Sign in with Facebook
Learn Something New with These 18 Popular Science Audiobooks
Podcast junkies will know this already, but the audio format is a surprisingly great way to discover more about nearly any topic that catches your interest. There’s something about having a voice in your head—quite literally, if you use earbuds—that seems to facilitate the learning process.
To that end, we’ve gathered together a collection of new and old nonfiction audiobooks in the realm of popular science writing. Many of these titles will be familiar from the various bestseller charts, but we’ve also selected for lesser known books that have scored particularly well with Goodreads members.
The history of forensic criminal investigation, the future of genetic editing, the wisdom of plants—these are but a sampling of the topics explored by writers and researchers at the forefront of contemporary scholarship. It’s good to have smart people whispering in your ear, as a general life strategy.
Feel free to trade recommendations in the comments section and add any audiobooks for the old wish list to your Want to Read shelf!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Have a great science-writing audiobook recommendation? Share it with your fellow readers in the comments below!
Be sure to check out more recent articles.
Comments Showing 1-6 of 6 (6 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Ivan
(new)
Jul 25, 2022 03:46AM
I would recommend Brief Answers to the Big Questions. Just a brief insight (see what I did there) to the mind of a great scientist.
flag
I have listened to a handful of these, and my favorite by far is The Code Breaker about CRISPR cas-9 and Jennifer Doudna. I have a genomics background so I'm slightly biased, but I think it would still be fantastic for a larger audience.
I have listened to 8 of these and pretty much recommend them. The best are Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, and The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race.I was intrigued by Food of the Gods, but looking at the reviews and googling the author, this seems like pseudo-science at best. Why include this and leave off such classics as:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Gene: An Intimate History
Silent Spring
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
?
In addition, some of my favorites:
Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life
The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality and Our Destiny Beyond Earth
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
I want to point out that several of these I file under history, not science; and while there is overlap, it is not the same. For the history category, I would also suggest:
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
And of course you cannot go wrong with Steve Jobs.
Loved The Code Breaker as an audio book it was well worth the listen and has help me recommended this book to senior biology students at the school I work at.
The Body, by Bill Bryson is better than the seven other books I've read on this list. Why We Sleep and A Short History were also really good. I gave The Code Breaker 3 stars.
I have read a number of these on the list, all of which I very much enjoyed, including:Entangled Life
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The Code Breaker
Sapiens
I would also recommend:
Below the Edge of Darkness
Lab Girl
A Brief History of Time
Making of the Atomic Bomb
Midnight in Chernobyl
