Listen free for 30 days
-
The Age of Insight
- The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Categories: Arts & Entertainment, Art
People who bought this also bought...
-
The History of Western Art
- By: Peter Whitfield
- Narrated by: Sebastian Comberti
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors and architects have expressed the belief systems of their age: religious, political and aesthetic. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, to the revolutionary years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist has acted as a mirror to the ideals and conflicts of the human mind.
-
-
Not entirely what was expected
- By Crocker on 28-01-12
-
The Secret Lives of Colour
- By: Kassia St Clair
- Narrated by: Kassia St Clair
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Secret Lives of Colour tells the unusual stories of the 75 most fascinating shades, dyes and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history
-
-
More a reference book
- By WAP on 01-05-20
-
What Are You Looking At?
- 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye
- By: Will Gompertz
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of What Are You Looking At? by Will Gompertz, read by Roy McMilllan. What is modern art? Why do we either love it or loathe it? And why is it worth so much damn money? Join Will Gompertz on a dazzling tour that will change the way you look at modern art forever. From Monet's water lilies to Van Gogh's sunflowers, from Warhol's soup cans to Hirst's pickled shark, hear the stories behind the masterpieces, meet the artists as they really were, and discover the real point of modern art.
-
-
Humorous, on-point & refreshing
- By Strayficshion on 11-05-19
-
Ravenna
- Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
- By: Judith Herrin
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this engrossing account, Judith Herrin explains how scholars, lawyers, doctors, craftsmen, cosmologists and religious luminaries were drawn to Ravenna where they created a cultural and political capital that dominated northern Italy and the Adriatic. As she traces the lives of Ravenna's rulers, chroniclers and inhabitants, Herrin shows how the city became the meeting place of Greek, Latin, Christian and barbarian cultures and the pivot between East and West.
-
-
Superb overview of Ravenna as the cradle of early Christianity in the West
- By Aurifex on 26-12-20
-
Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
-
-
Five Star
- By Hugh M. Clarke on 01-04-17
-
In Search of Memory
- The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deft mixture of memoir and history, modern biology and behavior, In Search of Memory brings listeners from Kandel's childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna to the forefront of one of the great scientific endeavors of the 20th century: the search for the biological basis of memory. Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel intertwines the intellectual history of the powerful new science of the mind - a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology - with his own personal quest to understand memory.
-
The History of Western Art
- By: Peter Whitfield
- Narrated by: Sebastian Comberti
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves? This history of art shows how painters, sculptors and architects have expressed the belief systems of their age: religious, political and aesthetic. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, to the revolutionary years of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist has acted as a mirror to the ideals and conflicts of the human mind.
-
-
Not entirely what was expected
- By Crocker on 28-01-12
-
The Secret Lives of Colour
- By: Kassia St Clair
- Narrated by: Kassia St Clair
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Secret Lives of Colour tells the unusual stories of the 75 most fascinating shades, dyes and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history
-
-
More a reference book
- By WAP on 01-05-20
-
What Are You Looking At?
- 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye
- By: Will Gompertz
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of What Are You Looking At? by Will Gompertz, read by Roy McMilllan. What is modern art? Why do we either love it or loathe it? And why is it worth so much damn money? Join Will Gompertz on a dazzling tour that will change the way you look at modern art forever. From Monet's water lilies to Van Gogh's sunflowers, from Warhol's soup cans to Hirst's pickled shark, hear the stories behind the masterpieces, meet the artists as they really were, and discover the real point of modern art.
-
-
Humorous, on-point & refreshing
- By Strayficshion on 11-05-19
-
Ravenna
- Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
- By: Judith Herrin
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this engrossing account, Judith Herrin explains how scholars, lawyers, doctors, craftsmen, cosmologists and religious luminaries were drawn to Ravenna where they created a cultural and political capital that dominated northern Italy and the Adriatic. As she traces the lives of Ravenna's rulers, chroniclers and inhabitants, Herrin shows how the city became the meeting place of Greek, Latin, Christian and barbarian cultures and the pivot between East and West.
