents, another giant is said to live in these woods.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not a relatable book
- By RJK on 07-14-19
By: John Zada