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The World Without Us
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Take the Negative Reviews w/ a Grain of Salt
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Countdown
- Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
- By: Alan Weisman
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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Arduous at best, yet there are redeeming qualities
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The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
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- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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In this stunning narrative spanning more than 200 million years, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field - discovering 10 new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork - masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy.
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"The Rise of the Scientists Who Study Dinosaurs"
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On the Future
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Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes - good and bad - are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and best-selling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.
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Science, the future, and great wisdom
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What If?
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Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent of the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there were a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last?
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Humorous but serious answers to crazy hypothetical
- By Neuron on 05-08-16
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The Sixth Extinction
- An Unnatural History
- By: Elizabeth Kolbert
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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A major audiobook about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes. Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on Earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.
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-
Lifts you out of the ordinary
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Sapiens
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.
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Eye opening and thought provoking
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On the surface, the Victorian age is one of propriety, industry, prudishness and piety. But scratch the surface and you’ll find scandal, sadism, sex, madness, malice and murder. Presented by Stephen Fry, this series delves deep into a period of time we think we know, to discover an altogether darker reality. The stories we’re told offer a different perspective on an era which underwent massive social change. As education, trade, technology and culture blossomed, why was there an undercurrent of the ‘forbidden’ festering beneath Victorian society?
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Please, have mercy and cut out the sound effects
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What if Atlantis wasn't a myth but an early precursor to a new age of great flooding? Across the globe, scientists and civilians alike are noticing rapidly rising sea levels and higher and higher tides pushing more water directly into the places we live, from our most vibrant, historic cities to our last remaining traditional coastal villages. With each crack in the great ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctica and each tick upward of Earth's thermometer, we are moving closer to the brink of broad disaster.
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Science doesn’t care about beliefs
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Twain’s Feast
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Mark Twain, beloved American writer, performer, and humorist, was a self-proclaimed glutton. With the help of a chef and some friends, Nick Offerman presents the story of Twain’s life through the lens of eight of Mark Twain’s favorite foods.
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Audible Recycling
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When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction, and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third.
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A delightful trip
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Why you shouldn't ignore the weather forecast
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The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
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Over the course of two award-winning collections and a critically acclaimed novel, The Croning, Laird Barron has arisen as one of the strongest and most original literary voices in modern horror and the dark fantastic. Melding supernatural horror with hardboiled noir, espionage, and a scientific backbone, Barron's stories have garnered critical acclaim and have been reprinted in numerous year's best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards.
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A match made in... well...
- By Yves Tourigny on 02-04-18
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This Is the Way the World Ends
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Unless we start addressing the causes of climate change and stop simply navigating its effects, we will be facing a series of unstoppable catastrophes by the time our preschoolers graduate from college. Our world is in trouble - right now. This Is the Way the World Ends tells the real stories of the substantial impacts to Earth’s systems unfolding across each continent.
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Disappointing preach to the choir
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The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
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The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is your map through this maze of modern life. Here Dr. Steven Novella and friends will explain the tenets of skeptical thinking and debunk some of the biggest scientific myths, fallacies, and conspiracy theories - from anti-vaccines to homeopathy, UFO sightings to N-rays. You'll learn the difference between science and pseudoscience, essential critical thinking skills, ways to discuss conspiracy theories with that crazy co-worker of yours, and how to combat sloppy reasoning, bad arguments, and superstitious thinking.
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Demon Haunted World 2.0
- By Daniel Sean Osborne on 10-04-18
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Letter to a Christian Nation
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"Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next 50 years," writes Sam Harris. "Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this...should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency."
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Should be cheaper
- By Rod Johnson on 07-06-15
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Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
- By: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There's no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson. But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in digestible chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
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Awesome book for those new to astrophysics.
- By TMort on 06-07-17
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21 Lessons for the 21st Century
- By: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today's most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.
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Good stuff, but mostly repeats
- By Amazon Customer on 09-13-18
Publisher's Summary
Just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations and the world's cities would crumble, asphalt jungles giving way to real ones. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dalai Lama, and paleontologists, who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna (like giants sloths that stood taller than mammoths), Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.
Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing and shows which human devastations are indelible and what of our highest art and culture would endure longest. Ultimately reaching a radical but persuasive solution to our planet's problems - one that needn't depend on our demise - this is narrative nonfiction at its finest, taking on an irresistible concept with gravity but a highly accessible touch.
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Overall
- Chris
- indianapolis, IN, USA
- 08-23-07
mixed feelings
I found this book to be entertaining and thought provoking at times, yet also vague and not focused at others. All considered, the book wasn't the objective science-based vision of the future
that I expected, but more a meandering commentary on environmental injustices since the industrial revolution. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for cheery utopian visions here. I would probably save my download credit if I could go back, and see what my world without it would be like. A good abridgement skillfully edited might change my mind though...
23 of 23 people found this review helpful
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Overall
- Ellen
- Kansas City, MO, United States
- 03-02-09
Couldn't put it down!
