-
The Observable Universe
- An Investigation
- Narrated by: Heather McCalden
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Is anyone ever truly lost in the internet age? A moving, original memoir of a young woman reckoning with her parents’ absence, the virus that took them, and what it means to search for meaning in a hyperconnected world.
“Brilliantly innovative . . . syncing a narrative of profoundly personal emotion with the invention and evolution of today’s cyberspace.”—William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and The Peripheral
In the early 1990s, Heather McCalden lost both her parents to AIDS. She was seven when her father died, ten when she lost her mother. Raised by her grandmother, Nivia, she grew up in Los Angeles, also known as ground zero for the virus and its destruction.
Years later, she begins researching online the history of HIV as a way to deal with her loss, which leads her to the unexpected realization that the AIDS crisis and the internet developed on parallel timelines. By accumulating whatever fragments she could about both phenomena—images, anecdotes, and scientific entries—alongside her own personal history, McCalden forms a synaptic journey of what happened to her family, one that leads to an equally unexpected discovery about who her parents might have been.
Entwining this personal search with a wider cultural narrative of what the virus and virality mean in our times—interrogating what it means to “go viral” in an era of explosive biochemical and virtual contagion—The Observable Universe is at once a history of our viral culture and a prismatic account of grief in the internet age.
Critic reviews
“A dazzling, kaleidoscopic work of art that pulls scientific inquiry, memoir, and uncanny metaphor into a weave powerful enough to transform grief—Heather McCalden’s and your own . . . a book that is very much a survival guide for this era . . . takes your breath away.”—Brit Marling, award-winning actress, co-creator of Netflix’s The OA and the forthcoming FX series A Murder at the End of the World
“The Observable Universe exquisitely undoes our concepts of illness, attachment, and entanglement. Strands of obsession, contagion, and radical inquiry braid together into lyrical meaning without ever settling into moralistic conclusions or assessments. This book is explosive and profound, unusual and timeless.”—Cyrus Dunham, author of A Year Without a Name
“A masterful debut—a work of confident craft, razor wire wit, and unflinching courage . . . The Observable Universe is a mixtape, a photo album, an archive of what’s lost and what’s left, and the fragmented work of sifting through it all for a story we can live with.”—Jordan Kisner
Related to this topic
-
Neurodiversity and the Myth of Normal
- By: Kyler Shumway, Daniel Wendler, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kyler Shumway, Daniel Wendler
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In six lectures, Dr. Shumway and Dr. Wendler will help you understand the nature of neurodiversity, a growing school of thought that seeks to embrace the range of differences in individual brain function and behaviors rather than “correct” them, with a focus on empathy, acceptance, and accommodation.
-
-
Simplistic in a negative way.
- By Scotty P on 04-11-24
By: Kyler Shumway, and others
-
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
- A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
- By: Lori Gottlieb
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.
-
-
It was like a hallmark movie being waterboarded into my ears for 15 hours
- By Amazon Customer on 10-01-19
By: Lori Gottlieb
-
The Obesity Code
- Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss
- By: Dr. Jason Fung
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this highly listenable and provocative book, Dr. Jason Fung sets out an original, robust theory of obesity that provides startling insights into proper nutrition. In addition to his five basic steps - a set of lifelong habits that will improve your health and control your insulin levels - Dr. Fung explains how to use intermittent fasting to break the cycle of insulin resistance and reach a healthy weight - for good.
-
-
There is a PDF, Folks
- By Cynthia on 06-27-17
By: Dr. Jason Fung
-
How to Train Your Mind
- Exploring the Productivity Benefits of Meditation
- By: Chris Bailey
- Narrated by: Chris Bailey
- Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meditation makes you more productive because it lets you earn back time. For each minute you spend meditating, you'll earn around nine minutes back, as Chris Bailey - author of The Productivity Project and Hyperfocus - will show in this candid and counter-intuitive guide to the productivity benefits of meditation.
-
-
Started Listening By Accident
- By T.D.Willis on 01-17-21
By: Chris Bailey
-
How to Release Anxiety
- By: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Length: 1 hr and 29 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s not just you. Stress levels are at an all-time high—so much so that a recently convened panel of medical experts in the US has recommended that all adults under the age of 65 be screened for anxiety. In How to Release Anxiety, Gabby Bernstein offers simple, actionable steps for feeling better, living with more ease, and showing up for those around us. Gabby’s unusual advice: Rather than manage your anxiety, what if you befriended it? Gabby posits that what we befriend, we can ultimately be at ease with. So she invites us to get curious.
-
-
Not my thing, but one good point
- By Scott on 10-22-22
-
Brain Energy
- A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health—and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More
- By: Christopher M. Palmer MD
- Narrated by: Christopher M. Palmer MD
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are in the midst of a global mental health crisis, and mental illnesses are on the rise. But what causes mental illness? And why are mental health problems so hard to treat? Drawing on decades of research, Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer outlines a revolutionary new understanding that for the first time unites our existing knowledge about mental illness within a single framework: mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. Brain Energy will transform the field of mental health, and the lives of countless people around the world.
