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    An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist
    An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist
    An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist
    Audiobook7 hours

    An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist

    Written by Richard Dawkins

    Narrated by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    New York Timesbestselling author and renowned atheist and evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins delivers an intimate look into his own childhood and intellectual development, illuminating his path to becoming one of the foremost thinkers in modern science today

      

    “A memoir that is funny and modest, absorbing and playful. Dawkins has written a marvelous love letter to science . . . and for this, the book will touch scientists and science-loving persons . . . Enchanting.” —NPR

      
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateSep 24, 2013
    ISBN9780062283566
    Author

    Richard Dawkins

    RICHARD DAWKINS is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008. He is the author of 15 books includingUnweaving the Rainbow, A Devil’s Chaplain, and The God Delusion.Dawkins lives in Oxford.,

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    Reviews for An Appetite for Wonder

    4/5

    40 ratings19 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This book has a lot of interest, and I'm looking forward to the sequel. At the same time, it felt a bit clumsy, as Dawkins interjects remarks about evolution into his discussions of his own origins. Later he discusses his loss of faith. This is similarly clumsy, but appropriately so, as he was just a teenager when he became an atheist and teenagers don't have the sophisticated thought processes of adults.The book is very British, Dawkins seems to belong to a club of privileged British men who somehow managed to do rather well on the momentum of a dying empire. Simon Winchester seems like another example. It also recalled to me Roald Dahl's "Going Solo", a memoir of Dahl's experiences as an RAF pilot during WWII.The discussions of Dawkins's early programming activities on the early primitive computers are delightfully quaint and remind me of Douglas Adams and the TV show "Children of the Stones", which is so very British '70s.The discussions of early experiments, the origins of Dawkins best-seller "The Selfish Gene", and its reception make me want to reread that book. I read it for the first and only time in the '80s, when I was in high school and found it fascinating, but now I can barely remember it.At the end of the book he discusses his own character, and asks how it was that he ended up where he is now. But he doesn't really say where he is. I'ld say he ended up at a fancy college through privilege, intelligence, and luck, and became a celebrity by picking a culturally polarizing topic to hammer away at. There is no need for any further explanation.There is a really rude review of this book by someone called John Gray on the New Republic website. This guy just dislikes Dawkins, and so he makes bizarre attacks on him based on subjects that he left out of his memoir. For example, Dawkins doesn't talk a lot about colonialism or its ills, although he lived for some time in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa. John Gray thinks this is an opportunity to illustrate Dawkins's smugness and insensitivity, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that he went back to England permanently at the age of 8, and that this is a memoir about his own recollections and development. Perhaps he wasn't doing much deep thinking about colonialism at the age of eight. John Gray sternly refuses to let him off the hook for it, though.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      In this first part of his memoirs, Dawkins describes his life up to the publication of The selfish gene with all the clarity, wit and modest authority you would expect. He talks about his empire-building, botanising ancestors, his early childhood in Africa, his schools, and his development as a biologist at Oxford. And of course he has fun showing how likely or unlikely it is from a scientific point of view that any of those influences were what shaped the sort of scientist he became. This is more of a conventional narrative autobiography than Brief Candle, with less actual science and fewer anecdotes and famous names (but oddly it does include several anecdotes that also appear in the other book). I don’t know if this is the sort of inspirational autobiography you would put in the Christmas stocking of a budding young scientist, but it is a lively and interesting read. Dawkins describes in Brief Candle how much he enjoyed recording audio versions of his books, and that pleasure comes over very clearly in the way he reads this one. He’s an excellent, fluent reader, who seems to intrude his own personality just to the right amount, without any distracting theatrics.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Fascinating account of how Dawkins became what he is today through hard work and obvious intellect.
    • 5/5
      Richard Dawkins is a very engaging writer. I was curious about one of my favorite authors, and got this book because as I glanced through the pages in the airport bookstore, I kept getting snagged by his anecdotes. As other reviewers have pointed out, his life is not particularly oddball and his anecdotes are not particularly strange or funny, but that's not what I was looking for. What he is able to do really well is explain why each anecdote is important to his life as a whole. I appreciate that a lot!
    • 5/5
      Had it all. nice stories, interesting characters, a path of discovery through a life that was rich and full, explain complex ideas in a simple way, made me curious about thinks I didn't know... a wonderful book!
    • 4/5
      The sunny and unpretentious character of he eminent author comes out clearly. This is a first volume of his reminiscences, covering the period to the publication of his first best-seller, The Selfish Gene. What is not so clear is how he transitions from a fairly unremarkable childhood, to university and a great scientist and writer. Perhaps his second volume will overcome his natural modesty and explain his transformation!
    • 5/5
      The author’s understanding of this age as mere a stage in the Development of the mankind.
    • 4/5
      I found the first half of this audiobook the most interesting as Dawkins talks about his childhood and schooling. In the second half he got more into science, which is fine, however for a memoir I am more interested in learning about the person. (Hawkings did the same in his memoir.) Looking forward to reading or listening to the sequel, "Brief Candle in the Dark", at some point in the future.
    • 2/5
      A fair read it is, especially for its literary advantages. Only not as personal as the title's footnote might suggest.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable
    • 3/5
      An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist by Richard Dawkins
      307 pages