-
-
Superb overview of Ravenna as the cradle of early Christianity in the West
- By Aurifex on 26-12-20
-
Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
-
-
Five Star
- By Hugh M. Clarke on 01-04-17
-
In Search of Memory
- The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deft mixture of memoir and history, modern biology and behavior, In Search of Memory brings listeners from Kandel's childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna to the forefront of one of the great scientific endeavors of the 20th century: the search for the biological basis of memory. Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel intertwines the intellectual history of the powerful new science of the mind - a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology - with his own personal quest to understand memory.
-
Francis Bacon in Your Blood
- By: Michael Peppiatt
- Narrated by: Michael Peppiatt
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in June 1963 in Soho's French House to request an interview for a student magazine he was editing. Bacon invited him to lunch, and over oysters and Chablis they began a friendship and a no-holds-barred conversation that would continue until Bacon's death 30 years later. Fascinated by the artist's brilliance and charisma, Peppiatt accompanied him on his nightly round of prodigious drinking from grand hotel to louche club and casino, seeing all aspects of Bacon's 'gilded gutter life' and meeting everybody around him.
-
-
Riveting!
- By Mr. B. Martin on 05-01-18
-
The Habsburgs
- The Rise and Fall of a World Power
- By: Martyn Rady
- Narrated by: Simon Bowie
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Habsburgs, Martyn Rady tells the epic story of a dynasty and the world it built - and then lost - over nearly a millennium. From modest origins, the Habsburgs grew in power to gain control of the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th century. Then, in just a few decades, their possessions rapidly expanded to take in a large part of Europe stretching from Hungary to Spain and from the Far East to the New World. The family continued to dominate Central Europe until the catastrophe of the First World War.
-
-
4 Minutes per year is a tough ask.
- By Turquelblue on 07-08-20
-
The Disordered Mind
- What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neurological and psychiatric disorders have long been regarded as fundamentally different, depending on whether they appear to affect the brain or the mind. In reality, the brain and the mind are inseparable. Both types of disorders can affect every aspect of brain function: from perception, action, memory and emotion to empathy, social interaction, attention and consciousness. It is easy to view brain disorders as simply tragic or frightening.
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
-
Paint dries before the war.
- By Richard on 11-08-20
-
Modernism: The Strange Story of Art and Music in the Twentieth Century
- By: Max Ridgway
- Narrated by: David Wright
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 20th century witnessed an explosion of creativity as artists, musicians, and writers rejected centuries of past practice and boldly created new visual forms, new musical languages, and new ways of thinking. This is the story of the individuals who created the art, told within the context of the times in which they lived.
-
-
Fairly by the numbers overview
- By JJ on 30-11-20
-
How to Be an Artist
- By: Jerry Saltz
- Narrated by: Jerry Saltz
- Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the witty and passionate chief art critic for New York magazine, Jerry Saltz is often approached by artists, both amateur and professional, asking him for advice: How do I get started? How do I get better? Is what I'm doing even art at all? They want to know, in short, how to be an artist. Now, expanding on his viral cover story for New York magazine - and drawing on his decades of immersion in the art world - Saltz has the answers. How to Be an Artist is an indispensable book of practical inspiration for creative people of all kinds.
-
-
Loved it! Actually made me work!
- By Thomasson on 26-06-20
-
The Aeneid
- By: Virgil
- Narrated by: Simon Callow
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The publication of a new translation by Fagles is a literary event. His translations of both the Iliad and Odyssey have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and have become the standard translations of our era. Now, with this stunning modern verse translation, Fagles has reintroduced Virgil's Aeneid to a whole new generation, and completed the classical triptych at the heart of Western civilization.
-
-
Hear it as it is meant to be heard!
