Listen free for 30 days
-
I Contain Multitudes
- The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
- Narrated by: Charlie Anson
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Categories: Science & Engineering, Science
People who bought this also bought...
-
Oxygen
- The Molecule That Made the World
- By: Nick Lane
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oxygen takes the listener on an enthralling journey, as gripping as a thriller, as it unravels the unexpected ways in which oxygen spurred the evolution of life and death.
-
-
great
- By Petr Palacky on 03-09-20
-
The Epigenetics Revolution
- How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance
- By: Nessa Carey
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nessa Carey’s The Epigenetics Revolution looks at how modern biology is rewriting our understanding of genetics, disease and inheritance....
-
-
Good but lots of abbreviations
- By Samuel Boardman on 31-05-20
-
Entangled Life
- How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
- By: Merlin Sheldrake
- Narrated by: Merlin Sheldrake
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space and it thrives amidst nuclear radiation. In this captivating adventure, Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems.
-
-
Willingly entangled
- By Paul on 17-11-20
-
Other Minds
- The Octopus and The Evolution of Intelligent Life
- By: Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A philosopher dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness. Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this audiobook he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself.
-
-
stunning look at the evolution of thinking...
- By Amazon Customer on 12-03-18
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A comprehensive history of cancer – one of the greatest enemies of medical progress – and an insight into its effects and potential cures, by a leading expert on the illness. In The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee, doctor, researcher and award-winning science writer, examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with - and perished from - for more than five thousand years.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Marianna on 04-11-12
-
Some Assembly Required
- Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA
- By: Neil Shubin
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over billions of years, ancient fish evolved to walk on land, reptiles transformed into birds that fly, and apelike primates evolved into humans that walk on two legs, talk, and write. For more than a century, paleontologists have traveled the globe to find fossils that show how such changes have happened. We have now arrived at a remarkable moment - prehistoric fossils coupled with new DNA technology have given us the tools to answer some of the basic questions of our existence: How do big changes in evolution happen?
-
-
Great and fascinating story
- By Kindle Customer on 27-05-20
-
Oxygen
- The Molecule That Made the World
- By: Nick Lane
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oxygen takes the listener on an enthralling journey, as gripping as a thriller, as it unravels the unexpected ways in which oxygen spurred the evolution of life and death.
-
-
great
- By Petr Palacky on 03-09-20
-
The Epigenetics Revolution
- How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance
- By: Nessa Carey
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nessa Carey’s The Epigenetics Revolution looks at how modern biology is rewriting our understanding of genetics, disease and inheritance....
-
-
Good but lots of abbreviations
- By Samuel Boardman on 31-05-20
-
Entangled Life
- How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
- By: Merlin Sheldrake
- Narrated by: Merlin Sheldrake
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space and it thrives amidst nuclear radiation. In this captivating adventure, Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems.
-
-
Willingly entangled
- By Paul on 17-11-20
-
Other Minds
- The Octopus and The Evolution of Intelligent Life
- By: Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A philosopher dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness. Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this audiobook he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself.
-
-
stunning look at the evolution of thinking...
- By Amazon Customer on 12-03-18
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A comprehensive history of cancer – one of the greatest enemies of medical progress – and an insight into its effects and potential cures, by a leading expert on the illness. In The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee, doctor, researcher and award-winning science writer, examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with - and perished from - for more than five thousand years.
-
-
Remarkable
- By Marianna on 04-11-12
-
Some Assembly Required
- Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA
- By: Neil Shubin
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over billions of years, ancient fish evolved to walk on land, reptiles transformed into birds that fly, and apelike primates evolved into humans that walk on two legs, talk, and write. For more than a century, paleontologists have traveled the globe to find fossils that show how such changes have happened. We have now arrived at a remarkable moment - prehistoric fossils coupled with new DNA technology have given us the tools to answer some of the basic questions of our existence: How do big changes in evolution happen?
-
-
Great and fascinating story
- By Kindle Customer on 27-05-20
-
Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine
- The Key to Understanding Disease, Chronic Illness, Aging, and Life Itself
- By: Lee Know
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine, naturopathic doctor Lee Know tells the epic story of mitochondria - the widely misunderstood and often-overlooked powerhouses of our cells. The legendary saga began over two billion years ago, when one bacterium entered another without being digested, which would evolve to create the first mitochondrion. Since then, for life to exist beyond single-celled bacteria, it's the mitochondria that have been responsible for this life-giving energy.
-
-
Heavy going
- By mark frendo on 03-06-20
-
10% Human: How Your Body's Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness
- By: Alanna Collen
- Narrated by: Robyn Addison
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking book, Alanna Collen explores the extraordinary world of the powerful microbes that make up 90 percent of the human body. You are just 10 percent human. For every one of the cells that make your body, there are nine impostor cells. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but bacteria and fungi. You are not an individual but a colony of microbes. Far from being passive, the trillions of microbes that live on and in you are intimately involved in running your body.