If you're a dog lover don't read this. No I take it back--read it and weep. The best thing about this book is it doesn't celebrate the idea of people being gone and the planet "recovering." It laments this possibility. Some people think environmentalists are environmentalists because they hate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's for future generations. This book is a sobering, not gleeful, look at what could happen. The movie "I Am Legend" showed visually exactly what this book predicts.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful
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- Miroslaw
- LodzPoland
- 12-02-08
Old prophecies in modern skin
Reading Alan Weisman "The World Without Us" is a terrific experience. The book contemplates the state of the earth after the human race is gone... The author is not giving us the another catastrophic theory - instead he speculates on how and what can happen to our mother earth if we are no longer there....
The prevailing conclusion is that the nature will manage the world with us much faster we could ever imagine. He gives examples that are so convincing - like the example of Puszcza Bialowieska in Poland - the last forest primeval in Europe, Chernobyl abandoned areas, Korean DMZ - the places where the power of nature prevails - only because we are not there.....
The author also suggests, that what could happen to us, in some sense already happened in the history - in the case of Maya civilisation. Although on a micro scale, what happened to Maya's - can happen to us - on much larger scale.
The book is fascinating and captivating - once you started - you can not stop reading.
It also relates to "end-of-time" predictions of major world religions.
The only criticism I may have - is in the "Coda" where author apparently apotheoses the idea of "one-couple - one child" idea. On this point, I dare to disagree, but I also think, the fantastic book would be much better if we could not identify other agendas.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
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- Brent
- Hendersonville, TN, USA
- 10-14-07
Fascinating and captivating
This book is an absolute must read for anyone who has an interest in science, appreciation for nature, and curiosity of our impact on the world which we share with millions of other creatures. Weisman does a fantastic job of explaining in incredibly captivating detail how the world would regenerate, our structures and creations would meet their eventual demise, and how human development has progressed through the ages to get us to who we are today. This book kept my attention the entire time and has given me a new appreciation for what we've done to this planet and the sadly irreversible effects of our insatiable appetite for plastics. This book isn't one-sided and doesn't neccessarily push a case that we are a plague on the planet, but it does lean more towards that side than the other. Weisman does a good job at covering both sides of the equation.
Love the book and highly reccomend it to just about anyone. It may change your viewpoint of our culture and have you reevaluate the human role in the Earth's ecosystem.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful
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- Carolyn
- Oklahoma City, OK, United States
- 07-22-07
A fascinating premise!
Looking for something to stir your imagination and haunt your thoughts? Well, this is the book for you! Well written and well-read, this book provides fertile ground for consideration, awareness and thought beyond the words. Some may find this information to be gloomy--perhaps an indictment of humanity. I found it to be a necessary wake-up call to greater conciousness--the first step to redemption. Great book!
21 of 25 people found this review helpful
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- Carrie
- Dallas, TX, United States
- 05-26-15
Part fascinating, part depressing, part flaky.
I found this when looking for a non-fiction "Earth Abides" (George R. Stewart, 1949).
Weisman incorporates history, physics, chemistry, biology, and a bit of sociology in this attempt to answer the questions of what would happen to the world without us.
His answers are manifold as he explores what human absence would mean in various categories--what would happen to plastic? To oceans? To dogs and cats? To radio waves? To music?
Many of these answers involve fascinating accounts of historic cultures and choices, of man-made and natural wonders in the world today, of our highest hopes and darkest fears for the future--with or without humankind.
Some of his answers are depressing--sometimes because the topic is indeed troubling,but other times through heavy-handed pathos and a well-developed sense of guilt (or blame) for the things other people did in other places, long before the author was born. (Or perhaps the narrator's wistful reading...?)
And then from time to time, things just get a little weird... So I nod and smile through those bits and wait for him to get back to the science and history.
Pretty good book overall.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
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- Thomas
- Dallas, TX, USA
- 06-22-08
...worth a listen.
Very interesting subject. The History Channel show of the same name only scratched the surface of total content of the book.
It's nice to know that the Earth will have no almost no memory of us after several thousand years.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
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- Steve
- Walnut Creek, CA United States
- 09-02-07
Generally a good book
As some others have said, a lot of this book is not about the world without us, but the world with us. Still, I think some of that content is necessary in order to point out how we've changed the world in building our civilizations. In some ways, the world could go back to the way it was without us relatively quickly, and in others, we've left a much longer-term mark.
In listing what we've done to the place, there are elements I read in Jarred Diamond's "Collapse".
It was quite thought provoking. Some sections were really fascinating - such as that on what happens to NYC if we vanish, or the oil refining area around Houston, or nuclear power plants.
9 of 11 people found this review helpful
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- Kirsten
- Laredo, TX, USA
- 03-31-10
World Without Us
A wake-up call for the human species, a must read for you, your children, and grandchildren, if you plan to be among those who'd like to survive in this century.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
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- -Drew
- 05-14-15
Terrifying and Facinating
Both terrifying and fascinating at once, this journey from glacial continents to violent tsunamis, supervolcanoes and planets covers a breathtaking amount of ground - and space.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful