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When We Cease to Understand the World

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When We Cease to Understand the World

By: Benjamín Labatut
Narrated by: Adam Barr
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About this listen

Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize.

A Guardian Fiction Book of the year.

Sometimes discovery brings destruction.

When We Cease to Understand the World shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain.

Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger: these are among the luminaries into whose troubled minds we are thrust as they grapple with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, they alienate friends and lovers, they descend into isolated states of madness. Some of their discoveries revolutionise our world for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear.

With breakneck pace and wondrous detail, Benjamín Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to break open the stories of scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.

©2020 Benjamín Labatut (P)2021 Pushkin Press Biographical Fiction Contemporary Fiction Genre Fiction Psychological Fiction Biography

Critic reviews

A monstrous and brilliant book.
-- Philip Pullman

Wholly mesmerising and revelatory... Completely fascinating.
-- William Boyd
All stars
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I really enjoyed this book - it's full of the kind of facts & details, that help to paint a far more colorful & human picture of the various subjects, of which this it is about. It did lose me a bit towards the end, but really great book overall, and very well narrated..

A different perspective

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Unique subject matter. Very interestingly told. Took me so while to get it but once I did I loved it.

Innovative and interesting

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I've found this book enjoyable and informative, the author's style resembles one of W.G Sebald.

Curious

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Is this one book or four? All the real life stories are fascinating but it feels to me that the author had nothing really to say so padded it all out with what I’d call novelistic drivel. I’m guessing he wrote this under contractual obligation.

Rambling and unfocused

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The fiction is highly factual with imaginative license. It takes the detail of the science and what is known about the personalities to give both a critique and a contagion of 20th century genius.

Gripping tale of revolutionary science through the souls off scientists

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