-
-
Most interesting and informative book
- By Tinkerbell on 29-06-15
-
DNA
- The Story of the Genetic Revolution
- By: James D. Watson, Andrew Berry, Kevin Davies
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James D. Watson, the Nobel laureate whose pioneering work helped unlock the mystery of DNA's structure, charts the greatest scientific journey of our time, from the discovery of the double helix to today's controversies to what the future may hold. Updated to include new findings in gene editing, epigenetics, and agricultural chemistry as well as two entirely new chapters on personal genomics and cancer research. This is the most comprehensive and authoritative exploration of DNA's impact on our society and our world.
-
-
a comprehensive and thorough review of genetics
- By Amazon Customer on 08-01-20
-
The Beautiful Cure
- By: Daniel M Davis
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The immune system holds the key to human health. In The Beautiful Cure, leading immunologist Professor Daniel Davis describes the scientific quest to understand how it works - and how it is affected by stress, sleep, age and our state of mind - and explains how this knowledge is now unlocking a revolutionary new approach to medicine and well-being.
-
-
Incredible insight into biomedical research!
- By Shafqat A. on 27-11-18
-
Life Ascending
- The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
- By: Nick Lane
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcom
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Where does DNA come from? What is consciousness? How did the eye evolve? Drawing on a treasure trove of new scientific knowledge, Nick Lane expertly reconstructs evolutions history by describing its 10 greatest inventionsfrom sex and warmth to deathresulting in a stunning account of natures ingenuity.
-
-
Terrible reader
- By ThatLibraryMiss on 27-01-11
-
The Hidden Half of Nature
- The Microbial Roots of Life and Health
- By: David R. Montgomery, Anne Bikle
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A riveting exploration of how microbes are transforming the way we see nature and ourselves - and could revolutionize agriculture and medicine. Prepare to set aside what you think you know about yourself and microbes. Good health - for people and for plants - depends on Earth's smallest creatures. The Hidden Half of Nature tells the story of our tangled relationship with microbes and their potential to revolutionize agriculture and medicine, from garden to gut.
-
-
excellent
- By coz on 25-05-20
-
The Idea of the Brain
- A History
- By: Matthew Cobb
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe. Today we tend to picture the brain as a computer. Earlier scientists thought about it in their own technological terms: as a telephone switchboard, or a clock, or all manner of fantastic mechanical or hydraulic devices. Could the right metaphor unlock the brain's deepest secrets once and for all? Galloping through centuries of wild speculation and ingenious, sometimes macabre anatomical investigations, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb reveals how we came to our present state of knowledge.
-
-
Stunning overview and history of neuroscience
- By Coolade on 10-04-20
-
Storm in a Teacup
- The Physics of Everyday Life
- By: Helen Czerski
- Narrated by: Chloe Massey
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is it that helps both scorpions and cyclists to survive? What do raw eggs and gyroscopes have in common? And why does it matter? In an age of string theory, fluid dynamics and biophysics, it can seem as if the science of our world is for only specialists and academics. Not so, insists Helen Czerski - and in this sparkling new audiobook she explores the patterns and connections that illustrate the grandest theories in the smallest everyday objects and experiences.
-
-
Not such a big storm
- By Viv on 05-02-17
-
Guns, Germs and Steel
- The Fate of Human Societies
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.
-
-
The definitive Audible purchase
- By Jim on 22-01-14
-
Origins
- How the Earth Made Us
- By: Lewis Dartnell
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we talk about human history, we focus on great leaders, mass migration and decisive wars. But how has the Earth itself determined our destiny? How has our planet made us? As a species we are shaped by our environment. Geological forces drove our evolution in East Africa; mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece; and today voting behaviour in the United States follows the bed of an ancient sea. The human story is the story of these forces, from plate tectonics and climate change, to atmospheric circulation and ocean currents.
-
-
Anthropology meets geography. Fascinating.
- By "ben19" on 23-04-20
-
Viruses, Plagues, and History
- Past, Present, and Future
- By: Michael B. A. Oldstone
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies.
-
-
Read this book
- By Anonymous User on 10-01-20
-
The Tangled Tree
- A Radical New History of Life
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our understanding of the ‘tree of life’, with powerful implications for human genetics, human health and our own human nature, has recently completely changed. This book is about a new method of telling the story of life on earth - through molecular phylogenetics. It involves a fairly simple method - the reading of the deep history of life by looking at the variation in protein molecules found in living organisms. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection.
-
-
Awesome
- By Amazon Customer on 03-11-20
Summary
Your body is teeming with tens of trillions of microbes. It's an entire world, a colony full of life. In other words, you contain multitudes. These microscopic companions sculpt our organs, protect us from diseases, guide our behaviour and bombard us with their genes. They also hold the key to understanding all life on earth.
In I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong opens our eyes and invites us to marvel at ourselves and other animals in a new light, less as individuals and more as thriving ecosystems. We learn the invisible and wondrous science behind the corals that construct mighty reefs and the squid that create their own light shows. We see how bacteria can alter our response to cancer-fighting drugs, tune our immune system, influence our evolution and even modify our genetic make-up. And we meet the scientists who are manipulating these microscopic partners to our advantage.
