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Why Fish Don't Exist
- A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
- Narrated by: Lulu Miller
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
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This is NOT an easy book
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Publisher's summary
A Best Book of 2020:
- The Washington Post
- NPR
- Chicago Tribune
- Smithsonian
A "remarkable" (Los Angeles Times), "seductive" (The Wall Street Journal) debut from the new cohost of Radiolab, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and - possibly - even murder.
"At one point, Miller dives into the ocean into a school of fish...comes up for air, and realizes she’s in love. That’s how I felt: Her book took me to strange depths I never imagined, and I was smitten." (The New York Times Book Review)
David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake - which sent more than 1,000 discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.
Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish that he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.
When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool - a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.
Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.
Critic reviews
“Lulu Miller's friendly, curious voice braids together history, biography, and memoir. The former host of the NPR podcast 'Invisibilia' introduces listeners to taxonomist and former Stanford president David Starr Jordan, famous for his work classifying fish. Initially, Miller is inspired by Jordan because he personifies resilience after his life's work seems to have been destroyed by an earthquake. But she also uncovers his darker side while researching. Miller has a slightly husky down-to-earth voice, and her storytelling background in radio infuses her work. Her confident delivery is playful and comfortably paced, her narration engaging and easy on the ear. When Miller deals with subjects like depression and loss in her own life, it's especially meaningful knowing she's experienced the stories and insights she shares.” (AudioFile magazine)
"What a delightful book.... Ms. Miller wields [Radiolab’s] familiar format with panache, spinning a tale so seductive that I read her book in one sitting." (The Wall Street Journal)
"I want to live at this book’s address: the intersection of history and biology and wonder and failure and sheer human stubbornness. What a sumptuous, surprising, dark delight." (Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties)
Featured Article: The top 100 memoirs of all time
All genres considered, the memoir is among the most difficult and complex for a writer to pull off. After all, giving voice to your own lived experience and recounting deeply painful or uncomfortable memories in a way that still engages and entertains is a remarkable feat. These autobiographies, often narrated by the authors themselves, shine with raw, unfiltered emotion sure to resonate with any listener. But don't just take our word for it—queue up any one of these listens, and you'll hear exactly what we mean.
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Takedown of a pseudointellectual bully!
- By Wayne on 09-01-16
By: Tom Wolfe
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Brodmaw Bay
- By: F.G. Cottam
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Brodmaw Bay seems to be the perfect refuge for James Greer and his family. When his son is the victim of a brutal mugging, Greer wants to leave London - the sooner the better - for the charming old-fashioned fishing port he has just discovered. But was finding Brodmaw Bay more than a happy accident? What is the connection between the village and his beautiful wife? When his friendly new neighbours say they'd welcome some new blood - in a village where the same families seem to have lived for generations - are they telling the whole truth?
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Not Quite The Equal Of Its Promise
- By Flavius Krakdaddius on 08-23-12
By: F.G. Cottam
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One Blade of Grass
- Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir
- By: Henry Shukman
- Narrated by: Henry Shukman
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This is the story of how a meditation practice gave Henry Shukman a context for integrating a sudden spiritual awakening into his life and how his depression and anxiety were gradually healed through this practice. In sharing how he grew into a Zen teacher, Shukman demystifies Zen training, casting its profound insights in simple, lucid language. Along the way, One Blade of Grass guides listeners on a journey of their own, into the hidden treasures that contemplative practice can reveal to any of us.
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Boring
- By Joe on 09-10-20
By: Henry Shukman
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The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
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She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
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Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
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Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
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Heartwood
- The Art of Living with the End in Mind
- By: Barbara Becker
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When her earliest childhood friend is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Becker sets off on a quest to immerse herself in what it means to be mortal. Can we live our lives more fully knowing some day we will die? With a keen eye toward that which makes life worth living, interfaith minister, mom, and perpetual seeker Barbara Becker recounts stories where life and death intersect in unexpected ways.
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Captivating
- By eyesaregreen on 02-24-24
By: Barbara Becker
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Learning to Die in Miami
- Confessions of a Refugee Boy
- By: Carlos Eire
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Carlos Eire's story of a boyhood uprooted by the Cuban Revolution quickly lures us in, as eleven-year-old Carlos and his older brother Tony touch down in the sun-dappled Miami of 1962 - a place of daunting abundance where his old Cuban self must die to make way for a new, American self waiting to be born. In this enchanting new work, narrated in Eire's inimitable and lyrical voice, young Carlos adjusts to life in his new country.
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Excellent memoir of a forgotten time in history
- By BRB on 03-23-15
By: Carlos Eire
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The Mathematician's Shiva
- By: Stuart Rojstaczer
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil, Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish émigré has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. A ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela's shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves - even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes.
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Great read
- By Lee Crowe on 07-27-15
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim - translator
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being."
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Love, Politics, and Strange Bedfellows
- By Mel on 07-01-12
By: Milan Kundera, and others
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The First Man
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aesthetic powers and moral vision.
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Great Narration by Jefferson Mays
- By Sean Patrick Stevens on 07-31-21
By: Albert Camus
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American Philosophy
- A Love Story
- By: John Kaag
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In American Philosophy, John Kaag - a disillusioned philosopher at sea in his marriage and career - stumbles upon a treasure trove of rare books on an old estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that once belonged to the Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. The library includes notes from Whitman, inscriptions from Frost, and first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As he begins to catalog and preserve these priceless books, Kaag rediscovers the very tenets of American philosophy.
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Awesome Book! But..
- By Kye Sonne on 04-02-17
By: John Kaag
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Breathe
- A Letter to My Sons
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: Imani Perry
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Breathe explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world. Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues an unflinching challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity. She admits fear and frustration for her African-American sons in a society that is increasingly racist and at times seems irredeemable. However, as a mother, feminist, writer, and intellectual, Perry offers an unfettered expression of love.
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Delightful peek into the heart & soul of a mother
- By Treesey on 10-08-19
By: Imani Perry
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The Ungrateful Refugee
- What Immigrants Never Tell You
- By: Dina Nayeri
- Narrated by: Dina Nayeri
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually, she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement.
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Amazing story of resilience and compassion
- By PAH on 09-06-19
By: Dina Nayeri
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What a Fish Knows
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An underwater exploration that overturns myths about fishes and reveals their complex lives, from tool use to social behavior. There are more than 30,000 species of fish - more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined. But for all their breathtaking diversity and beauty, we rarely consider how fish think, feel, and behave.
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Title misled me
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The Socrates Express
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Eric Weiner combines his twin passions for philosophy and travel in a globe-trotting pilgrimage that uncovers surprising life lessons from great thinkers around the world, from Rousseau to Nietzsche, Confucius to Simone Weil. Traveling by train (the most thoughtful mode of transport), he journeys thousands of miles, making stops in Athens, Delhi, Wyoming, Coney Island, Frankfurt, and points in between to reconnect with philosophy’s original purpose: teaching us how to lead wiser, more meaningful lives.
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Wisdom, Wit and Warmth
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Of Wolves and Men
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Humankind's relationship with the wolf is the sum of a spectrum of responses ranging from fear to admiration and affection. Lopez's classic, careful study has won praise from a wide range of reviewers and improved the way books on wild animals are written. Of Wolves and Men explores the uneasy interaction between wolves and civilization over the centuries, and the wolf's prominence in our thoughts about wild creatures.
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To Better Know Wolves
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The Discomfort of Evening
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Ten-year-old Jas lives with her strictly religious parents and her siblings on a dairy farm where waste and frivolity are akin to sin. Despite the dreary routine of their days, Jas has a unique way of experiencing her world: her face soft like cheese under her mother’s hands; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads in the village; the sound of “blush words” that aren’t in the Bible. One icy morning, the disciplined rhythm of her family’s life is ruptured by a tragic accident, and Jas is convinced she is to blame.
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Booker winner is a Downer
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What listeners say about Why Fish Don't Exist
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- K. Ishihara
- 12-05-20
If fish don't exist, do stars matter?
I almost never write reviews. In fact, according to Audible, this is my first one, although I'm pretty sure I may have written one or two on the paper book side of things. But I had such a strong reaction to this book that I thought I had to say something. This book gets mostly outstanding ratings. I decided to purchase it because Bookshop Santa Cruz gave a strong recommendation for it, and most of the reviews were quite glowing. And I get it, the story is mostly an intriguing and thoughtful one, It's a little slow-going at first, but it turns into a neatly woven tail about an eccentric man with a quirky and somewhat compelling life story, the science of categorizing species (and other things), the author's personal search for meaning, all mixed in with an honest and personal philosophical discourse on reality and the meaning of life. And in regards to the audiobook, the performance (by the author herself) is quite engaging.
So why 2 stars?
Because the conclusion is so infuriatingly shallow (in my opinion) for one that, by the middle of the story, seemed to be gathering steam for some glorious denouement. The author, who begins the book recounting her father essentially telling her that life is meaningless, starts to unravel insights into the complexity of character traits like "grit" and self-esteem (sometimes good and sometimes bad), and the interconnectedness of nature and people and the value of all human life, even those deemed "unfit." She then starts to make intriguing insights into the nature of how our brains work and how we may limit our thinking by creating artificial categories (not just in categorizing plants and animals and other life forms, but in how we categorize people and other things as well), and why it can be so difficult to un-categorize them in our minds even when the evidence clearly debunks the validity of the categorization. So far so good.
But then she concludes that categories should be "torn down," because they can be "shackles," especially those about "moral and mental standing." She has already admitted that she is an atheist, but one who at times wants to believe that the universe or "Nature" has a moral compass and a sense of justice, even though she knows that could not be true based on the worldview category that she lives in. She has already dismissed one celebrated character in her story because of his lack of belief in Darwinism, and she ultimately tears down the man who would seem to be the protagonist in the story for his seemingly moral failures. She decries the eugenics movement, while celebrating Darwin for his belief that all creatures had potential value in propagating life, since some seemingly innocuous trait could prove evolutionarily valuable (but also overlooking the fact that most of these creatures become extinct despite their inherent beauty or gifts, or lack thereof, because of the harsh reality of life in a world forged by natural selection). In the end, it seems that the main reason for believing that categories should be destroyed, especially those regarding morality, is because part of her struggle was not living comfortably in the sexual category she found herself in. And when she removed the barriers of that sexual category (that some would consider immoral), she felt unshackled to apparently live out those desires, and to enjoy a relationship with someone who satisfied some of those desires. So whereas she seemed to be heading toward a better, more hopeful, understanding of why humanity matters, why morality matters (and perhaps where this morality might come from), and really, just how complex humans really are, and yet why even the least of us have some inherent value to celebrate, her journey through all of this concludes with her building up categories that she deems morally valuable, while tearing down those that seem only to shackle her desires. This is an all too common theme for some atheists who do not think that atheism is a category, religion, or worldview, and instead simply take atheism as the undeniable fact from which all understanding must be derived, even though this essentially limits everything to the category of atheism and excludes all other possibilities. And this all too often seems to lead to worshipping themselves as their own gods, solely able to delineate right from wrong (if it even exists), yet finding ways to recategorize anything that might hinder their freedom to satisfy their own desires. I don't see much hope in that, and I don't sense that author is so sure there is either.
So I how do I categorize this book? I guess i shouldn't. Does it even really matter? But I give the book 4 stars for the story and the performance, 5 stars for grabbing my attention even if it was not in the way I wanted it to, and 0 stars for the conclusion. I categorize that as a 2 star audiobook. (And I still find value in thinking that fish actually do exist!)
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119 people found this helpful
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- Bradley W.
