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Enchanted Creatures

Our Monsters and Their Meanings

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Enchanted Creatures

By: Natalie Lawrence
Narrated by: Natalie Lawrence
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About this listen

The hydra rears its many heads in a flurry of teeth and poisonous fumes. The cyborg lays waste to humanity with a ruthless, expressionless stare.

From ancient mythology to modern science fiction, we have had to confront the monsters that lurk in the depths of our collective imagination. They embody our anxieties and our irrational terrors, giving form to what we don't wish to know or understand. For millennia, monsters have helped us to manage the extraordinary complexity of our minds and to deal with the challenges of being human.

In Enchanted Creatures, Natalie Lawrence delves into 15,000 years of imaginary beasts and uncovers the other-worldly natural history that has evolved with our deepest fears and fascinations. Join Lawrence on a tour of prehistoric cave monsters, serpentine hybrids, deep-sea leviathans and fire-breathing Kaiju. Discover how this monstrous menagerie has shaped our minds, our societies and how we see our place in nature.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Natalie Lawrence (P)2024 Orion Publishing Group Limited Anthropology Customs & Traditions Philosophy Psychology Thought-Provoking

Critic Reviews

Wide-ranging and full of passion for the pernicious and downright peculiar monsters we have dreamed up over thousands of years. It's scary what the mind can conjure (Daisy Dunn, author of THE MISSING THREAD)
A thrilling, compellingly readable account of the biology of the creatures that squirm, crawl, gallop and prowl through your subconscious. Read it to know what you really are (CHARLES FOSTER, author of Cry of the Wild)
Enchanted Creatures plumbs the depths of science, mythology, art and human psychology, inviting us to question everything we know about the nature of chaos and control, the monsters lurking in the darkness, in broad daylight and within our own minds. It expertly weaves together the threads of academia with spellbinding storytelling and beautiful illustrations. This is a book to read with the lights on (TIFFANY FRANCIS-BAKER, author of DARK SKIES: A Journey into the Wild Night)
Each of us carries within us a feared or favourite monster from our childhood, whether the beast under the bed or the shadow of a predator long since lost from the literal world. In her powerful book, Lawrence surfaces these imaginative and real creatures, and beautifully clarifies their importance to us. In so doing, she confronts us with existential anxieties that resonate in an age of climate grief, but she also shows us the hope to be found glinting between the scales (MELANIE CHALLENGER, author of HOW TO BE ANIMAL: A New History of What It Means to Be Human)
Beautifully written, completely engaging, dazzlingly wide-ranging. Enchanted Creatures is underpinned by great intellectual brilliance, and a masterful command of detail and theory (JULIA LOVELL)

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.