I Contain Multitudes

Author Ed Yong
Narrator Charlie Anson
Publisher Random House
Publish Date 1 September 2016
Run Time 9 hours and 52 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Biology, life sciences, Human biology, Life sciences: general issues, Microbiology (non-medical), Popular science, Science: general issues, Zoology and animal sciences.

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What to expect

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.

Critics Review

Super-interesting… He just keeps imparting one surprising, fascinating insight after the next. I Contain Multitudes is science journalism at its best

Bill Gates

[A] marvellous, thrilling and richly annotated book… I call it marvellous: everything about the microbial world is to be marvelled at. And it is a page-turner in a very old-fashioned sense. All life is here, and death too, and sex and violence, including deviations of which you had never dreamed … We have an inner life, in every sense, and are the richer for it: richer still for this witty and compelling book.

Guardian

Beyond fascinating. An amazing book. It’ll change the way you think about the world. It’ll change who you think you are.

Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk

Momentous … an essential read

Sunday Times

I Contain Multitudes makes the importance of popularising science…sparklingly clear… From his vibrant introduction to his witty endnotes, Yong’s expertise and narration hold no less wonder than a sacred text.

Spectator

Masterful … smart, canny, and often quite beautiful … In the realm of the life sciences there is a noble tradition of popular books that … have reshaped our view of the world … In my own reading I think of Schrödinger’s What is Life, Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and, more recently, Nick Lane’s The Vital Question. Among such company, I Contain Multitudes can hold its head high.

Guardian

I Contain Multitudes has a terrific story to tell … Ed Yong is a talented British science writer … his first book covers a huge amount of microscopic territory in clear, strong, often epigrammatic prose … He is infectiously enthusiastic about microbes and he describes them with verve … Even the book’s endnotes are rich with interesting asides, swarming with interesting sidelights, a teeming microbial world.

New York Times

I also very much enjoyed and admired I Contain Multitudes.

Observer, Book of the Year

An account that is far, far more entertaining than an exploration of microbes should be.

The Times, Book of the Year

[An] utterly absorbing and hugely important book… [Yong] is an extraordinary adept guide. Writing with lightness and panache, he has a knack of explain complex science in terms that are both easy to understand and totally enthralling… I Contain Multitudes is popular science writing at its best. Reading this book will make you view the world differently.

Literary Review

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