Audio only
Earthly Materials
Journeys Through Our Bodies' Emissions, Excretions, and DisintegrationsBy Cutter WoodNarrated by Josh BloombergLength10h 52m
About this audiobook
Bill Bryson’s The Body meets Mary Roach’s Gulp (with a dash of What’s Your Poo Telling You?) in this delightfully weird, richly informative, and unexpectedly lyrical tour of our bodily emissions—revealing that the very parts of us that we seek to hide in embarrassment are actually an essential part of human health, with fascinating social history.
In biology class, we learn that the body is a fundamentally cohesive organism, a collection of organs and tissues working together to a common purpose, all overseen by the brain and wrapped up tidily in a covering of skin. But while this idea of the body isn’t false, it fails to give us a complete picture in one crucial way: though the system appears tidy and self-contained on the page, in reality it is far from it. Whether it is blowing its nose, mopping sweat from its brow, or excusing itself to the restroom, the human organism is essentially porous.
Our bodies continuously shed material, and while we often think of these materials as wastes, they serve far more complex functions. The exchange, elimination, and frequent disguise of our effluence has been elemental to the development of human civilization, and our lives today are still governed by a host of laws and superstitions and social mores about the materials our bodies leave behind.
In thirteen discrete chapters, Earthly Materials tells a story about one of the materials the human body sheds—from breath and urine to vomit and tears. Sometimes the questions examined are historical. What have we physically done with all the urine produced in our cities? Sometimes they approach the matter through a philosophical lens. Is it ever logical to cry? Sometimes they explore recent scientific discoveries. How does mucus undermine our understanding of natural selection? But they always offer a window into how we negotiate our place in the world and how we get along with one another.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
Audiobook details
GenreScience and Nature, History
Length10 hrs 52 mins
Narrated byJosh Bloomberg
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateApr 29, 2025
LanguageEnglish
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Story of BirdsSteve Brusatte11h 49m4.6 (401)$29 · $0.00
Life On Earth 40th Anniversary EditionSir David Attenborough12h 27m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
LiftoffEric Berger9h 4m4.6 (9.5K)$29 · $0.00
Black Earth WisdomLeah Penniman11h 54m4.6 (577)$8 · $0.00
Total Cat MojoJackson Galaxy10h 13m4.5 (8.4K)$23 · $0.00
My Life Among the UnderdogsTia Torres5h 51m4.5 (4K)$24 · $0.00
What It Takes to Save a LifeKwane Stewart6h4.6 (556)$24 · $0.00
Pastoral SongJames Rebanks8h 35m4.5 (12K)$26 · $0.00
How Stella Learned to TalkChristina Hunger7h4.5 (10.9K)$24 · $0.00
Craig & FredCraig Grossi8h 6m4.5 (9.6K)$26 · $0.00
Celebrating BirdsNatalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez6h 47m4.6 (330)$24 · $0.00
Saving JemimaJulie Zickefoose4h 59m4.5 (749)$20 · $0.00
Will's Red CoatTom Ryan8h 23m4.5 (2.3K)$26 · $0.00
Of Time and TurtlesSy Montgomery10h 34m4.5 (5K)$29 · $0.00
Zen and the Art of Saving the PlanetThich Nhat Hanh9h 20m4.5 (3.9K)$29 · $0.00
BLACK BEAUTY (With Original Illustrations)Anna Sewell7h 31m4.5 (1.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
Bottle of LiesKatherine Eban14h 25m4.4 (12K)$33 · $0.00
IngrainedCallum Robinson8h 10m4.5 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Black AF HistoryMichael Harriot15h 43m4.7 (14.6K)$33 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m4.7 (8.9K)$46 · $0.00
Pearl of Great PriceJoseph Smith3h 8m4.7 (7.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m4.7 (2.5K)$40 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m4.7 (351)$20 · $0.00
RevolutionariesSanjeev Sanyal11h 23m4.6 (2.6K)$29 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m4.6 (2.6K)$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
You may also like
Bouvard & Pécuchet (French Classics Series)Gustave Flaubert12h 24m3.9 (5.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Ethics of AristotleAristotle9h 36m4.2 (62K)Free
The Story of PhilosophyWill Durant19h 28m4.2 (30.3K)$32
The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; the Art of Controversy (Annotated)Arthur Schopenhauer4h 28m3.8 (19.7K)$2 · $0.00
There Is Simply Too Much to Think AboutSaul Bellow20h 28m4.0 (272)$30
SophistPlato5h 18m4.1 (4.3K)$2.30
Following the Equator: A Journey Around the WorldMark Twain19h 11m4.1 (2.1K)$1 · $0.00
PersuadableAl Pittampalli7h 3m4.2 (296)$24 · $0.00
If the Oceans Were InkCarla Power12h 35m4.2 (2.9K)$20 · $0.00
Republican Like MeKen Stern7h 52m3.9 (1K)$26 · $0.00
Englisch lernen Audio - Die besten Stadttouren in LondonSpotlight Verlag59m$12
Masterworks That Defined the Utilitarian Tradition – 4 Classic Moral Philosophy TextsAdam Smith, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, Henry Sidgwick54h 31m$2
A Brief History of Modern Philosophy (Annotated)Harald Høffding11h 23m$2 · $0.00
The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia & On a Chinese Screen (Annotated)William Somerset Maugham12h$2 · $0.00
Japanese Plays and PlayfellowsOsman Edwards8h 54m$2 · $0.00
Begging for AttentionOsho1h 23m4.1 (15)$4 · $0.00
My American DiaryClare Sheridan7h 19m$2 · $0.00
Business-Englisch lernen Audio - Sich auf Englisch bewerbenCarol Scheunemann, Ken Taylor1h 13m$17
CHES Exam Study GuideMarie Peterson9h 49m$13
Conservatize MeJohn Moe5h 31m3.4 (359)$24 · $0.00