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The Ancestor's Tale

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About this listen

 The Ancestor's Tale is a pilgrimage back through time - a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about six million years in the past, gorillas at seven million years, orangutans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band.

The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales. Each explores an aspect of evolutionary biology through the stories of characters met along the way or glimpsed from afar: the Elephant Bird's Tale, the Marsupial Mole's Tale, the Lungfish's Tale. Together they give a deep understanding of the processes that have shaped life on Earth: convergent evolution, the isolation of populations, continental drift, and the great extinctions.

©2004 Richard Dawkins; (P)2004 Orion Publishing Group Ltd Biological Sciences Biology Evolution Evolution & Genetics Genetics Science Natural History Thought-Provoking Paleontology Elephant
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With talent and style, R Dawkins leads us through the maze of ancestry, origins, confraternity between the species, and places all this information in the context of the universe, which he also explains with consumate care and seeming ease for those of us who are not scientists of any kind.
It is book to listen to time and again, whose depths mirror those of the very universe he helps us to envisage. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

an intelligible tale

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Loved listening to the book. Authors ability to convince and his knowledge is inspiring.

Superb book

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Definitely. All Dawkins books open your eyes that little bit more

Any additional comments?

Simply must read them all

Understanding the world makes it more wonderful

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Catapulting backwards through time, with a cast of characters from Apes, to Anemones, and Amoebas, this book is a must listen for anyone with even a passing interest in the natural world, and required reading for all budding biologists.

Narrated masterfully by Dawkins and Ward, engaing, well paced and never patronising the pilgrimage winds its way through the millenia, illuminating here, clarifying there, and always leaving open the door for futher exploration. The smaller the ancestor the larger the sense of wonder at what has been discovered and how much work is left to be done.

This book will make you appreciate the natural world and our place in it as humans, without ever belittling or browbeating. Calmly confounding counterarguments and admiting that what the authors know they dont know, with a little more work, it might be possible to find out.

Adventure story masquerading as a text book

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The first thing that struck me about this audio is that they are different to the book. Not only are they abridged but the language is changed to emphasize different points & to be more palatable to the ear. With reading the book, a lot of the stuff flew over my head (e.g. Cholanoflagellates) & I'm glad such things are abridged here.

The second is the presence of Lalla Ward, who seems to cover the large quotations Dawkins often uses in his works & also seems to read the more technical (or rather more mundane) parts of the tales. Having listened to the whole of Origin of Species, I am thankful that the narrator varies a bit as occasionally Dawkins can read things as known that are unknown to his wife (& so read differently).

In terms of content there is still the rich variety of tales (including my favourite: the Duck-billed Platypus) & I can only recall a few interesting Gambits which have been left out (e.g. Eve evolving 40,000 years before Adam & the Paedomorphosis of Man story).

My one criticism is that the Ancestor's tale is very detailed & involves lots of left-brain work. If you are listening to this in a car (or even typing a review!) then it is hard to fully follow the reasoning. Maybe this is because Men can't multi-task, but I'd be bold enough to suggest that even women may find this difficult...

To conclude then, audio books are often overlooked as a medium & it is to this one's credit that it is adapted to the ear, just as the book is adapted to the eye. If you know of anyone who hasn't read the book then I'd suggest giving them this as a starter, and the hard backed version of the book (with its shiny pictures) as a main course. As one of my fellow reviewers says: 1 copy of this book should be given to every member of mankind, to put the doubts about evolution to rest. Whatever you can do to play your part is to your credit.

The same notes but a different symphony

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