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The Sublime Engine
- A Biography of the Human Heart
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
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The Sublime Engine
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Publisher's summary
The heart has always captured the human imagination. It is the repository of our deepest religious and artistic impulses, the organ whose steady functioning is understood, both literally and symbolically, asthe very life force itself. The Sublime Engine explores the profound sense of awe every person feels when they ponder the miracle encased within the ribs.
In this lyrical history, a critically acclaimed novelist and a leading cardiologist - who happen to be brothers - draw upon history, science, religion, popular culture, and literature to illuminate all of the heart's physical and figurative chambers. Divided into six sections, The Sublime Engine traces the heart's sway over the human imagination from the time of the Egyptians and ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, up to the modern era and beyond. More than just a work of scientific or cultural history, it is a biography of the single most important symbol of our humanity.
Erudite, witty, and unexpected, The Sublime Engine makes the heart leap off the page.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
At one time heart disease was a death sentence. By the middle of the 20th century, it was killing millions, and, as with the Black Death centuries before, physicians stood helpless. Visionaries, though, had begun to make strides earlier. On September 7, 1895, Ludwig Rehn successfully sutured the heart of a living man with a knife wound to the chest for the first time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great review of the landmark achievements in Cardiology.
- By Trauma NP on 12-14-15
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Under the Knife
- A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations
- By: Arnold van de Laar, Andy Brown - translator
- Narrated by: Rich Keeble
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 254
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 220
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 221
From the story of the desperate man from 17th-century Amsterdam who grimly cut a stone out of his own bladder to Bob Marley's deadly toe, Under the Knife offers a wealth of fascinating and unforgettable insights into medicine and history via the operating room. What happens during an operation? How does the human body respond to being attacked by a knife, a bacterium, a cancer cell, or a bullet? And, as medical advances continuously push the boundaries of what medicine can cure, what are the limits of surgery?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Why did a surgeon need a fast horse?
- By India Clamp on 10-18-18
By: Arnold van de Laar, and others
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The Pain Chronicles
- Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering
- By: Melanie Thernstrom
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 151
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4 out of 5 stars 63
Each of us will know physical pain in our lives, but none of us knows when it will come or how long it will stay. Today as much as 10 percent of the population of the United States suffers from chronic pain. It is more widespread, misdiagnosed, and undertreated than any major disease. While recent research has shown that pain produces pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Informative, well researched and nicely written
- By Nathan O'Hara on 08-21-10
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The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,331
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,998
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,990
In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
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The Undead
- Organ Harvesting, The Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers - How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
- By: Dick Teresi
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear - and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Eye opening
- By Amy Giglio on 07-01-18
By: Dick Teresi
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The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth
- And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Morris
- Narrated by: Thomas Morris, Ruper Farley
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 617
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 534
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 531
A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the 19th century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Boring Toilet Humor
- By Nemo on 01-30-20
By: Thomas Morris
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The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine
- A History
- By: Thomas Helling MD
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but weirdly sexist?
- By J-Murphy on 07-19-22
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Everything in Its Place
- First Loves and Last Tales
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 138
From the best-selling author of Gratitude and On the Move, a final volume of essays that showcase Sacks's broad range of interests - from his passion for ferns, swimming, and horsetails, to his final case histories exploring schizophrenia, dementia, and Alzheimer's.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Missing Sacks
- By Brandy on 12-02-19
By: Oliver Sacks
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How Doctors Think
- By: Jerome Groopman M.D.
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 741
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 385
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 386
On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within 12 seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong: with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By Audiophile on 05-13-07
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Shocked
- Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead
- By: David Casarett M.D.
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 387
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 354
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Story4 out of 5 stars 355
Not too long ago, there was no coming back from death. But now, with revolutionary medical advances, death has become just another serious complication. As a young medical student, Dr. David Casarett was inspired by the story of a two-year-old girl named Michelle Funk. Michelle fell into a creek and was underwater for over an hour. When she was found she wasn't breathing, and her pupils were fixed and dilated. That drowning should have been fatal. But after three hours of persistent work, a team of doctors and nurses was able to bring her back.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Dead vs. Sincerely Dead
- By Gillian on 06-24-16
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Extreme Medicine
- How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century
- By: Kevin Fong
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 261
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 219
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Story4 out of 5 stars 222
Little more than 100 years ago, maps of the world still boasted white space: places where no human had ever trod. Within a few short decades the most hostile of the world's environments had all been conquered. Likewise, in the 20th century, medicine transformed human life. Doctors took what was routinely fatal and made it survivable. As modernity brought us ever more into different kinds of extremes, doctors pushed the bounds of medical advances and human endurance. Extreme exploration challenged the body in ways that only the vanguard of science could answer.
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4 out of 5 stars
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EXTREME MEDICINE
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 07-25-14
By: Kevin Fong
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Final Exam
- A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality
- By: Pauline W. Chen
- Narrated by: Pauline W. Chen
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
When Pauline Chen began medical school 20 years ago, she dreamed of saving lives. What she did not count on was how much death would be a part of her work. Almost immediately, Chen found herself wrestling with medicine's most profound paradox: that a profession premised on caring for the ill also systematically depersonalizes dying. Final Exam follows Chen over the course of her education, training, and practice as she grapples at strikingly close range with the problem of mortality.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not just about end of life
- By Paul Mullen on 03-25-07
By: Pauline W. Chen
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Get Well Soon
- History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,721
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,015
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,982
In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Didn't know syphilis could be so fascinating.
- By Kindle Customer on 02-09-17
By: Jennifer Wright
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When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28,910
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25,366
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25,300
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
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King of Hearts
- The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery
- By: G. Wayne Miller
- Narrated by: Patrick Cullen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 167
G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed an amazing true story: how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt Lillehei, made medical history by becoming the first doctors to operate deep inside the human heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved every minute
- By Brian on 02-05-08
By: G. Wayne Miller
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Quackery
- A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything
- By: Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 925
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 800
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 800
What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine - yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison - was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Computer-generated Narrator. Dated Humour.
- By Nemo on 12-28-18
By: Lydia Kang, and others
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Human Heart, Cosmic Heart
- A Doctor's Quest to Understand, Treat, and Prevent Cardiovascular Disease
- By: Dr. Thomas Cowan
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 275
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 237
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 235
While serving with the Peace Corps in Swaziland, Thomas Cowan encountered the work of Rudolf Steiner and Weston A. Price - two men whose ideas would fascinate and challenge him for decades to come. Both drawn to the art of healing and repelled by the way medicine was - and continues to be - practiced in the United States, Cowan returned from Swaziland, went to medical school, and established a practice.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Worthless
- By Martin on 11-04-16
By: Dr. Thomas Cowan
What listeners say about The Sublime Engine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- S. Yates
- 01-25-17
Quick read, mix of science and humanities
Any additional comments?
Interesting little book about the history of the heart, spanning what humans used to think it was/did, to its metaphorical significance, to its workings and how it fails. Author deftly pivots from science to art to philosophy in chronicling the human heart. Worth a read for those who like to mix their science with humanities.
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