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Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Peter Godfrey-Smith (Author, Narrator), Mitch Riley (Narrator), Macmillan Audio (Publisher)
3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 27 ratings
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Long-listed, Washington Post Best Books of the Year, 2024

"Listening to Godfrey-Smith's exploration of animal consciousness will rattle every nook and cranny of your brain with an onslaught of interesting questions...the author leaves listeners with a radical new perspective."—AudioFile on Metazoa

This program is read by the author.

The bestselling author of Other Minds shows how we and our ancestors have reinvented our planet.

If the history of the Earth were compressed down to a year, our species would arise in the last thirty minutes or so of the final hour. But life itself is not such a late arrival: It has existed on Earth for something like 3.7 billion years—most of our planet’s history and over a quarter of the age of the universe (as far as we can tell).

What have these organisms—bacteria, animals, plants, and the rest—done in all this time? In Living on Earth, the philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith proposes a new way of understanding how the actions of living beings have shaped our planet. Where his acclaimed books Other Minds and Metazoa explored the riddle of how conscious minds came to exist on Earth, Living on Earth turns to what happens when we look at the mind from another side—when we come to see organisms as active causes, not merely as results of the evolutionary process. The planet we inhabit is significantly the work of other living beings, who shaped the environments that we ourselves later transformed.

To that end, Godfrey-Smith takes us on a grand tour of the history of life on earth. He visits Rwandan gorillas and Australian bowerbirds, returns to coral reefs and octopus dens, considers the impact of language and writing, and weighs the responsibilities our unique powers bring with them, as they relate to factory farming, habitat preservation, climate change, and the use of animals in experiments. Ranging from the seas to the forests, and from animate matter’s first appearance to its future extinction, Godfrey-Smith offers a novel picture of the course of life on Earth and how we might meet the challenges of our time, the Anthropocene.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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  1. Listening Length
    9 hours and 59 minutes
  2. Author
    Peter Godfrey-Smith
  3. Narrator
    Mitch Riley, see all
  4. Audible release date
    September 3, 2024
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Macmillan Audio
  7. ASIN
    B0CW3VMXPB
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 9 hours and 59 minutes
Author Peter Godfrey-Smith
Narrator Mitch Riley, Peter Godfrey-Smith
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date September 03, 2024
Publisher Macmillan Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B0CW3VMXPB
Best Sellers Rank #32,711 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#45 in Evolution (Audible Books & Originals)
#60 in Philosophy & Science
#70 in General Anthropology

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3.6 out of 5 stars
27 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • AndreaRomance
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating
    Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2024
    This fascinating book examines how living organisms have shaped the world, from cyanobacteria oxygenating the atmosphere to human activity increasing the levels of carbon dioxide. Informative and easy to read, the book also confronts the ethical implications of human actions, exploring issues like factory farming, habitat destruction, and animal experimentation. I enjoyed the audiobook narration.

    Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • heather
    4.0 out of 5 stars Accessible Science and Philosophy Fun
    Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2024
    Living on Earth is an epic examination of life on our planet. The author, Godfrey- Smith takes a sweeping look at biology and evolutionary theory, but in an accessible and interesting way. Godfrey-Smith brings philosophical musings to the front and center. Kant and his categorical imperative are discussed, along with the views of utilitarianism and Pete Singer’s animal welfare perspective. Godfrey-Smith delves into intentionality and the choices made in nature that affect our planet as a whole.

    I listened to the audiobook in advance for free from NetGalley. It was an enjoyable experience, with great narrators (including the author) who had a calm and knowledgeable way of presenting the material. The information shared was fenced and nuanced, so I did have to re-listen to several parts to comprehend. The book itself was very descriptive, really bringing the reader into the topic at hand. Overall, I felt this audiobook was worth the time I put into to listen and puzzle over the contents. It was interesting, with a plethora of scientific information shared in a fun, understandable way. Living on Earth gave me a lot to digest and mull over.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • A. Ostling
    2.0 out of 5 stars Where were the editors?
    Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    I was tempted to give only one star, but in fairness I only read the first page. Here the author instructs the reader on the correct pronunciation of "Cyanobactiera (pronounced with a soft 'c' as in the color cyan: sy-an-o-bacteria)." Perhaps he thought he was writing a book for dummies?
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  • ancientreader
    3.0 out of 5 stars Where are we going? Where is this book going?
    Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2024
    Godfrey-Smith--a philosopher of science, not a scientist--describes Living on Earth as "a history of organisms as causes, rather than evolutionary products," and adds that "One result is a dynamic picture of the Earth, a picture of an Earth continually changing because of what living things do."

    This results in some interesting tidbits, such as how the oxygen exhaled by early cyanobacteria interacted with the iron in nearby sedimentary rocks to turn them rust-red. But I turn over and over in my mind a statement such as "This idea of a history that puts minds, especially human minds, into a lineage of transforming agents, and treats those agents as part of the history of the Earth, was the seed of the book," and I'm at something of a loss to understand what's novel in it, what's going to change my perspective on evolution or on "the history of the Earth." That human minds are (a) part of Earth's history, and (b) transformative -- we are in the Anthropocene, no? -- isn't exactly news.

    There were phrases and insights that kept me reading. Living things as "pockets of organization." Life as replication, vs life as the presence of metabolism, and what we make of viruses, which replicate themselves but pirate other metabolisms to do so. Where the border of an organism is, when the organism has effects outside itself. That a living planet holds much more energy than a dead one, because a living planet (ours) is storing the sun's energy. That the Gaia hypothesis may tempt us to think that the Earth is capable of rescuing itself from our deleterious effects on it. "With the evolution of flowers, plants could now interact at a distance. ... Insects became, in a sense, instruments used by plants to span space." I appreciated, too, Godfrey-Smith's discussion of consciousness, which he sees as prevalent in some form even among creatures, such as insects, that we don't usually think of as aware in any way. The same goes for his ethical argument about how we treat the animals we use for food and in experimentation. (This argument has much in common with the discussion in Todd May's excellent Should We Go Extinct?.)

    The trouble is that, as engaging as I found many of the pieces of Godfrey-Smith's argument, I remained at a loss to understand where that argument led -- what was original about it, I mean. And G-S really seems to like the sound of his own voice, because gosh was there a lot of repetition.

    Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch and Carl Zimmer's Parasite Rex transformed my understanding of evolution and (believe it or not) power. That's what I want, ideally, from a book about science; I was hoping to find it here, and I didn't.

    Thanks to FSG and NetGalley; this is my honest opinion.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • Tardigrade
    4.0 out of 5 stars For Godfrey-Smith fans
    Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2024
    I have the utmost respect for Peter Godfrey-Smith, who is a great thinker and has a very distinctive perspective on evolutionary biology. However, I always find it a bit difficult to get engaged in his narrative – for some reason his style is not to my liking. This book was no different. It's very informative, even eye-opening at times – but presented in a way that I found less than compelling. I have to admit that I much preferred another recent book on a similar subject, "Becoming Earth" by Ferris Jabr. But if you're a fan and have devoured previous Godfrey-Smith books, you won't be disappointed.

    Thanks to the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • C. Palmer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
    Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2024
    This is an interesting mix of science and philosophy about life on Earth and how scientists theorize life began and on the nature of life itself.
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  • David Frankel
    1.0 out of 5 stars A failed book
    Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2024
    I must agree with the other commenter. This book feels like an unedited thesis; definitely disappoints the expectation aroused by its nice cover. It feels like a book in the making that still needs to go through editing before publishing. It’s hard to understand the ideas he attempts to communicate because he devotes so many paragraphs to explain what he wishes to communicate instead of communicating it. This book isn’t a finished product.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Pierre
    2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing end to a great book series
    Reviewed in France on November 27, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    I had to write this review because I thoroughly enjoyed Godfrey-Smith's two previous books, Metazoa and Other Minds. This third one is clearly the one you should skip.

    After reading this book, I could not sum up what the main points of this book are. I thought it would be about how life shapes the Earth, but there isn't that much of that. As another reviewer mentioned, this is a very narratively driven book, which, while being rather pleasant to read, lacks in actual facts and information.

    So, I couldn't tell you what this book is about overall, but nearly a third of this book on "life, consciousness and the making of the natural world" is an ethical discussion about how we treat animals in farming and experiments, and about the climate.

    When it comes to animal experiments, the author's arguments simply are extremely ill-informed, shockingly so for someone as well versed in animal research as P. Godfrey-Smith. Godfrey-Smith favors ending animal research on mammals, birds (supposedly), and octopuses.

    He argues that the fact that this would slow down research (or rather, halt it entirely), and result in countless lost human lives and immense suffering is pointless (anyone with sick relatives will certainly be glad to know that their suffering is less important than a mice's), as research would advance even faster if we used human prisoners. And Godfrey-Smith argues that since we are capable of deciding not to use prisoners for experiments, we could and should decide not to use animals.
    As if experimenting on humans and animals were comparable! However, the human species IS very different from the rest of the animal kingdom, and thus Godfrey-Smith's reasoning doesn't hold. Surely, if animal experiments are as bad as human experiments, then running over a rat in your car is equivalent to manslaughter? This logic either works for every situation, or it doesn't work at all.

    So in my opinion the book doesn’t get at « how has life shaped and been shaped by our planet? » as the blurb promises, but is actually a rather radical militant argument against animal experimentation, and dare I say, as a result, against humanity. Of course the author is entitled to his opinion, but this is quite the departure from the first two books.
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  • lunndabhra
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Well-written, informative. Thought-provoking.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Educational and eye-opening thoughts on life and its development on Earth. Highly recommend.
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  • Louis
    5.0 out of 5 stars Where does life come from?
    Reviewed in Australia on October 19, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    A brilliant book that explains in detail why I studied geology: not for money but because I wanted to know where and how life on earth originated, and how important this was for the earth and its inhabitants. A precious philosophical book that is readable for everyone who can think for him/herself. After 50 years as a geologist in over 45 countries I highly recommend this well-written and thoughtful book.
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  • jeronimo
    3.0 out of 5 stars Not the clearest of expositions
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 3, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Generally I was disappointed in this book (I had high expectations from reading reviews in the wider press). Generally I found the presentation a bit confusing... Not quite wholly factual, not quite completely speculative and with a somewhat diffuse and loose "conversational" style of delivery which left me wondering from time to time what the author was getting at... I guess it could be a cultural thing too (he is not from the UK).
    I personally prefer a more robust dialogue. All information is, to some extent, speculative but a stronger thread, along the lines of "Sapiens", would have allowed me to get more out of the book.
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