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Rag and Bone
- A Family History of What We've Thrown Away
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
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Rag and Bone
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Publisher's Summary
From relics of Georgian empire-building and slave-trading, through Victorian London's barged-out refuse to 1980s fly-tipping and the pervasiveness of present-day plastics, Rag and Bone traces the story of our rubbish, and through it, our history of consumption.
In a series of beachcombing and mudlarking walks - beginning in the Thames in Central London, then out to the Kentish estuary and eventually the sea around Cornwall - Lisa Woollett also tells the story of her family, a number of whom made their living from London's waste and who made a similar journey downriver from the centre of the city to the sea.
A beautifully written but urgent mixture of social history, family memoir and nature writing, Rag and Bone is about what we can learn from what we've thrown away - and a call to think more about what we leave behind.
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What listeners say about Rag and Bone
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Suzanne Roth
- 09-26-20
Was really sorry when this finished
An unexpectedly fascinating story weaving history, family legacy and modern challenges with rich visual images. I left inspired to get rid of plastic in my life as I can’t bear thinking about all the shite we’re leaving behind for generations to come.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Teddy_Ed
- 07-17-20
Boring and monotonous
Struggled to the end of chapter 2 and gave up. This book is dull, dull, dull. I’ll be requesting a refund.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- chris white
- 09-10-22
Endlessly fascinating
A more insightful take on “ Mudlarking” going deeply into the environmental effects of the disposal of man made products. Lots of fascinating
facts wrapped around an interesting storyline and well worth a listen, l will go on to seek out the other writing’s of Lisa Woolley.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 07-25-21
Wonderful and engaging
A wonderful journey along the Thames, through the history of the things that have been discarded and dumped in the river. Completely absorbing.
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Stunningly necessary
- By Mattia on 09-02-21
By: Cal Flyn
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The Gulf
- The Making of an American Sea
- By: Jack E. Davis
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 398
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 345
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 346
When painter Winslow Homer first sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, he was struck by its "special kind of providence." Indeed, the Gulf presented itself as America's sea - bound by geography, culture, and tradition to the national experience - and yet, there has never been a comprehensive history of the Gulf until now. And so, in this rich and original work that explores the Gulf through our human connection with the sea, environmental historian Jack E. Davis finally places this exceptional region into the American mythos in a sweeping history that extends from the Pleistocene age to the 21st century.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Decolonize gulf history
- By Jesse Carr on 05-02-18
By: Jack E. Davis
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The World in a Grain
- The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization
- By: Vince Beiser
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 311
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 265
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 267
After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other - even more than oil. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, is made from sand. And, incredibly, we're running out of it. The World in a Grain is the compelling true story of the hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more essential every day, and of the people who mine it, sell it, build with it - and sometimes, even kill for it.
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1 out of 5 stars
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History given is only reason it gets 2 stars.
- By Dennis on 07-23-19
By: Vince Beiser
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Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days
- By: Michael Palin
- Narrated by: Michael Palin
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 195
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 175
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 172
In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. The rules were simple. He had to make the journey in 80 days using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg.
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2 out of 5 stars
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music incredibly distracting and annoying
- By LJ on 05-18-19
By: Michael Palin
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The Outrun
- By: Amy Liptrot
- Narrated by: Tracy Wiles
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
At the age of 30, Amy Liptrot finds herself washed up back home on Orkney. Standing unstable on the island, she tries to come to terms with the addiction that has swallowed the last decade of her life. As she spends her mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, her days tracking Orkney's wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy discovers how the wild can restore life and renew hope.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I want to start over at the beginning.
- By Amazon Customer on 12-06-16
By: Amy Liptrot
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Rain
- A Natural and Cultural History
- By: Cynthia Barnett
- Narrated by: Christina Traister
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 87
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Story4 out of 5 stars 87
It is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of all the world's water. Yet this is the first audiobook to tell the story of rain.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mostly a cultural history
- By serine on 02-10-16
By: Cynthia Barnett
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Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
- A New Zealand Story
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4 out of 5 stars 35
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a beautiful story
- By Pumpkin99 on 12-24-22
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At Home
- A Short History of Private Life
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,359
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,627
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,611
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bryson does it again
- By Robert on 10-15-10
By: Bill Bryson
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A Shorter History of Australia
- By: Geoffrey Blainey
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 207
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 152
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Story4 out of 5 stars 153
After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events which have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport, the suspicion of the tall poppy, the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbourne, new and old homelands, the conflicts of war abroad and race at home, the importance of technology, the recognition of our Aboriginal past and Native Title.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Just couldn't stand the paternalism
- By Matthew on 04-02-14
By: Geoffrey Blainey
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The Discovery of France
- A Historical Geography
- By: Graham Robb
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
A narrative of exploration - full of strange landscapes and even stranger inhabitants - that explains the enduring fascination of France. While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great history of the cultural formation of France
- By Scotty on 07-31-21
By: Graham Robb
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The Way Home
- Tales from a Life Without Technology
- By: Mark Boyle
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 578
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 508
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 507
No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio, or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce. The Way Home is a modern-day Walden - an honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life lived in nature without modern technology. Mark Boyle, author of The Moneyless Man, explores the hard-won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the stream, foraging, and fishing.
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2 out of 5 stars
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In general a bit disappointing.
- By Ezra on 12-05-20
By: Mark Boyle
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The Fossil Hunter
- Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World
- By: Shelley Emling
- Narrated by: Rachael Beresford
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Mary Anning was only 12 years old when, in 1811, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton - of an ichthyosaur - while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, England. Until Mary's incredible discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well researched
- By Nick Cox on 11-14-20
By: Shelley Emling
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Salt
- A World History
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,034
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,260
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,262
So much of our human body is made up of salt that we'd be dead without it. The fine balance of nature, the trade of salt as a currency of many nations and empires, the theme of a popular Shakespearean play... Salt is best selling author Mark Kurlansky's story of the only rock we eat.
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5 out of 5 stars
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More than SALT
- By Karen on 03-12-03
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Feral
- Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life
- By: George Monbiot
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
George Monbiot presents Feral, a lyrical, unabashedly romantic vision of how, by inviting nature back into our lives, we can simultaneously cure our "ecological boredom" and begin repairing centuries of environmental damage. Monbiot takes listeners on an enchanting journey around the world to explore ecosystems that have been "rewilded": freed from human intervention and allowed - in some cases, for the first time in millennia - to resume their natural ecological processes.
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4 out of 5 stars
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For people in the UK - Not for North Americans
- By Nate on 10-11-19
By: George Monbiot
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Atlantic
- Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 745
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 562
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 560
Atlantic is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues profoundly to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Spanning the ocean's story, from its geological origins to the age of exploration, from World War II battles to today's struggles with pollution and overfishing, Winchester's narrative is epic, intimate, and awe inspiring.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Starts Better Than it Finishes
- By Ray on 12-18-10
By: Simon Winchester
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The Backyard Adventurer
- By: Beau Miles
- Narrated by: Beau Miles
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 222
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Performance