Alex & Me
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Narrated by:
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Julia Gibson
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By:
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Irene Pepperberg
About this listen
What would normally be a quiet, very private event was, in Alex's case, headline news. Over the 30 years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous - two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast world of animal minds. Alex's brain was the size of a shelled walnut, and when Irene and Alex first met, birds were not believed to possess any potential for language, consciousness, or anything remotely comparable to human intelligence. Yet, over the years, Alex proved many things. He could add. He could sound out words. He understood concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none. He was capable of thought and intention. Together, Alex and Irene uncovered a startling reality: We live in a world populated by thinking, conscious creatures.
The fame that resulted was extraordinary. Yet there was a side to their relationship that never made the papers. They were emotionally connected to one another. They shared a deep bond far beyond science. Alex missed Irene when she was away. He was jealous when she paid attention to other parrots, or even people. He liked to show her who was boss. He loved to dance. He sometimes became bored by the repetition of his tests, and played jokes on her. Sometimes they sniped at each other. Yet nearly every day, they each said, "I love you."
Alex and Irene stayed together through thick and thin - despite sneers from experts, extraordinary financial sacrifices, and a nomadic existence from one university to another. The story of their 30-year adventure is equally a landmark of scientific achievement and of an unforgettable human-animal bond.
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After 30 years of language research using her pet parrot, Alex, as the principal subject, Dr. Pepperberg contends that her bird's level of comprehension equaled that of chimps and dolphins. Although her work and conclusions have not been widely accepted, she provides enough data from her records for listeners to evaluate her methods and decide for themselves. Narrator Julia Gibson chooses a diminutive voice as her rendition of the author speaking, maybe because she wants to emphasize the warm relationship of owner and pet more than the rigorous science of the story. Gibson makes no attempt to imitate Alex as he works on his lessons, missing a precious opportunity for characterization.
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Tim Gunn, America's favorite reality TV cohost, is known for his kind but firm approach in providing wisdom, guidance, and support to the scores of design hopefuls on Project Runway. Having begun his fashion career as a teacher at Parsons The New School for Design, Tim knows more than a thing or two about mentorship and how to convey invaluable pearls of wisdom in an approachable, accessible manner.
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Life lessons for All
- By Trendy on 03-11-16
By: Tim Gunn, and others
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The Boy Who Loved Too Much
- A True Story of Pathological Friendliness
- By: Jennifer Latson
- Narrated by: Heather Auden
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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What would it be like to see everyone as a friend? Twelve-year-old Eli D'Angelo has a genetic disorder that obliterates social inhibitions, making him irrepressibly friendly, indiscriminately trusting, and unconditionally loving toward everyone he meets. It also makes him enormously vulnerable. Eli lacks the innate skepticism that will help his peers navigate adolescence more safely - and vastly more successfully.
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Williams Syndrome
- By Sharlotte on 09-20-19
By: Jennifer Latson
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Sally Ride
- America's First Woman in Space
- By: Lynn Sherr
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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A member of the first astronaut class to include women, NASA chose her for the seventh shuttle mission, inspiring several generations of women. After a second flight, Ride served on the panels investigating the Challenger explosion and the Columbia disintegration that killed all aboard. In both instances, she faulted NASA's rush to meet mission deadlines and its organizational failures. She also cofounded a company promoting science and education for children, especially girls.
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Captivating
- By Jean on 06-12-14
By: Lynn Sherr
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Street Gang
- The Complete History of Sesame Street
- By: Michael Davis
- Narrated by: Caroll Spinney
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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When the first episode aired on Nov. 10, 1969, Sesame Street revolutionized the way education was presented to children on television. It has since become the longest-running children's show in history, and today reaches 8 million pre-schoolers on 350 PBS stations and airs in 120 countries. Street Gang is the compelling and often comical story of the creation and history of this media masterpiece and pop culture landmark.
