The Book of Science and Antiquities

A Novel

By: Thomas Keneally

Narrated by: Paul Haley

Thomas Keneally, the bestselling author of The Daughters of Mars and Schindler’s List, brings his “insightful and nimble prose” (The New York Times Book Review) to this exquisite exploration of community and country, love and morality, set in both prehistoric and modern Australia.

An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Shelby Apple is obsessed with reimagining the full story of the Learned Man—a prehistoric man whose remains are believed to be the link between Africa and ancient Australia. From Vietnam to northern Africa and the Australian Outback, Shelby searches for understanding of this enigmatic man from the ancient past, unaware that the two men share a great deal in common.

Some 40,000 years in the past, the Learned Man has made his home alongside other members of his tribe. Complex and deeply introspective, he reveres tradition, loyalty, and respect for his ancestors. Willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, the Learned Man cannot conceive that a man millennia later could relate to him in heart and feeling.

In this “meditation on last things, but still electric with life, passion and appetite” (The Australian), Thomas Keneally weaves an extraordinary dual narrative that effortlessly transports you around the world and across time, offering “a hymn to idealism and to human development” (Sydney Morning Herald).

Critic reviews

"When you contemplate the remains of ancient humans, don't you wish they could somehow talk to you? In this deeply satisfying audiobook, it happens. Australian filmmaker Shelby Apple is obsessed with a 46,000-year-old skeleton called Learned Man. Apple's story alternates with Learned Man's, as he tells us who he was, what he did, and what his death at Lake Learned meant. In Paul Haley's fine performance the two are voiced identically, presumably to emphasize the uncanny resonances between the men's challenges and intentions, in spite of the vast differences in their circumstances. Both stories are richly dramatic and moving."

At first I struggled to grasp the story until...

The beginning confused me a lot until I figured out that there are two stories that barely link to each other. Also it took me a while to understand the different english accent and a few words I wasn't familiar with... It is a challenging book, not what I was expecting to read,but after listening a few parts twice, I finally understood what it was all about and could listen it completely. (not a book you can listen while doing something else hahaha)

What a pleasure

This was such a joy. The author takes you back and forth from indigenous cultures of 40 thousand years ago and to the present. Struggles are still the same in many ways. The narrator was superb. I really enjoyed this whole journey that Keneally guides you through.

A novel nonsequential book that is 50% pretty good

Many modern fiction books use a framing device in which the story arc alternates between the "now" and some point in the past. Often they gradually working toward the revelation of some critical events that are created by actions in the past and motivate conditions in the now. It is so common as to be trite. Here the difference between the now and the past is 42,000 years, providing a novel twist on the trope. Is modern man really all that different from the early homo sapiens? Perhaps not. I loved the descriptions of prehistoric Australia and life in that time. It is refreshing to see both male and female characters in that period treated in a manner that is not condescending. How they lived, how they related to each other, and in some cases, how they died. The modern day narrative however, left the reader in the company of a self-important, deeply flawed person with whom I would not choose to spend 15 seconds, let alone four and a half hours. Toward the end of the book I just starting skipping through all of the modern day exposition on how wonderful he is, how insightful he is, how much better he is than ordinary humans (except for women who he treats like crap), to get back to 40,000 BCE. Maybe you will feel differently, but I was happy to get to the end of the book.