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Life on Earth cover art

Life on Earth

By: David Attenborough
Narrated by: David Attenborough
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Editor reviews

Now, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the book’s first publication, David Attenborough has revisited Life on Earth, completely updating and adding to the original text, taking account of modern scientific discoveries from around the globe. This special anniversary edition provides a fitting tribute to an enduring wildlife classic, destined to enthral the generation who saw it when first published and bring it alive for a whole new generation. 

Summary

A new edition of David Attenborough’s groundbreaking Life on Earth.

Winner of Best Non-Fiction Audiobook at the New York Radio Awards 2019.   

Shortlisted for Best Audiobook at the Specsavers National Book Awards 2018.   

Shortlisted for Futurebook of the Year at the Futurebook Awards 2018.  

The nation’s greatest voice, David Attenborough, reads a brand-new edition of Life on Earth, now available as an audiobook for the first time.

David Attenborough’s unforgettable meeting with gorillas became an iconic moment for millions of television viewers. Life on Earth, the series and accompanying book, fundamentally changed the way we view and interact with the natural world, setting a new benchmark of quality, influencing a generation of nature lovers. Told through an examination of animal and plant life, this is an astonishing celebration of the evolution of life on earth, with a cast of characters drawn from the whole range of organisms that have ever lived on this planet. Attenborough’s perceptive, dynamic approach to the evolution of millions of species of living organisms takes the reader on an unforgettable journey of discovery from the very first spark of life to the blue and green wonder we know today.

Now, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the book’s first publication, David Attenborough has revisited Life on Earth, completely updating and adding to the original text, taking account of modern scientific discoveries from around the globe. This special anniversary edition provides a fitting tribute to an enduring wildlife classic, destined to enthral the generation who saw it when first published and bring it alive for a whole new generation.

This audiobook includes wildlife sounds from BAFTA Award winning sound recordist, Chris Watson, who has worked extensively with David Attenborough on his BBC projects. A soundscape appears at the beginning of each chapter to provide a fully immersive experience of the habitat and some of the species described. A full list of the tracks, as they appear in the audiobook, is available below.

  • Prologue - Acacia scrubland dawn chorus in the Masai Mara, Kenya, featuring White-browed Robin-chat. 
  • Chapter One, The Infinite Variety - Tropical rain forest in Panama with the calls of Montezuma oropendola.
  • Chapter Two, Building Bodies - Fish and crustaceans recorded underwater on a coral reef off Seligan island, Borneo.
  • Chapter Three, The First Forests - Geysir and geothermal activity at Haukadalur hot springs in Iceland. This track also features the Strokkur geysir erupting. 
  • Chapter Four, The Swarming Hordes - Evening insect chorus in the Conkouati forest reserve, Republic of Congo.
  • Chapter Five, The Conquest of The Waters - Ocean currents through sea kelp recorded at a depth of 8m, Moray Firth, Scotland.
  • Chapter Six, Invasion of The Land - Reed frog chorus at sunset, Amboseli National Park, Kenya.
  • Chapter Seven, A Watertight Skin - Seawash around basking marine iguanas, Isla San Cristóbal, Galapagos.
  • Chapter Eight, Lords of The Air - Springtime dawn chorus with nightingale, Hambleton wood, Rutland Water nature reserve, UK.
  • Chapter Nine, Eggs, Pouches and Placentas - forest chorus along riverside platypus territory, Queensland, Australia.
  • Chapter Ten, Theme and Variation - Common Pipistrelle bats echolocating after sunset, Holystone woodland, Northumberland.
  • Chapter Eleven, The Hunters and The Hunted - Spotted hyena contact calls at midnight in the Masai Mara, Kenya.
  • Chapter Twelve, A Life in The Trees - Black howler monkeys calling across the tree canopy at sunrise in Belize.
  • Chapter Thirteen, The Compulsive Communicators - Street market, Ramnagar, Uttarakhand, Northern India.
  • Epilogue - Beach habitat in mangroves with Great frigatebirds and red footed boobies, Isla Genovesa, Galapagos.
©2018 David Attenborough (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"It does not disappoint. The new Life on Earth is as glorious as the first." (Guardian)

"This natural history masterpiece offers a spectacular snapshot of a once-wild planet." (New Scientist)

What listeners say about Life on Earth

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Absolutely brilliant

I was some what sceptical about this at first...how could the magnificent tv series with all the amazing photography be translated into an audio recording. David Attenborough's beguiling voice in the sample convinced me to try it and I am so glad that I did.