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An important subject, but hardly gripping
- By Scott T. Hards on 09-24-10
By: Michael Davis
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Babel No More
- The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners
- By: Michael Erard
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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We all learn at least one language as children. But what does it take to learn six languages...or seventy? In Babel No More, Michael Erard, "a monolingual with benefits," sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages; Emil Krebs, a pugnacious German diplomat, who spoke sixty-eight languages; and Lomb Kat, a Hungarian who taught herself Russian by reading Russian romance novels.
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Heavy on anecdote, light on science
- By S. Yates on 07-15-16
By: Michael Erard
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The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
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Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
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A Fractured Mind
- My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder
- By: Robert B. Oxnam
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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At the peak of his professional career, after having led the Asia Society for nearly a decade, Oxnam was haunted by periodic blackouts and episodic rages. After his family and friends intervened, Oxnam received help from a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffery Smith, and entered a rehab center. It wasn't until 1990, during a session with Dr. Smith, that the first of Oxnam's 11 alternate personalities, an angry young boy named Tommy, suddenly emerged.
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A solid look at a rare disorder
- By O. Canosa on 11-23-07
By: Robert B. Oxnam
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A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home
- Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher
- By: Sue Halpern
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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At loose ends with her daughter leaving home and her husband on the road, Sue Halpern decided to give herself and Pransky, her under-occupied Labradoodle, a new leash - er, lease - on life by getting the two of them certified as a therapy dog team. Smart, spirited, and instinctively compassionate, Pransky turned out to be not only a terrific therapist but an unerring moral compass. In the unlikely sounding arena of a public nursing home, she led her teammate into a series of encounters with the residents that revealed depths of warmth, humor, and insight Halpern hadn't expected.
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my mistake!
- By joyce on 02-02-14
By: Sue Halpern
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The Gift of Adversity
- The Unexpected Benefits of Life's Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections
- By: Norman E. Rosenthal M.D.
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The noted research psychiatrist explores how life's disappointments and difficulties provide us with the lessons we need to become better, bigger, and more resilient human beings. Adversity is an irreducible fact of life. Although we can and should learn from all experiences, both positive and negative best-selling author Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal believes that adversity is by far the best teacher most of us will ever encounter.
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Book ruined by the narrator
- By David C. on 12-07-22
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Truth Doesn't Have a Side
- My Alarming Discovery About the Danger of Contact Sports
- By: Dr. Bennet Omalu, Mark Tabb, Will Smith - foreword
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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One day in 2002 the 50-year old body of former Pittsburgh Steeler and hall of famer Mike Webster was laid on a cold table in front of pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu. Webster's body looked to Omalu like the body of a much older man, and the circumstances of his behavior prior to his death were clouded in mystery. But when Omalu cut into Webster's brain, it appeared to be normal. Something didn't add up.
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Truly Enlightening
- By Marie on 01-31-20
By: Dr. Bennet Omalu, and others
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The Humor Code
- A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny
- By: Peter McGraw, Joel Warner
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Peter McGraw, founder of the Humor Research Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, teamed up with journalist Joel Warner on a far-reaching search for the secret behind humor. Their journey spanned the globe, from New York to Japan, from Palestine to the Amazon. Meanwhile, the duo conducted their own humor experiments along the way-to wince-worthy, hilarious, and illuminating results.
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Real research and a scientific theory of humor!
- By Dianne on 05-22-15
By: Peter McGraw, and others
What listeners say about Alex & Me
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Barbara
- 12-28-08
Too Much "& Me", not enough Alex
I was very much looking forward to this book but, by the end, I was disappointed. The first hour (or so) is a tedious biography of Irene Pepperberg; the last 45 minutes is a long philosophical discourse, after Alex's death, about The Meaning of It All. Blah, blah, blah - I finally shut it off. Irene indulges in way too much neurotic navel-gazing. Poor Irene. One inevitably concludes that many of her trials and tribulations are a direct result of her own abrasive personality.
The narrator is monotonic, and since the writing is formal in style (the author seems to have a bias against the use of contractions), it seems as though the listener/reader is assumed to be a bit slow.
In summary,I would have preferred to hear much more about Alex and much less about "& Me".
To quote Alex: "Say better."
