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The Universe in Verse

15 Portals to Wonder through Science & Poetry

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About this listen

In this audiobook Maria Popova, creator of The Marginalian, presents a celebration of the human search for truth and beauty through the lenses of science and poetry.

Poetry and science, as Popova writes in her introduction, "are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply." In 15 short essays on subjects ranging from the mystery of dark matter and the infinity of pi to the resilience of trees and the intelligence of octopuses, Popova tells the stories of scientific searching and discovery. These stories are interwoven with details from the very real and human lives of scientists—many of them women, many underrecognized—and poets inspired by the same questions and the beauty they reveal. Each essay is paired with a poem reflecting its subject by poets ranging from Emily Dickinson, W. H. Auden, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to Maya Angelou, Diane Ackerman, and Tracy K. Smith. Together, they wake us to a "reality aglow with wonder."
Nature & Ecology Poetry Science

What the critics say

“This book is a wonder. Science writing so often negates the inherent wonder of science, which comes so brilliantly alive here. Something bursts open in the mind. And let me say this: Maria Popova has the rare gift of starting a sentence and leaving you in trance by its end. I'd read anything she writes.”—Jad Abumrad, creator, Radiolab
All stars
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This is without a doubt, one of my favorite audiobooks ever. I rarely listen to fiction, preferring poetry, philosophy, nature, and science books. I’m also an artist and it was profoundly affective how this book spoke to every thing I love, everything I believe, and everything I want to do. We often think of the left and right brain as art and science. Maria effortlessly and beautifully hops back-and-forth between these hemispheres, traveling across galaxies and plunging us into the depths of the oceans and collective comprehension of all life. I would consider this I must have audiobook.

A rare gem of writing made better with voice

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