OFFRE D'UNE DURÉE LIMITÉE. Obtenez 3 mois à 0,99 $/mois. Profiter de l'offre.
Page de couverture de The Beast in the Clouds

The Beast in the Clouds

The Roosevelt Brothers's Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda

 Aperçu
En profiter Essayer pour 0,00 $
L'offre prend fin le 16 décembre 2025 à 23 h 59, HP.
Exclusivité Prime: 2 titres gratuits à choisir pendant l'essa. Des conditions s’appliquent.
Vos 3 premiers mois d'Audible à seulement 0,99 $/mois
1 nouveauté ou titre populaire à choisir chaque mois – ce titre vous appartiendra.
L'écoute illimitée des milliers de livres audio, de balados et de titres originaux inclus.
L'abonnement se renouvelle automatiquement au tarif de 0,99 $/mois pendant 3 mois, et au tarif de 14,95 $/mois ensuite. Annulation possible à tout moment.
Choisissez 1 livre audio par mois dans notre incomparable catalogue.
Écoutez à volonté des milliers de livres audio, de livres originaux et de balados.
L'abonnement Premium Plus se renouvelle automatiquement au tarif de 14,95 $/mois + taxes applicables après 30 jours. Annulation possible à tout moment.

The Beast in the Clouds

Auteur(s): Nathalia Holt
Narrateur(s): Jacques Roy
En profiter Essayer pour 0,00 $

14,95 $/mois après 3 mois. L'offre prend fin le 16 décembre 2025 à 23 h 59, HP. Annulation possible à tout moment.

14,95$ par mois après 30 jours. Annulable en tout temps.

Acheter pour 19,76 $

Acheter pour 19,76 $

À propos de cet audio

A 2025 Wall Street Journal Summer Book to Get Lost In

A 2025 New York Times Nonfiction Summer Preview Pick

“A beautiful and powerful book.”—Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author

“Valuable, revelatory, and contagiously page-turning.”—David Michaelis, New York Times bestselling author

For lovers of history, nature, and adventure, the stunning true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s sons and their 1929 Himalayan expedition to prove the existence of the beishung, the panda bear, to the western world, from the New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls.

The Himalayas—a snowcapped mountain range that hides treacherous glacier crossings, raiders poised to attack unsuspecting travelers, and air so thin that even seasoned explorers die of oxygen deprivation. Yet among the dangers lies one of the most beautiful and fragile ecosystems in the world.

During the 1920s, dozens of expeditions scoured the Chinese and Tibetan wilderness in search of the panda bear, a beast that many believed did not exist. When the two eldest sons of President Theodore Roosevelt sought the bear in 1928, they had little hope of success. Together with a team of scientists and naturalists, they accomplished what a decade of explorers could not, ultimately introducing the panda to the West. In the process, they documented a vanishing world and set off a new era of conservation biology.

Along the way, the Roosevelt expedition faced an incredible series of hardships as they disappeared in a blizzard, were attacked by robbers, overcome by sickness and disease, and lost their food supply in the mountains. The explorers would emerge transformed, although not everyone would survive. Beast in the Clouds brings alive these extraordinary events in a potent nonfiction thriller featuring the indomitable Roosevelt family.

From the soaring beauty of the Tibetan plateau to the somber depths of human struggle, Nathalia Holt brings her signature “immersive, evocative” (Bookreporter) voice to this astonishing tale of adventure, harrowing defeat, and dazzling success.

©2025 Nathalia Holt (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio Amériques Environnement Nature et écologie Science United States World Théodore Roosevelt Explorateur Famille Roosevelt Chine
Tout
Les plus pertinents
I went into this audiobook with mixed feelings about its subject—two Roosevelt brothers setting out to capture a panda—but still found the history too intriguing to ignore. Nathalia Holt frames their 1920s expedition through China with both admiration for their courage and awareness of their moral blind spots.

The brothers, sons of a famous name, trekked deep into Sichuan province in search of proof that giant pandas existed. For five long months they trudged through mountains on foot, their provisions carried by mules, collecting other animal specimens as they went. Only after endless hardship did they finally encounter the “beast in the clouds”—and their success came at a tragic cost.

Some details stayed with me: how trying to describe a black-and-white bear to local villagers was like describing a unicorn, or how Holt notes young girls running freely in a village market—something newly possible after the outlawing of foot binding. The book balances adventure with cultural insight, revealing a world on the edge of modernity.

While the Roosevelts’ killing of the first panda they found is deeply unsettling, Holt captures their later regret as they came to understand its gentle nature—content to eat bamboo and harm no one. The global obsession that followed nearly drove the species to extinction, though conservation efforts have since brought them back.

If I had one lingering question, it’s how the panda evolved from hunted curiosity to symbol of international diplomacy. Holt hints at it but doesn’t fully explore that transition. Despite this, the book was still an interesting, if sobering, listen.

The audiobook’s chapters are structured clearly, beginning with opening credits, an epigraph, and a prologue before the numbered chapters.


Audiobook version details (as listed in my Audible library):

The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers’s Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda
Written by: Nathalia Holt
Narrated by: Jacques Roy
RELEASE DATE 2025-07-01
FORMAT Unabridged Audiobook
LENGTH 7 hrs and 48 mins
PUBLISHER Simon & Schuster Audio

©2025 Nathalia Holt (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio

Interesting and sobering

Un problème est survenu. Veuillez réessayer dans quelques minutes.
The dude reading this sounds like an AI deepfake of Kif Kroker from Futurama. The story is interesting and the author did a good job.

odd narration

Un problème est survenu. Veuillez réessayer dans quelques minutes.