      ★★★ ½

      Richard Dawkins is a prominent ethologist (study of animal behavior) and evolutionary biologist who has published several books on his theories, garnering much attention along the way. One may not always agree with his thoughts but I personally find him to be a very brilliant man and a talented writer on his subjects. This book is his memoir of his childhood up to the publishing of his first book The Selfish Gene in 1976. He plans to publish a second part in a couple years.

      So with his talent on writing about science, how did he do about writing his own life? Not bad. I have to admit that I was much more intrigued by the first half of this book in which he deals with his childhood and his schooling before going into college. His life as a child was an interesting one and it explains a lot about who he would become later on in life. The second part of this book? Not quite as interesting in my opinion. It is in the second part that he starts his true calling as a scientist and I did find parts fascinating but he had a habit of rambling and when the man gets into a scientific theory, try to stop him. Many sections in the second part read like a scientific journal or like one of his many books (in fact he yanked whole paragraphs from his thesis and first book and placed them into this memoir) and honestly if I wanted that much scientific theory… I would have read one of his scientific theory books. I would have been more interested in a more personal view but overall he left that out once he got into his college years. Yeah yeah, I get it, he’s a biologist so why wouldn’t he talk about his work? But I wish he had balanced it out a bit at the end. With that being said, I still find Dawkins to be a very interesting man and I look forward to his second book (although I fear he will just have a book full of paragraphs from his later books).
    • 3/5
      Richard Dawkins is one of my favorite science educators alive today He does a wonderful job explaining the truth and fact behind science, as well as why we should all care and understand.Dawkins was the product of a diverse childhood, his younger years in Africa holding out until the end of WW 2, then coming to England where he is educated in some of the top schools in the world. In his professional career as a scientist, he dabbles in computer programming and is proud of some of his programming accomplishments that helped abet his research. The result (and culmination of this book, which ends at the beginning of his career as a well-known author and science celebrity) is his seminal book. The Selfish Gene.Much of this book is childhood and college anecdotes which, while memorable to Mr. Dawkins, aren't so interesting to those of us who probably "had to be there." I'll probably read the second half of his autobiography when published next year, I think his work as an author and science advocate is far more interesting.
    • 3/5
      An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist by Richard DawkinsRichard Dawkins leads the charge of the “New Atheism along with Sam Harris, David Dennett, and the recently departed Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens was either correct in his beliefs, or he has now found out exactly how wrong he was.Of the three writers, Hitchens is the most erudite and eclectic, Sam Harris tends to a shade toward pedantic and academic, Daniel Dennett, a philosopher, is interesting and logical without being abrasive, and Dawkins is the scientist, always piling on evidence to support his views.Of course, Dawkins is most well-known for his 2006 New York Times bestseller, The God Delusion. In it, he outlined the scientific and philosophical underpinnings of theNew Atheism. One of the most intriguing ideas he put forth was a scale of belief in God. The scale ran from one – absolute belief in a Deity coupled with a refusal to consider any evidence to the contrary – to seven – an absolute rejection of a Deity coupled with a refusal to consider any evidence to the contrary. Dawkins places himself at six: no evidence of a deity, but willing to consider any evidence to the contrary.When his autobiography, An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist recently came out, I couldn’t wait to read it. Unfortunately, the book did not meet my expectations, and I had only a mild interest in a few parts.Dawkins begins the story with his ancestry, which included a string of seven Anglican Vicars. He spent his early years in Africa with his parents, who were colonial officials posted there by the British Government. He finished his education at a private school – known as “public schools” in England, and finished at Cambridge University. Most of these college years discuss important members of the faculty who mentored and influenced him. But rather annoyingly, he quoted fragments of numerous drinking songs he recalled with fondness. He then describes in great detail his dissertation research along with – YIKES! – great gobs of math and statistics. These chapters left me in the dust. I did find the many early pictures of Dawkins, his family, friends, and mentors quite interesting, as was an extensive family tree.Overall, however, I must say I was disappointed in the story. Many pages were spent in telling stories of his youth which were neither funny – to me – nor interesting – again to me. I would love to come across a review praising the book, and now that I have written my own review, I will do just that.Since the book ended at the first half of his life, so far, I will have to wait for the second volume to completely judge Richard Dawkins autobiography, An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist and his talents as a memoirist.--Jim, 11/22/13
    • 5/5
      The (first half of the) autobiography of the world famous evolutinary biologist and militant atheist form his childhodd to the release of his forst book 'The Selfish gene'. Interesting and enjoyable reading.
    • 4/5