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8 people found this helpful
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- Gillian
- 06-05-17
The Cognitive Studies Of A Remarkable Bird
Don't expect warm and mushy from "Alex & Me" as Pepperberg goes to great lengths to state that she made it her duty to keep distance from Alex. There are relatively few precious scenes about their relationship; most the book is the chronicling of the many studies which prove that gray parrots, Alex in particular, are sentient beings with an astounding ability to learn and relate/commune with another species, our own.
There is indeed, however, a good deal of genuine caring, of true respect between the two and it is clear that there was a strong bond between them. Pepperberg would go as far as bringing Alex to her home during down time, that is until he spotted two predatory owls outside the window. Despite Irene closing the curtains, Alex could not be comforted, proving that, despite the prevailing scientific thought at the time, even though he couldn't see them anymore, to him the owls still existed.
It's a fascinating book, pretty funny at times, and ultimately heartbreaking at the end. The studies may still go on, but with this book, at least the memory of Alex goes on too.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Silver
- 01-20-09
Very Good Book about a Very Controversial Subject
What Irene and Alex Pepperberg did for Animal language understanding and comprehension is incredible. This book is a tale from the beginning of that change of mindset. The road to changing the minds of scientists of both allowing females doing serious research and changing the idea that animals do more than just react to stimuli, isn't an easy thing to travel. After listening to this book with all the things that Alex was able to do and teach, I would think that being called a bird brain wouldn't be an insult. We all have heard parrots say they want a cracker, but Alex showed us that they can understand what it means to actually want one.
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1 person found this helpful
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- SoCal Walker
- 07-26-10
Animal cognition and scientific careers.
The story of Alex the Parrot is jaw-dropping by any standards, but Pepperberg also does a great job of telling it in this book. It's not only a story about the amazing conceptual achievements of this bird, but also about Pepperberg's struggle to keep funding the lab on a shoestring, and the struggle to be taken seriously with a scientific project that was genuinely original, and therefore originally dismissed by many as nonsense.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 06-02-18
wonderful book, emotionally and intellectually.
my husband and I loved listening to this tale of an emotional and intellectual bond between a parrot and a scientist. good for the mind, sweet to the ears.
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- Diane C.
- 06-18-17
Wow!
So well done and easy to understand. Fun comparing primate language learner and avian learning.
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- Sanni
- 01-24-12
Pepperperg's memoir
A little bit self repeating story. I expected more about the actual studies. Anyway, nice to learn something new about the pioneer of animal cognition research.
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5 people found this helpful
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- R'Nita Valentia Rabelais
- 11-06-16
interesting story, fascinating bird
the intro seemed like over kill, and it took 2 chapters just to get to alex. the story of alex was amazing, but the author could have made the story less dry and more personal. the ending seemed abrupt, like alex's. after such an extensive intro, the ending seemed rushed and contrived. wesley the owl was much better. but given all the faults i've noted here, i would still recommend this book to everyone.
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- Yellow Rose
- 01-01-19
Bird Brain? NOT!
I loved listening to Irene’s story of her research project starring Alex, an African Grey Parret. Alex was an intelligent, intuitive, and precocious parrot who I couldn’t help but grow to love. The research Irene accomplished with Alex is amazing. Irene Pepperberg describes Alex so well, I almost felt like I knew him. Julia Gibson does a terrific job of narrating this book, capturing the voice of Alex through Irene’s words. I found this book interesting, funny, and poignant.
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- Stephanie
- 09-29-22
I always new Alex was Amazing!
To hear a larger encompassed history and Marvel of Alex is mind blowing, despite know there is more to other animals than the human race gives them credit for. After all, we too are animals.
From the Factual history background story how this book was put together chapter by chapter to the narration all of it is mesmerizing!
Over the years hearing and learning about Alex and knowing that he pasted long before expected. I remind myself, he left so early because we still are not ready for the vast capacity of intelligence he was capable of teaching us.
Thank you Alex and Pepperberg for share your wealth of knowledge…and all those who had a hand in it!!
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