Audiobooks by Alan Lightman

The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live

"In this captivating, insightful book, acclaimed physicists Alan Lightman and Martin Rees illuminate the life and work of numerous scientists in order to demystify the scientific process and show that scientists are concerned citizens, just like the rest of us. "Remarkable. . . . Illuminating with refreshing clarity the ordinary and sometimes extraordinary work of scientists. This book is essential reading.' -Jennifer Ackerman, bestselling author of What an Owl Knows In an age of rapid scientific discovery and technological advancement, it's understandable that many feel uneasy about the future. While we might have confidence in these new developments when we go to the hospital for a medical procedure, fly in an airplane, or take an elevator to the top floor of a building, the motivations and lives of scientists themselves feel shrouded from public view. There is a growing sense that scientists are not to be trusted-that they may be guided by political or financial interests, or beholden to governments, or state institutions. This growing mistrust of scientists is an urgent problem. With the onset of climate change, the imminent threats of pandemic or nuclear war, and rapid acceleration in the fields of artificial intelligence and DNA sequencing, innovations in science have the potential to change the world. It's crucial that we not only gain a better understanding of science as a field, but also reestablish trust with its practitioners. The Shape of Wonder guides us through the fascinating lives and minds of scientists around the world and throughout time, from a young theoretical physicist who works as a research assistant professor at the University of Washington and rock climbs in their free time; to German physicist Werner Heisenberg in his early life, when he was a student of music and philosophy; to Govind Swarup, an Indian astronomer whose work on radio telescopes was profoundly important. We get an inside peek at what makes scientists tick-their daily lives, passions, and concerns about the societies they live in. In this brilliant and elucidative work, Lightman and Rees pull back the curtain on the field of science, revealing that scientists are driven by the same sense of curiosity, wonder, and responsibility towards the future that shapes us all. * This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF containing illustrations from the printed book."

Alan Lightman, Martin Rees (Author), Christopher Grove (Narrator)

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Three Flames: A Novel

"From the internationally bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams comes a deeply compelling story about the lives of a Cambodian family―set between 1973, just before the Cambodian Genocide by the Khmer Rouge―to 2015. The stories of one Cambodian family are intricately braided together in Alan Lightman’s haunting Three Flames, his first work of fiction in six years. Three Flames portrays the struggles of a Cambodian farming family against the extreme patriarchal attitudes of their society and the cruel and dictatorial father, set against a rural community that is slowly being exposed to the modern world and its values. A mother must fight against memories of her father’s death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and her powerful desire for revenge. A daughter is married off at sixteen to a wandering husband and his domineering aunt; another daughter is sent to the city to work in the factories to settle her father’s gambling debt. A son dreams of marrying the most beautiful girl of the village and escaping the life of a farmer. And the youngest daughter bravely challenges her father so she can stay in school and strive for a better future. A vivid story of revenge and forgiveness, of a culture smothering the dreams of freedom, and of tradition against courage, Three Flames grows directly from Lightman’s work as the founder of the Harpswell Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance a new generation of female leaders in Cambodia and all of Southeast Asia."

Alan Lightman (Author), Cassandra Campbell (Narrator)

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Dance for Two: Selected Essays

"The New York Times bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams presents a collection of essays, written over the past twenty years, that displays his genius for bringing literary and scientific concerns into ringing harmony. Sometimes provocative, sometimes fanciful, always elegantly conceived and written, these meditations offer listeners a fascinating look into the creative compulsions shared by the scientist and the artist."

Alan Lightman (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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Good Benito

"Bennett “Benito” Lang is a young scientist who seeks solace in the precise and irrefutable laws of physics, only to find that he cannot escape his own humanity. But he is about to discover love, betrayal, and a whole spectrum of mortal phenomena. Soon he will be forced to face the unpredictable, everyday reality he evades—and to learn from it."

Alan Lightman (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit

"From the bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams comes this lyrical and insightful collection of science writing that delves into the mysteries of the scientific process—physics, astronomy, mathematics—and exposes its beauty and intrigue. In these brilliant essays, Lightman explores the emotional life of science, the power of imagination, the creative moment, and the alternate ways in which scientists and humanists think about the world. Along the way, he provides in-depth portraits of some of the great geniuses of our time, including Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Edward Teller, and astronomer Vera Rubin. Thoughtful, beautifully written, and wonderfully original, A Sense of the Mysterious confirms Alan Lightman’s unique position at the crossroads of science and art."

Alan Lightman (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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Einstein’s Dreams

"In poetic vignettes, Einstein’s Dreams explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence. A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, and people are fated to repeat their triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar. Translated into thirty languages, Einstein’s Dreams has inspired playwrights, dancers, musicians, and painters all over the world. In poetic vignettes it explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence."

Alan Lightman (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

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Screening Room: Family Pictures

"From the acclaimed author of the international bestseller Einstein's Dreams, here is a lyrical memoir of Memphis from the 1930s through the 1960s: the music and the racism, the early days of the movies, and a powerful grandfather whose ghost continues to haunt the family. Alan Lightman's grandfather M. A. Lightman was the family's undisputed patriarch: it was his movie theater empire that catapulted the family to prominence in the South, his fearless success that both galvanized and paralyzed his descendants, haunting them for a half century after his death. In this lyrical and impressionistic memoir, Lightman writes about returning to Memphis in an attempt to understand the people he so eagerly left behind forty years earlier. As aging uncles and aunts begin telling family stories, Lightman rediscovers his southern roots and slowly realizes the errors in his perceptions of his grandfather and of his own father, who had been crushed by M. A. Here is a family saga set against a throbbing century of Memphis—the rhythm and blues, the barbecue and pecan pie, and the segregated society—that includes personal encounters with Elvis, Martin Luther King Jr., and E. H. 'Boss' Crump. At the heart of it all is a family haunted by the ghost of the domineering M. A. and the struggle of the author to understand his conflicted loyalties to his father and grandfather."

Alan Lightman (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew

"From the acclaimed author of Einstein's Dreams and Mr. g comes a meditation on the unexpected ways in which recent scientific findings have shaped our understanding of ourselves and our place in the cosmos. With all the passion, curiosity, and precise yet lyrical prose that have marked his previous books, Alan Lightman here explores the emotional and philosophical questions raised by discoveries in science, focusing most intently on the human condition and the needs of humankind. He looks at the difficult dialogue between science and religion, the conflict between our human desire for permanence and the impermanence of nature, the possibility that our universe is simply an accident, the manner in which modern technology has separated us from direct experience of the world, and our resistance to the view that our bodies and minds can be explained by scientific logic and laws. And behind all of these considerations is the suggestion—at once haunting and exhilarating—that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the extraordinary, perhaps unfathomable whole."

Alan Lightman (Author), Bronson Pinchot (Narrator)

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Audiobooks by Alan Lightman

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