- By me,myself,andI on 12-08-19
-
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
-
The Golden Thread
- How Fabric Changed History
- By: Kassia St Clair
- Narrated by: Helen Johns
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the mummies of Ancient Egypt, via the silken dragon robes of Imperial China and the woollen sails of Viking longboats to the Indian calicoes and chintzes that powered the Industrial Revolution (and sparked more than one war), arriving finally at the lab-blended fibres that have allowed astronauts to moonwalk - fabrics, man-made and natural, have changed and shaped the world we live in. In 12 fascinating chapters, Kassia St Clair lays out an alternative history of civilisation and human creativity. Wittily written and compellingly argued, this book will change the way you see the world.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Morag Potter on 04-02-19
-
Reductionism in Art and Brain Science
- Bridging the Two Cultures
- By: Eric R. Kandel
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 4 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are art and science separated by an unbridgeable divide? Can they find common ground? In this book, neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel, whose remarkable scientific career and deep interest in art give him a unique perspective, demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel illustrates how reductionism - the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable components - has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths.
-
Playing to the Gallery
- Helping Contemporary Art in Its Struggle to Be Understood
- By: Grayson Perry
- Narrated by: Grayson Perry
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's easy to feel insecure around art and its appreciation, as though we cannot enjoy certain artworks if we don't have a lot of academic and historical knowledge. But if there's one message that I want you to take away it's that anybody can enjoy art and anybody can have a life in the arts - even me! For even I, an Essex transvestite potter, have been let in by the artworld mafia.
-
-
Grayson the legend
- By Amanda on 28-01-17
-
Livewired
- The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain
- By: David Eagleman
- Narrated by: David Eagleman
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How can a blind person learn to see with her tongue or a deaf person learn to hear with his skin? What does a baby born without a nose tell us about our sensory machinery? Might we someday control a robot with our thoughts? And what does any of this have to do with why we dream? The answers to these questions are not right in front of our eyes; they're right behind our eyes. This book is not simply about what the brain is but what it does. Covering decades of research to the present day, Livewired also presents new findings from Eagleman's own research.
-
-
There are some good bits but overall very labored
- By Roger D. on 08-11-20
Summary
A brilliant book by Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind - our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions - and how mind and brain relate to art.
At the turn of the century, Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe. Artists and scientists met in glittering salons, where they freely exchanged ideas that led to revolutionary breakthroughs in psychology, brain science, literature, and art. Kandel takes us into the world of Vienna to trace, in rich and rewarding detail, the ideas and advances made then, and their enduring influence today.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Age of Insight
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- BfloBen
- 31-07-20
Misleading title...
First part of the book deals with "Age of Insight" Vienna 1900. Discusses expressionist artists and Freud and their attempts to understand the role of the "unconscious" in art and society. After that it becomes a textbook on recent studies in brain science. It is detailed and scientific in focus and hardly the stuff I want to listen to while walking in the woods.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Chris Sibilla
- 02-03-20
An incredible journey from imperial Vienna to modern brain science
I was predisposed to liking this book given my love for Vienna and its history. But I was wowed by the scope of this intellectual tour de force. From Klimt and Schiele to Freud to discussions of the workings of the hippocampus, this is not an easy beach read. I often had to go to the Internet to look for maps of the brain. But it was well worth it. This kind of book stays with you and forever changes your perceptions of reality.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Bear Knox
- 28-09-19
masterwork
This is one of the greatest collections of works cited I've ever come across. Beautifully and comprehensively presented, this is a gold mine of brain science and classic art. I will return to this often.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Zach Strand
- 18-07-20
fantastic insight
I didn't realize what I was getting myself into when I downloaded this book it wasn't what I was expected but was so much more instead. I wish there was more reading material that would expand on the ideas presented and some of the chapters. I'll have to give this one a few more lessons before I'm ready to put it down.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 28-01-19
Worth the listen
A well written and fascinating read that bridges art, psychology, and biology. My only qualm is that the only women mentioned are models, case studies, and fictional characters... and maybe one scientist. Have there really been no women from 1900 to 2012 who made contributions to this conversation through their own art and study?
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- ALEXIS MICHAIL
- 15-03-20
Great book. A bit hard to digest.
I bought this book before a trip to Vienna some things about the art history of the city. I ended up listening to a book with so much scientific information apart from the art history information that it blew my mind.
1 person found this helpful