Brief Candle in the Dark

My Life in Science

By: Richard Dawkins

Narrated by: Richard Dawkins

Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

In this hugely entertaining sequel to the New York Times best-selling memoir An Appetite for Wonder, Richard Dawkins delves deeply into his intellectual life spent kick-starting new conversations about science, culture, and religion and writing yet another of the most audacious and widely read books of the 20th century - The God Delusion.

Called "one of the best nonfiction writers alive today" (Stephen Pinker) and a "prize-fighter" (Nature), Richard Dawkins cheerfully, mischievously, looks back on a lifetime of tireless intellectual adventure and engagement. Exploring the halls of intellectual inquiry and stardom he encountered after the publication of his seminal work, The Selfish Gene; affectionately lampooning the world of academia, publishing, and television; and studding the pages with funny stories about the great men and women he's known, Dawkins offers a candid look at the events and ideas that encouraged him to shift his attention to the intersection of culture, religion, and science. He also invites the reader to look more closely at the brilliant succession of ten influential books that grew naturally out of his busy life, highlighting the ideas that connect them and excavating their origins.

On the publication of his tenth book, the smash hit, The God Delusion, a "resounding trumpet blast for truth" (Matt Ridley), Richard Dawkins was catapulted from mere intellectual stardom into a circle of celebrity thinkers dubbed, "The New Atheists" - including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett.

Throughout A Brief Candle in the Dark, Dawkins shares with us his infectious sense of wonder at the natural world, his enjoyment of the absurdities of human interaction, and his bracing awareness of life's brevity: all of which have made a deep imprint on our culture.

The complete list of narrators includes: Mitch Albom, Roger McGuinn, Ingrid Michaelson, John Pizzarelli, Paul Stanley, George Guidall, Mike Hodge, Robin Miles, Christian Baskous, Tony Chiroldes, Kevin O'Neil, and Adriana Sananes, Ken Brown, and Sarab Kamoo.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2015 Richard Dawkins (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers

Exceptional

Narrated by the author who's voice gives the story of Dawkins life the flare with which it was meant to be told. I can only hope to be alive to narrate my own.

one of my most favorite

Richard Dawkins is one of my most favorite scientists. I wish I could know him in private life as I'm quite sure he would be a blast to hang out with. I've been reading his books time and again for several years now and in doing so he has given me answers to some of my hardest questions. From why do dogs die so young in comparison to humans when we are made out of the same flesh and blood, to why are we even here? why do we have contiousness? I enjoy his narration and writing style as well as his wife's and find his choice in friends amongst the scientific community are like my top picks of favorite scientists who I also read from, like Jarod Diamond, Lawrence Kraus, etc.

A dry biography - well read to hold some interest

Academic stories told well, but I won't be passing any along in conversation. I'd like to have heard a background of some of the memes he's generated.

A great read and really do humanize Mr.Dawkins

I love how mr.Dawkins lives a life filled of passion and integrity, both in the professional and the events of the everyday. He has done the world a lot of good and still remains humble and true to his cause.

Hero

Get well soon Professor Dawkins. You sir are my candle in the dark. Thank you.

I'm a Dawkins Groupie but...

... I had to hang in there before this memoir caught me up.

I am a huge fan of Richard Dawkins - just to be up front about that. But it took a bit of persistence to stay with this second half of his memoir. Rather than lay the book out chronologically, he laid it out in "topics." Unfortunately, his first topic was all about the various conferences and talks and other such events in which he had taken part. Except for his discussion of the Royal Society Christmas Lectures, this was fairly dry and uninteresting to me. I was about to give up on this book but then...

...the DH and I went to an appearance of his in Kansas City and were privileged to both attend a small reception for him beforehand (a fund-raiser for his Foundation for Reason and Science for which we paid a tidy sum - full disclosure) followed by his public appearance. where he discussed his book and told stories from it...

...so I decided to stick with the book and am now glad that I did. I of course most loved his discussions of science, but I did end up enjoying the opportunity to learn a bit more about his life on a more personal level.

I enjoyed his narration to such an extent that I don't think the audio version could have been nearly as good without it. He has a lovely sense of humor, for all his very British reserve, and is clearly passionate about his science and the privilege he enjoys to share his knowledge and experience.

A great read.

If you enjoy any of Richards other books, this is a must read. It ties in all of his other books.