- 05-17-20
Inspiring in a completely unexpected way
In the description of this book on Audible, it claims to offer a way forward for those of us who feel stuck. It says it will show you “how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.” In my search for books that could inspire me and keep me motivated, in spite of how hell-bent the world seems to be on keeping me in the status quo, this book appeared to promise what I needed.
I was essentially finished listening to it, when I believed it had not come through on that promise. It went to entirely different places that I had not even remotely anticipated. Even so, I really enjoyed the book. I loved that, in spite of what seemed to me (very much not a scientist) a ridiculous title, the author proved it true, which I found very enlightening. And then, in the epilogue, everything came together. The message of hope was there, loud and clear, the reasons to trudge on against seemingly insurmountable odds was revealed. A more astute reader may have picked up on it sooner, but for me it took Lulu Miller explaining it to me. And I’m glad she did.
Along with this message is an invitation to those who have closed their minds and stubbornly hold to false beliefs that either hurt them or hurt society. Open your mind and question everything. Because ultimately, it’s true, fish do not exist. Your confident beliefs are wrong. And that is actually freeing. Who’d have thought that not confidence, but doubt is the way forward?
On a side note, I do recommend the audiobook, if for nothing else but the added little bonus at the end for listeners only. It made me smile. Shish, indeed.
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36 people found this helpful
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- anna
- 06-14-20
5 Stars 5 Emeralds 5 Rubies
1) Thank you.
2) Please write a shit ton more.
3) You are the best narrator.
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31 people found this helpful
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- Beechwold
- 05-20-20
a sliver of content smothered in commentary
There's very little historical or biographical information in this book. it's mainly a vehicle for the author to expound morale virtue upon common knowledge atrocities, hold historical figures to modern moral standards and dish out stereotypical modern self-loathing guilt.
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30 people found this helpful
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- Matt
- 04-16-20
A Wonderful Ride
I don't usually write book reviews. Here I am, writing one for this absolute ride. Lulu will lift you up repeatedly, then, in the most loving way an author can, let you freefall until she catches you and does it again. There are so many important lessons to take away from every chapter, so many moments to learn healthy skepticism, to learn balance, to immerse yourself in experience and recognize how you are constructing it.
Absolutely wonderful. This is a must-listen. Thank you Lulu.
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17 people found this helpful
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- Middle aged in California
- 06-06-20
wonderful intersection of science and humanity.
What a thoughtful, touching, smart book. I loved it. Don't usually do well with audio books, because I find it hard to keep my attention, but this one captivated me. Worth listening to again because the ideas are complex, and it is worth thinking about how to apply them to our own lives. Will send it to my young adult sons, and to my parents. Can't imagine anyone who would not benefit from this read.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Jordan W.
- 12-11-20
2020 Continues 2 be a bad year Including this book
This book was not a good listen. It was regarded as one of the best books of 2020 by Audible so I thought I would give it a listen. Welp that was a complete waste of five hours, thankfully I can get my book credit back. I kept waiting for the book to get good and that never happened in fact, it got worse. In NO WAY is it a story of "Life, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life." Whoever came up with that tag line is playing fast and loose with those words. Unfortunately, this book is monotonous, rambling and a torture to get through. There are plenty of authors that know what the words "life, love, and even the hidden order of life," actually mean provide them some support they are much more deserving of your time. Shame on you Audible for including such a boring book in your best of 2020....this is a snooze fest times a 1000.
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9 people found this helpful
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- AJS
- 10-14-20
A wonderful listen
A thoughtful biography interwoven with a memoir, Lulu Miller has the skill and voice for reading her own words. I cried my way through it and wished there was more when it was done.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Natalie Harper
- 05-27-20
Part science part philosophy part hope
If you are a little part scientist and a little part philosopher or wonderer you will love this book. In this trying time we live in it may even give you a little hope and a new way of seeing the world.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Katherine McCormick
- 06-22-20
impossible to describe and impossible to put down
This was fantastic. I listened to it all in one day. Impossible to describe and impossible to put down
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6 people found this helpful