
Why Peacocks?
An Unlikely Search for Meaning in the World's Most Magnificent Bird
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Narrated by:
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Vikas Adam
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By:
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Sean Flynn
About this listen
An acclaimed journalist seeks to understand the mysterious allure of peacocks - and in the process discovers unexpected and valuable life lessons.
2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence Longlist Selection
When Sean Flynn’s neighbor in North Carolina texted “Any chance you guys want a peacock? No kidding!” he stared bewilderedly at his phone. He had never considered whether he wanted a peacock. But as an award-winning magazine writer, this kind of mystery intrigued him. So he, his wife, and their two young sons became the owners of not one but three charming yet fickle birds: Carl, Ethel, and Mr. Pickle.
In Why Peacocks?, Flynn chronicles his hilarious and heartwarming first year as a peacock owner, from struggling to build a pen to assisting the local bird doctor in surgery to triumphantly watching a peahen lay her first egg. He also examines the history of peacocks, from their appearance in the Garden of Eden to their befuddling Charles Darwin to their bewitching the likes of Flannery O’Connor and Martha Stewart. And fueled by a reporter’s curiosity, he travels across the globe to learn more about the birds firsthand, with stops including a Scottish castle where peacocks have resided for centuries, a southern California community tormented by a serial killer of peacocks, and a Kansas City airport hotel hosting an annual gathering of true peafowl aficionados.
At turns comically absurd and deeply poignant, Why Peacocks? blends lively, insightful memoir and illuminating science journalism to answer the title’s question. More than that, it offers surprising lessons about love, grief, fatherhood, and family.
©2021 Sean Flynn. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Narrator Vikas Adam uses jaunty humor while performing Flynn's memoir of his experiences with unusual pets - specifically peacocks. Adam's ironic tone gives this audiobook the feel of a novel, and his excellent timing contributes to a laugh-out-loud listening experience. The overall effect is that of a unique story being told by a very dramatic friend. Deftly woven throughout is information on the history of the legendary birds themselves, which Adam handles with ease. This mix of the personal and the historical is an unexpected combination. Listeners looking for something out of the ordinary will soak up Adam's lively performance." (AudioFile Magazine)
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Anne Willan, multi-award-winning culinary historian, cookbook writer, teacher, and founder of La Varenne Cooking School in Paris, explores the lives and work of women cookbook authors whose essential books have defined cooking over the past 300 years. Beginning with the first published cookbook by Hannah Woolley in 1661 to the early colonial days to the transformative popular works by Fannie Farmer, Irma Rombauer, Julia Child, Edna Lewis, Marcella Hazan, and up to Alice Waters working today.
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a glancing survey of cookbooks and their authors
- By Ellen Sandler on 10-12-20
By: Anne Willan
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Eat & Flourish
- How Food Supports Emotional Well-Being
- By: Mary Beth Albright
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner, Caroline Shaffer
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Food has power to nourish your mind, supporting emotional wellness through both nutrients and pleasure. In this groundbreaking book, journalist Mary Beth Albright draws on cutting-edge research to explain the food/mood connection. She redefines “emotional eating” based on the science, revealing how eating triggers biological responses that affect humans’ emotional states both immediately and long-term.
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Eat for good mental health!
- By RCHJ on 01-23-24
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Fire in the Sky
- Cosmic Collisions, Killer Asteroids, and the Race to Defend Earth
- By: Gordon L. Dillow
- Narrated by: Edward Bauer
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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This “accessible and always entertaining” (Booklist) combination of history, pop science, and in-depth reporting offers a fascinating account of the asteroids that hit Earth long ago and those streaming toward us now, as well as how prepared we are against asteroid-caused catastrophe.
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sensationalistic general info by a non scientist
- By The ghost of Mark Twain Jr. Jr. Jr. on 01-08-20
By: Gordon L. Dillow
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The Counterfeit Countess
- The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust
- By: Elizabeth B. White, Joanna Sliwa
- Narrated by: Gilli Messer
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on the manuscript of Mehlberg’s own unpublished memoir supplemented with prodigious research, Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa, professional historians and Holocaust experts, have uncovered the full story of this remarkable woman. They interweave Mehlberg’s sometimes harrowing personal testimony with broader historical narrative.
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Ok
- By Jewels on 03-29-25
By: Elizabeth B. White, and others
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The Black Joke
- One Ship's Battle Against the Slave Trade
- By: A.E. Rooks
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s brig Black Joke was one of a handful of ships tasked with patrolling the western coast of Africa in an effort to end hundreds of years of global slave trading. Sailing after the spectacular fall of Napoleon in France, yet before the rise of Queen Victoria’s England, Black Joke was first a slaving vessel itself, and one with a lightning-fast reputation; only a lucky capture in 1827 allowed it to be repurposed by the Royal Navy to catch its former compatriots.