I cannot recommend this highly enough. I know I shall play it over again and again as it makes such wonderful listening, and the word pictures he creates more than compensate for the lack of photographic imagery. In a way the time sequences of the millions of years make more sense.

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39 people found this helpful

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The story of life is amazing

This is a simply wonderful book. And the wonderful David Attenborough both writes a book that blows your mind and makes you look at everything around you with the an ever more increased wonder then you could have ever thought possible in a voice that will make you listen, feel relaxed and allow your mind to gently explode and splatter on the walls around you. Whereas his documentaries make you watch and wonder at amazing and wondrous miracles of life, this puts everything into context with a narrative that tells us how we actually got here. It begins with how we are able to understand the past through fossils and now through genetic decoding. The story starts 3 1/2 billion years ago as life first emerged a simple forms of bacteria which slowly and gradually evolved over millions of years. The Grand Canyon layers of rock beautifully explain some of the story and stretch back millions of years. And then plants and trees and early marine, sea like creatures through to dinosaurs which were wiped out in the fifth (and currently last) mass extinction event. Genes crested ever more evolving and complicated life. Then we learn how flowers create petals and colour - so they could develop more ingenious methods to transplant seeds by insects. We learn how ants know to create a colony that determines who becomes a soldier ant, a worker or a queen. Ants can communicate with one another to form a hive that is dependent on everyone knowing their role in their place and how they work with one another for this to occur. Salmon can leave its place of birth, swim out into the ocean and when they become fully formed adult return back to its original river that it came from by a sense of smell (salmon with damaged nostrils struggle to return to home), chemically change from seawater to freshwater and returned to the place they came from.. Then the mail salmon changes into a fighting machine and breeds with her mate and then all the salmon fall apart and die, never to return to the ocean again but mate with a female and then having laid 1000 eggs which will perform the same feat over and over again as the parents body falls to pieces and dies.

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23 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

World class audio book

I highly recommend this audio book. It is very insightful, full of interesting facts about how life has evolved and shaped modern day environments

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8 people found this helpful

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Brilliant!!

This is my first book on this app and I love it. It is a great book and I can not fault it.

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Captivating and mesmerising!

The story is already know by most of us. As usual when David Attenborough is involved it's told in a engaging and captivating style, with the best voice a narrator could have and with so much liveliness that one at times see pictures instead of just hearing words. Truly recommend.

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7 people found this helpful

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Simply astonishing

An amazing book. I cannot recommend it any higher. Download and listen to this now

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Absolutely Outstanding.

Amazing. Enthralling. Awe inspiring.
All standard superlatives to describe pretty much anything David Attenborough touches.
If any of his work appeals to you, it’s impossible that you’d be anything but captivated by this.

Simply WONDERFUL.

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It's Sir David Attenborough what more can you say!

It's Sir David Attenborough what more can you say!

Sir David is probably the most outstanding author and presenter of natural history that I can think of. He is wonderful live and seems ultra knowledgeable about his subjects.
Life on Earth is a clear concise book/programme that can't be beaten, in my opinion.

Now on to the next in the series. Can't wait to start. 🙂

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Inspiring

Such a great book and David narrates so well, I may as well have been watching the tv show. Interesting and educational.

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Interesting

Whilst I won't fault David Attenborough's distinctive and instantly recognisable narrative style and gentle background sounds that add to the audiobook's ambience, I disliked the author's didactic and prescriptive tone. A certain perspective on the nature of existence is stated as unequivocal fact in a tone that seems to brook no argument- and yet I'm all the more interested to hear counter-arguments from Christian scientists who hold similarly high credentials to this esteemed gentleman. The facts are interesting as far as they go, and there is much to be learned from one who has seen and experienced so much of this world and its inhabitants. But there is also much to be questioned and queried, and alas there is no opportunity for that here.

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