Intriguing Second Half of the Autobiography

I really enjoyed this sequel to Dawkins' first autobiography An Appetite for Wonder I've read some of his books and have seen him speak twice, and after reading this two autobiographies I feel like I know him better. Like I said in the review of An Appetite for Wonder, I wish I would've know some of this information when I met him in person. Oh well.

Brief Candle in the Dark held my interest from start to finish. It was full of great science, consistently funny, and always fascinating. This second book starts up where the first left off - right after the publication of The Selfish Gene in 1976 but the events are not in chronological order but are organized by subject. For example, he devotes chapters to his lectures, debates, TV experiences, scientific studies, encounters with other notables of science and society, and other themes.

I was surprised to hear him lightheartedly chat about the time he was lampooned on South Park, considering how that all went down! He has spent time with innumerable big names in the scientific community Some of my favorites: he heaps admiration on to the brilliant planetary scientist Carolyn Porco and her stellar career (who appeared with him at the Dallas event I attended), talks about time spent with Neil Armstrong, and recounts the time spent with the famous paleoanthropologist Richard Leaky, which contains probably the most funny story in the whole book. He also gives a touching tribute to his friend, the great Christopher Hitchens.

To my delight he spends more time in this second installment skewering religion, particularly creationism. He is constantly being attacked by creationists. And when your best selling book is titled The God Delusion religious leaders are going to come after you and challenges to debate arrive fast and furious. One of the funniest anecdotes in this part of the book relates to a lecture with a Q&A he gave in Virginia in which nearby Liberty University (Jerry Fallwell's religious fundamental institution) sent a bunch of students to riddle Dawkins with questions about biblical "facts", fossil dating methods, evolution, etc., and one mentioned that Liberty possessed a three thousand year old dinosaur fossil and what did he think of that? He replied, “leave and go to a proper university”! Another enjoyable rebuttal of religious fundamentalism is his reading from and passionately rebutting a Jehovah Witness pamphlet which portents to explain how the world came about supernaturally rather than from a natural means. Dawkins states, "Creationists have lost ignominiously lost the argument, and deception is their last resort".

Dawkins didn't like debating theologians as he felt it gave them and their beliefs perceived equal footing with science upon the stage. He did some debates, though, and one memorable exchange went like this:

Jesuit Father George Coyne: "God is not an explanation, if I were seeking for a God of explanation I probably would be an atheist".

Richard Dawkins: "That's exactly why I am and atheist. If an all-powerful creator God is really there, how could he not be an explanation for things. Or if he's not the explanation for anything, what exactly does he do with his time to make him worth worshipping?"

He also talks a lot about his intellectual life and does a deep dive in to a few of his research projects. I didn't find these parts of the book as enjoyable as his personal anecdotes but the science was always fascinating and it was interesting to hear him talk about his thought processes and theories.

I listened to him narrate this on Audible. I think that's the way to experience this Richard is a great speaker. Admirers of him will enjoy his anecdotes and appreciate learning what makes this great scientist tick.

What Richard did next

I’ve never been much of a one for reading memoirs. I read Churchill’s memoirs from his World War II period, but that felt more like a history than a memoir. The reason I chose to listen to Dawkins' autobiography was that he, like Churchill I suppose, is one of my heroes. The Selfish Gene and the God Delusion changed my life twice over a 25 year period, and I’ve always enjoyed anything he’s ever written (although I confess I didn’t finish the Ancestor’s Tale).

What I like about Dawkins is his ability to explain concepts with superb clarity and rapier-sharp logic, using brilliant examples to illustrate his ideas. In a memoir you don’t really get much of this (except during occasional digressions, which were my favourite parts of the book). You do get some insights into what it is like to be Richard Dawkins (during the second half of his life at least, this being part 2 of his memoirs) and this is amusing and entertaining, but not riveting, fascinating or life-changing.

There is a structure to the book in that it is in chronological order, but aside from this it feels very casual and unstructured, just a series of anecdotes about the things that he got up to. There’s a lot of name-dropping, but not because he wants to impress us with the famous people he’s met, just that he has been increasingly surrounded by famous people and it would be silly to deliberately omit them from his story.

So, if you like Dawkins and you can tolerate the relatively mundane milieu of a memoir, then I’d say this book is definitely worth a listen. I never got at all bored or wanted to switch off, I just didn’t learn anything that altered my World View. It’s probably unreasonable to expect anything so transformative from a memoir.

Good book by prof Dawkins.

Interesting and informative
Prof Dawkins books are all high quality and these memoirs are enjoyable and easy listening