
Books Do Furnish a Life
An Electrifying Celebration of Science Writing
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By:
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Richard Dawkins
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Including conversations with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley and more, this is an essential guide to the most exciting ideas of our time and their proponents from our most brilliant science communicator. This audio edition also includes Richard Dawkins in conversation with Christopher Hitchens, in what was to be Christopher Hitchens' last interview before his death in 2011.
Books Do Furnish a Life is divided by theme, including celebrating nature, exploring humanity, and interrogating faith. For the first time, it brings together Richard Dawkins' forewords, afterwords and introductions to the work of some of the leading thinkers of our age - Carl Sagan, Lawrence Krauss, Jacob Bronowski, Lewis Wolpert - with a selection of his reviews to provide an electrifying celebration of science writing, both fiction and non-fiction. It is also a sparkling addition to Dawkins' own remarkable canon of work.
©2021 Richard Dawkins (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Audiobook review (just a podcast collection)
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Critic reviews
"Richard Dawkins is a thunderously gifted science writer." (Sunday Times)
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Story
Part 1 of Godless, "Rejecting God", tells the story of how I moved from devout preacher to atheist and beyond. Part 2, "Why I Am an Atheist", presents my philosophical reasons for unbelief. Part 3, "What's Wrong with Christianity", critiques the bible (its reliability as well as its morality) and the historical evidence for Jesus. Part 4, "Life Is Good!", comes back to my personal story, taking a case to the United States Supreme Court, dealing with personal trauma, and experiencing the excitement of Adventures in Atheism.
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good writing, irritating narration
- By Amazon Customer on 03-23-16
By: Dan Barker, and others
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The Four Horsemen
- The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution
- By: Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and others
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Sam Harris, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2007, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett filmed a landmark discussion about modern atheism. The video went viral. Now, the transcript of their conversation is illuminated by new essays from three of the original participants and an introduction by Stephen Fry.
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Short
- By Cole Brandon Eckhardt on 03-22-19
By: Christopher Hitchens, and others
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The God Delusion
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes.
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Dangerous Religion
- By Rick Just on 12-21-06
By: Richard Dawkins
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Existential Physics
- A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Gina Daniels
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.
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Unscientific and unengaging
- By Jase G on 03-29-23
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God Is Not Great
- How Religion Poisons Everything
- By: Christopher Hitchens
- Narrated by: Christopher Hitchens
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris' recent best-seller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos.
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5-Star Writing. Perfect Author Narration.
- By Michael on 12-13-09
What listeners say about Books Do Furnish a Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rebekah
- 11-03-23
Loved it!
One of my favourite Dawkins books, plus it has Hitch. loved the format too with the included interviews
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- Dimitar Nikolov
- 10-19-21
Beautifully told science stories
Valuable summary of all kinds of interesting and important science books that must be read. Dawkins is telling a lot of stories around this books in the elegant and beautiful way that only he can create and in a great company of a real scientist.
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- John
- 11-23-24
Wonderful supplement to round out Dawkins
It is certainly a wonderful supplement to his magisterial work of the selfish jean and buying watch my group. He certainly comes across as a bit strident and dogmatic, but yet I think his heart is in the right place.
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