      The first volume of Richard Dawkins shows clearly how the author was born into a life of privilege. With only a short chapter describing the author's parents and grand-parent, the biography starts with the story of Dawkins earliest youth in Kenya, Africa, spanning a mere four years. Subsequent chapters describe his schooling, first in the British public school system, and then at university. The best schools, and the best universities, were natural choices in the 1960s for young upper-class men with a pedigree. They benefitted full from the education system before the wave of democratization brought down levels. An appetite for wonder. The making of a scientist describes some wonderful experiences of growing up in an old family, with observations about the world of a university education which is now no longer the same.The second half of the book is devoted to describing the first stages of Richard Dawkins' career, describing early research and findings. This part is fairly technical, and difficult, and not really interesting or comprehesible to a more general readership. It requires quite some knowledge and a deep interest in animal bahavior. To biologists, this part is more revelant, and it interestingly describes Dawkins' experience with Nobel Prize winner Niko Tinbergen.An appetite for wonder. The making of a scientist may be interesting to readers interested in British colonial history and the British public school system. But this part is covered by the first 150 pages.
    • 4/5
      I had no idea this book was coming out. I stumbled on it, quite by accident, in a pre-Christmas sale display at a local bookstore. My father has both an avid interest in science and a lifelong philosophy of skepticism, and I recalled that he had read and enjoyed (well, been intrigued by - that's about as good as you can ever get with my dad) a couple of Dawkins books in the past. Personally, I'm at least passingly familiar with Dawkins' fame/notoriety, though I admit I got there largely through following the career of his wife (the actress Lalla Ward). Dad doesn't read many books each year, but I thought this might be one we could read "alone together" and use as the basis for conversation. It gets hard, you know, when you and your parents get older and you realize your interests have diverged. It makes the telephone conversations hard.So with that in mind, I gave the book to my dad for Christmas, and he is, I think, working his way through it slowly. I decided to get a copy from my university library and read it so I would be prepared. To be honest, I found the initial chapters hard going. Although I was intrigued by Dawkins' descriptions of growing up in 1940s colonial Africa, much of the writing seems derived from study of his mother's journals and his own...well, shall we say, postulations. That lends a detached and sometimes even condescending air to his prose, and there are times in those childhood sequences when he digresses as firmly and didactically as any Christian evangelist. While my own philosophy is broadly atheistic, I found Dawkins' musings on the potential harm of fairy stories and the need to foster skeptical thinking in children more than a little self-righteous. Yeah, we get it, Richard. We get that you think the belief in the "power of prayer" is misguided. Staring down your nose at those who do believe in it doesn't add any credence - or, indeed, interest - to your argument. And again, I say this as a non-religious person who broadly agrees with his point of view. Fortunately, once Dawkins moves out of childhood and into his living memory, the book greatly improves. His early exploits at Oxford are quite interesting, if a little foreign to a reader who works in the American university system, and I really enjoyed his reflective journey through his early experiments with behavioral predispositions in animals and the development of his "selfish gene" theory. I blazed through the second half of the book, frankly, and it leaves me wanting to pick up the second volume when it comes out in (he predicts) two years' time. I'm also quite interested to read The Selfish Gene - and as I do not have my father's natural scientific inclination, that comes as quite a surprise. An Appetite for Wonder, then, is a game of two halves. Once we set into the young Dawkins' wonder at science, yes, the book is excellent reading. Getting to that point is occasionally a little awkward, at least to this reader, but thankfully, the eventual goal is well worth attaining.
    • 4/5
      Dawkins is a rare animal - a top level scientist who writes well.I have read all his books for the general reader over the last 30 years, so I looked forward to learning more about the man behind the books in this biography.In more recent years, as Dawkins has become a noted voice for atheism, I have seen commentary that suggested that he was unnaturally aggressive or abrasive, to the point that I was being led to a view that he might be a little autistic - highly gifted in his area(s) of speciality, but lacking interpersonal skills or empathy.While an autobiography is hardly a disinterested source, I am satisfied now that Dawkins is totally normal - he probably does intensely annoy some people, but the reaction is more to do with his strongly held and persuasively presented views, and his capacity for carefully skewering careless thinking in others, than anything to do with his personal make-up.A well written book, with enough personal history to flesh out the person without being self-indulgent, and neatly combined with candid reflections on the person in the past versus the person he is now.Read September 2014.
    • 3/5
      A memoir covering childhood through the beginning of his scientific career. Engaging, interesting and insightful.
    • 3/5
      Richard Dawkins is a brilliant man. His theories and research are fascinating, however his life's journey is just a little more than ordinary. That's why I found the chapters of this book discussing his research processes to be a lot more interesting than the rest of his book.