I Contain Multitudes

The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

By: Ed Yong

Narrated by: Charlie Anson

Your body is teeming with tens of trillions of microbes. It’s an entire world, a colony full of life.

In other words, you contain multitudes.

These microscopic companions sculpt our organs, protect us from diseases, guide our behaviour, and bombard us with their genes. They also hold the key to understanding all life on earth.

In I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong opens our eyes and invites us to marvel at ourselves and other animals in a new light, less as individuals and more as thriving ecosystems.

We learn the invisible and wondrous science behind the corals that construct mighty reefs and the squid that create their own light shows. We see how bacteria can alter our response to cancer-fighting drugs, tune our immune system, influence our evolution, and even modify our genetic make-up. And we meet the scientists who are manipulating these microscopic partners to our advantage.

In a million tiny ways, I Contain Multitudes will radically change how you think about the natural world, and how you see yourself.

Critic reviews

Super-interesting... He just keeps imparting one surprising, fascinating insight after the next. I Contain Multitudes is science journalism at its best (Bill Gates)

[A] marvellous, thrilling and richly annotated book… I call it marvellous: everything about the microbial world is to be marvelled at. And it is a page-turner in a very old-fashioned sense. All life is here, and death too, and sex and violence, including deviations of which you had never dreamed ... We have an inner life, in every sense, and are the richer for it: richer still for this witty and compelling book. (Tim Radford)

Beyond fascinating. An amazing book. It'll change the way you think about the world. It'll change who you think you are. (Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk)

Momentous ... an essential read (Bryan Appleyard)

I Contain Multitudes makes the importance of popularising science…sparklingly clear... From his vibrant introduction to his witty endnotes, Yong’s expertise and narration hold no less wonder than a sacred text. (Kate Womersley)

Masterful ... smart, canny, and often quite beautiful ... In the realm of the life sciences there is a noble tradition of popular books that ... have reshaped our view of the world ... In my own reading I think of Schrödinger’s What is Life, Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and, more recently, Nick Lane’s The Vital Question. Among such company, I Contain Multitudes can hold its head high.

I Contain Multitudes has a terrific story to tell … Ed Yong is a talented British science writer … his first book covers a huge amount of microscopic territory in clear, strong, often epigrammatic prose … He is infectiously enthusiastic about microbes and he describes them with verve … Even the book’s endnotes are rich with interesting asides, swarming with interesting sidelights, a teeming microbial world. (Jonathan Weiner)

I also very much enjoyed and admired I Contain Multitudes. (Bill Bryson)

An account that is far, far more entertaining than an exploration of microbes should be. (Tom Whipple)

[An] utterly absorbing and hugely important book… [Yong] is an extraordinary adept guide. Writing with lightness and panache, he has a knack of explain complex science in terms that are both easy to understand and totally enthralling… I Contain Multitudes is popular science writing at its best. Reading this book will make you view the world differently. (Wendy Moore)

A science class you don't want to miss

Absolutely fascinating. Even though the science itself, as Yong explains, is still in its infancy, I'd go so far as to say it's a revelation: It has forever altered my fundamental understanding of life on this planet and, what's more, has certainly made me grasp why my gut health is kind of a biggie. That's not news, of course: functional health gurus have been peddling the gut microbiome and dysbiosis message for a while, but I was somewhere between skeptical and merely confused, until I Contain Multitudes with its wide-angle lens and telescope both trained on the subject of microbes and their hosts radically altered my perspective - quackery it ain't. Well written and well narrated, I highly recommend this book.

Very interesting with one small irritation…

Throughout this audiobook the narration noticeably changes. Sometimes it’s just a few words, other times it’s several sentences. The sound and intonation is markedly different and it distracted this listener from what was being said. While I understand that edits need to be made in narration, every effort should be made to match the sound quality, tone and volume etc. Sadly, this seems to have been done pretty haphazardly at times. Overall, I enjoyed this audiobook but the recording did spoil what could have been an otherwise five star review.

very informative book and intriguing.

very informative book and intriguing. this Book made me aware of my surroundings and biomes it contains.

Captures the excitement of scientific discovery

It brings you into the exhilarating viewpoints of scientists finding marvels in the mundane.

Think Small.

If you have been lulled into thinking you know the world, read this and wonder.