-
-
Arguing brain health theory to medical profession
- By Maya H Saric on 03-10-23
-
Neurodiversity and the Myth of Normal
- By: Kyler Shumway, Daniel Wendler, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kyler Shumway, Daniel Wendler
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In six lectures, Dr. Shumway and Dr. Wendler will help you understand the nature of neurodiversity, a growing school of thought that seeks to embrace the range of differences in individual brain function and behaviors rather than “correct” them, with a focus on empathy, acceptance, and accommodation.
-
-
Simplistic in a negative way.
- By Scotty P on 04-11-24
By: Kyler Shumway, and others
-
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
- A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
- By: Lori Gottlieb
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.
-
-
It was like a hallmark movie being waterboarded into my ears for 15 hours
- By Amazon Customer on 10-01-19
By: Lori Gottlieb
-
The Obesity Code
- Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss
- By: Dr. Jason Fung
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this highly listenable and provocative book, Dr. Jason Fung sets out an original, robust theory of obesity that provides startling insights into proper nutrition. In addition to his five basic steps - a set of lifelong habits that will improve your health and control your insulin levels - Dr. Fung explains how to use intermittent fasting to break the cycle of insulin resistance and reach a healthy weight - for good.
-
-
There is a PDF, Folks
- By Cynthia on 06-27-17
By: Dr. Jason Fung
-
How to Train Your Mind
- Exploring the Productivity Benefits of Meditation
- By: Chris Bailey
- Narrated by: Chris Bailey
- Length: 3 hrs and 18 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meditation makes you more productive because it lets you earn back time. For each minute you spend meditating, you'll earn around nine minutes back, as Chris Bailey - author of The Productivity Project and Hyperfocus - will show in this candid and counter-intuitive guide to the productivity benefits of meditation.
-
-
Started Listening By Accident
- By T.D.Willis on 01-17-21
By: Chris Bailey
-
How to Release Anxiety
- By: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Length: 1 hr and 29 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s not just you. Stress levels are at an all-time high—so much so that a recently convened panel of medical experts in the US has recommended that all adults under the age of 65 be screened for anxiety. In How to Release Anxiety, Gabby Bernstein offers simple, actionable steps for feeling better, living with more ease, and showing up for those around us. Gabby’s unusual advice: Rather than manage your anxiety, what if you befriended it? Gabby posits that what we befriend, we can ultimately be at ease with. So she invites us to get curious.
-
-
Not my thing, but one good point
- By Scott on 10-22-22
-
Brain Energy
- A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health—and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More
- By: Christopher M. Palmer MD
- Narrated by: Christopher M. Palmer MD
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are in the midst of a global mental health crisis, and mental illnesses are on the rise. But what causes mental illness? And why are mental health problems so hard to treat? Drawing on decades of research, Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer outlines a revolutionary new understanding that for the first time unites our existing knowledge about mental illness within a single framework: mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. Brain Energy will transform the field of mental health, and the lives of countless people around the world.
-
-
Arguing brain health theory to medical profession
- By Maya H Saric on 03-10-23
-
The Gift of Fear
- Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
- By: Gavin de Becker
- Narrated by: Gavin de Becker
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These days, no one in America feels immune to violence. But now, in this extraordinary, groundbreaking book, the nation's leading expert on predicting violent behavior unlocks the puzzle of human violence and shows that, like every creature on earth, we have within us the ability to predict the harm others might do us and get out of its way. Contrary to popular myth, human violence almost always has a discernible motive and is preceded by clear warning signs.
-
-
Decent book severely undermined by last chapter.
- By zachary on 11-01-22
By: Gavin de Becker
-
Take Control of Your Life
- How to Silence Fear and Win the Mental Game
- By: Mel Robbins
- Narrated by: Mel Robbins
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mel Robbins is back! The international bestselling phenomenon and creator of The Five Second Rule and Kick Ass with Mel Robbins returns to help you tackle the single biggest obstacle you face: fear. This life-changing Audible Original features a powerful mix of one-on-one life-coaching sessions and a personal narrative with vital take-aways that you can start using immediately.
-
-
Stop living in fear
- By Nike7 on 02-08-19
By: Mel Robbins
-
The Confidence Gap
- A Guide to Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt
- By: Russ Harris, Steven Hayes PhD - foreword
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russ Harris offers a surprising solution to low self-confidence, shyness, and insecurity: Rather than trying to "get over" our fears, he says, the secret is to form a new and wiser relationship with them. Paradoxically, it's only when we stop struggling against our fearfulness that we begin to find lasting freedom from it.
-
-
The One Book for Overcoming Anxiety
- By Joel Smith on 01-11-16
By: Russ Harris, and others
-
Healing Through Breathing
- Four Lessons for Lasting Health and Happiness
- By: Eddie Stern
- Narrated by: Eddie Stern
- Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Learn four simple, slow breathing techniques to calm your emotions and leave you stress-free. In addition, these forms of breathing will improve cardiovascular health and your sleep and will also reduce inflammation. Breathing expert Eddie Stern guides you through these practices and also explains exactly how and why they work. These techniques are also a boon to mindfulness and meditation. So tune in, relax, and get ready to take some deep, life-changing breaths through Eddie Stern’s excellent coaching.