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Valorous effort in a dark history
- By Amazon Customer on 02-04-25
By: A.E. Rooks
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The Longest Line on the Map
- By: Eric Rutkow
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pan-American Highway is the longest road in the world, running the length of the Western Hemisphere from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in South America. Many adventurers have journeyed the highway’s distance, but the road itself still remains shrouded in mystery. Historian Eric Rutkow chronicles the full story of the highway’s long, winding path to construction, which reshaped foreign policy, cost US taxpayers a billion dollars, consumed countless lives over a 150-year period, and changed the destinies of two continents.
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Comes Up Short of What Might Have Been
- By Mortimer on 01-20-19
By: Eric Rutkow
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The World Behind the World
- Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science
- By: Erik Hoel
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout history, two perspectives on the world have dueled in our minds: the extrinsic—that of mechanism and physics—and the intrinsic—that of feelings, thoughts, and ideas. The intrinsic perspective allows us to tell stories about our lives, to chart our anger and our lust, to understand our psychologies. The extrinsic allows us to chart the physical world, to build upon it, and to travel across it. These perspectives have never been reconciled; they almost seem to exist on different planes of thought.
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An insightful overview of consciousness research
- By Vanilor on 07-27-24
By: Erik Hoel
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The Lighthouse Effect
- How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World
- By: Steve Pemberton
- Narrated by: Rick N. Jones
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Our culture is adrift in division and distrust, and we need everyday heroes more than ever. Drawing from his own remarkable journey, Steve Pemberton shares stories of the ordinary people who quietly change lives and bring change to their communities. Compelling and insightful, this book will inspire you and renew your hope for the future.
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Great Life Story
- By Randee on 12-18-21
By: Steve Pemberton
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Control
- The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics
- By: Adam Rutherford
- Narrated by: Greg Patmore
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Control is a book about what geneticist Adam Rutherford calls “a defining idea of the twentieth century.” Inspired by Darwin’s ideas about evolution, eugenics arose in Victorian England as a theory for improving the British population, and quickly spread to America. With disarming wit and scientific precision, Rutherford explains why eugenics still figures prominently in the twenty-first century, despite its genocidal past. And he confronts insidious recurring questions, revealing the intellectual bankruptcy of the idea, and the scientific impossibility of its realization.
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Excellent 2023 update on genetics
- By Roy on 01-11-25
By: Adam Rutherford
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Fathoms
- The World in the Whale
- By: Rebecca Giggs
- Narrated by: Shiromi Arserio
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans. Fathoms: The World in the Whale is “a work of bright and careful genius” (Robert Moor, New York Times best-selling author of On Trails), one that blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? How has whale culture been both understood and changed by human technology?
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Eating whale with author .
- By Private Person on 03-22-21
By: Rebecca Giggs
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Saving Freud
- The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom
- By: Andrew Nagorski
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In March 1938, German soldiers crossed the border into Austria and Hitler absorbed the country into the Third Reich. Anticipating these events, many Jews had fled Austria, but the most famous Austrian Jew remained in Vienna, where he had lived since early childhood. Sigmund Freud was eighty-one years old, ill with cancer, and still unconvinced that his life was in danger.
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Interesting, but not quite what I expected
- By DFK on 01-10-24
By: Andrew Nagorski
What listeners say about Why Peacocks?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Donna
- 08-15-21
He wasn't the only one to fall for peacocks
I picked this up because of my own history with peacocks. Frankly, my own experiences were more interesting but the similarities caught my attention. This family had seen peacocks with horses and thought there was an appeal for their own farm. It's really just the chronicling of raising two boys, chickens, peacocks, snakes, dogs, cats…
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- Elizabeth Ward
- 11-04-21
science and animal lovers
it was scientifically interesting and humanitarian story. I felt I knew each animal and the family.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Danielle Blasko
- 01-30-23
poignant and relatable
So well written! A beautiful memoir filled with truths on parenting and pet ownership. I laughed and cried. Loved it! Damn peacocks 🦚
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- Expo Reviews
- 06-02-23
I have ducks and geese, but could relate to some of the stories.
Our 60 ducks and 7 geese free range so we don’t have most of the same issues as the author and most of our stories come from the social structures our ducks and geese developed, but we did get into raising them somewhat accidentally like the author, plus an acquisition and intrinsic population growth. We have lost a couple ducks and those were very sad events and the author captured those emotions well.
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