In a million tiny ways, I Contain Multitudes will radically change how you think about the natural world - and how you see yourself.
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about I Contain Multitudes
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Millymagpie
- 14-09-16
Very enjoyable read
Any additional comments?
One of the most informative books on the microbiome, dispels some myths, challenges the new multi billion dollar probiotic / fermented food movement. This book gives a very balanced factual look at how we destroy our microbiome with the overuse of antibacterial products, western diet / lifestyle and drugs especially antibiotics. Unlike many other books I have read on the topic this book clearly states that there is no magic solutlion such as stool transplants and change in diet / lifestyle, while these may work the main point I got from reading this is that we are all different and what will work for one person will not work for another! So will I give up my kombucha and probiotics - hummm probabily not however I will not put as much faith in such supposed miracle foods and supplements.
My main takeaways:
We are all different, very different so one solution does not fit all.
Trying to recolonise your microbiome doesn't always work as fermented foods and probiotics seem to produce a temporary alteration in bacteria which can return to your original state shortly after - so don't waist your money!
Stop using antibacterial products, stop cleaning so much (excellent I say), open your windows & eat fiber!
Excellent read, interesting informative and yes this book had an impact on how I live
26 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cian Hickey
- 01-11-16
Excellent, interesting science book for anyone.
Lots of amazing information on a largely hidden world. The author makes the topic of microbes very interesting and engaging. Faultless narration.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lakeskip
- 03-11-16
Really Fascinating Stuff.
Who knew we had so much going on in us! There's no way I would have got all the way through this in printed form. (Not because of the content but due to my attention span for the technical stuff being too short) but so glad I bought it as thoroughly enjoyed it, so very interesting and the narrators voice is just right. It's one of the books I'll listen to again.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tony
- 19-10-16
Excellent. A window into our fascinating world.
This is on a par with The Selfish Gene, Guns, Germs and Steel and the Vital Question as a book which adds a whole new perspective on what we are.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M. Harpur
- 02-10-20
Fascinating
Fascinating book about our relationship with microbes all around us that more often do good than harm despite our prejudgements. It offers new insights into treatments of disease that would by convention be treated with antimicrobial agents instead suggesting the utilisation of abundant and inexpensive microbes around us.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 13-05-20
Great book, ruined by badly edited audio
An engaging and interesting exploration of a microscopic world; I really enjoyed it. However there is no excuse for such a poor edited audiobook. Must’ve been read over several days and just chopped up and smashed together- kind of ruined it.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- William Kelly
- 28-12-19
Great but distracting edits
Really interesting book and well eat but some very distracting edits throughout. Just a minor niggle really but I haven't come across this on other books before.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- G. Watson
- 06-09-19
badly edited
great book, great narrator, but bits of the book seem to have been edited for some reason, and the edited parts aren't recorded to the same quality. so you'll be listening, then all of a sudden there'll be a sentence that sounds odd, of a lot poorer quality, audiowise. which can be a bit irritating at times.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ursula Verburgt
- 21-05-19
Amazing inside in the importance of Microbes!
I listen to it over and over again... Fascinating aspects of life usually overlooked and underestimated.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Emma newton
- 09-02-19
Easy listening
From a students point of view this book is very helpful and insightful.
From a general interest point of view, it is fascinating.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Matthew Andrews
- 19-10-16
Wonderful, fascinating book.
A great book - a tour of the extraordinary world of microbes and the many ways that scientists are studying and using them. The audiobook is only let a bit by patchy production quality - several takes with quite different studio conditions are edited together almost at random - can be distracting. But the book itself is fantastic, not to be missed.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Jana
- 03-05-18
Very interesting with one small irritation…
Throughout this audiobook the narration noticeably changes. Sometimes it’s just a few words, other times it’s several sentences. The sound and intonation is markedly different and it distracted this listener from what was being said. While I understand that edits need to be made in narration, every effort should be made to match the sound quality, tone and volume etc. Sadly, this seems to have been done pretty haphazardly at times. Overall, I enjoyed this audiobook but the recording did spoil what could have been an otherwise five star review.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall

- Harshvardhan Gupta
- 28-12-18
very informative book and intriguing.
very informative book and intriguing. this Book made me aware of my surroundings and biomes it contains.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Tecomarob
- 08-12-18
Think Small.
If you have been lulled into thinking you know the world, read this and wonder.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Lauren L
- 21-09-18
A science class you don't want to miss
Absolutely fascinating. Even though the science itself, as Yong explains, is still in its infancy, I'd go so far as to say it's a revelation: It has forever altered my fundamental understanding of life on this planet and, what's more, has certainly made me grasp why my gut health is kind of a biggie. That's not news, of course: functional health gurus have been peddling the gut microbiome and dysbiosis message for a while, but I was somewhere between skeptical and merely confused, until I Contain Multitudes with its wide-angle lens and telescope both trained on the subject of microbes and their hosts radically altered my perspective - quackery it ain't. Well written and well narrated, I highly recommend this book.