-
-
Breath is life!
- By Marie on 01-21-24
By: Eddie Stern
-
I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)
- Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power
- By: Brené Brown
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on seven years of ground-breaking research and hundreds of interviews, I Thought It Was Just Me shines a long-overdue light on an important truth: Our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity. Our vulnerabilities are not weaknesses; they are powerful reminders to keep our hearts and minds open to the reality that we're all in this together.
-
-
I'm sure its great if you are a mother ....
- By Leslie A Hill on 08-09-11
By: Brené Brown
-
The Explosive Child
- A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children
- By: Dr. Ross W. Greene
- Narrated by: Dr. Ross W. Greene
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren't attentionseeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren't passive, permissive disciplinarians. Rather, explosive kids are lacking some crucial skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, and they require a different approach.
-
-
I started to cry....and this Dad doesn't do that
- By Jj on 02-26-15
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone
- A Memoir
- By: Cameron Russell
- Narrated by: Cameron Russell
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scouted by a modeling agent when she was just sixteen years old, Cameron Russell first approached her job with some reservations: She was a serious student with her sights set on college, not the runway. But modeling was a job that seemed to offer young women like herself unprecedented access to wealth, fame, and influence. Besides, as she was often reminded, “there are a million girls in line” who would eagerly replace her.
-
-
Hot take on modeling
- By Gregor on 04-25-24
By: Cameron Russell
-
Broken
- Transforming Child Protective Services—Notes of a Former Caseworker
- By: Jessica Pryce
- Narrated by: Deanna Anthony
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joining the ranks of Evicted and The New Jim Crow, a former caseworker’s searing, clear-eyed investigation of the child welfare system—from foster care to incarceration—that exposes the deep-rooted biases shaping the system, witnessed through the lives of several Black families.
-
-
A Great Book with Compelling Insights
- By Pbc fun on 03-21-24
By: Jessica Pryce
-
Airplane Mode
- An Irreverent History of Travel
- By: Shahnaz Habib
- Narrated by: Deepa Samuel
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The color of one's skin and passport have long dictated the conditions of travel. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Habib threads the history of travel with her personal story as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom roundtrips are an annual fact of life. Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, this insightful debut parses who gets to travel, and who gets to write about the experience.
By: Shahnaz Habib
-
The Tree Doctor
- By: Marie Mutsuki Mockett
- Narrated by: June Angela
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the unnamed narrator of Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s stirring second novel returns to Carmel, California, to care for her mother, she finds herself stranded at the outset of the disease. With her husband and children back in Hong Kong, and her Japanese mother steadily declining in a care facility two hours away, she becomes preoccupied with her mother’s garden—convinced it contains a kind of visual puzzle—and the dormant cherry tree within it. She soon starts a torrid affair with an arborist who is equally fascinated by her mother’s garden, and together they embark on reviving it.
-
You Get What You Pay For
- Essays
- By: Morgan Parker
- Narrated by: Morgan Parker
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dubbed a voice of her generation, poet and writer Morgan Parker has spent much of her adulthood in therapy, trying to square the resonance of her writing with the alienation she feels in nearly every aspect of life, from her lifelong singleness to a battle with depression. She traces this loneliness to an inability to feel truly safe with others and a historic hyperawareness stemming from the effects of slavery.
By: Morgan Parker
-
Devout
- A Memoir of Doubt
- By: Anna Gazmarian
- Narrated by: Rachel LeBlang
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Anna Gazmarian is diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2011, she’s faced with a conundrum: while the diagnosis provides clarity about her manic and depressive episodes, she must confront the stigma that her evangelical community attaches to her condition. Over the course of ten years, we follow Anna on her journey to reframe her understanding of mental health to expand the limits of what her religious practice can offer. In Devout: A Memoir of Doubt, Anna shows that the pursuing our emotional health and our spiritual well-being is one single mission and, in both cases, an act of faith.
-
-
Beautifully Real
- By Kathleen Boone on 04-14-24
By: Anna Gazmarian
-
How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone
- A Memoir
- By: Cameron Russell
- Narrated by: Cameron Russell
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scouted by a modeling agent when she was just sixteen years old, Cameron Russell first approached her job with some reservations: She was a serious student with her sights set on college, not the runway. But modeling was a job that seemed to offer young women like herself unprecedented access to wealth, fame, and influence. Besides, as she was often reminded, “there are a million girls in line” who would eagerly replace her.
-
-
Hot take on modeling
- By Gregor on 04-25-24
By: Cameron Russell
-
Broken
- Transforming Child Protective Services—Notes of a Former Caseworker
- By: Jessica Pryce
- Narrated by: Deanna Anthony
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joining the ranks of Evicted and The New Jim Crow, a former caseworker’s searing, clear-eyed investigation of the child welfare system—from foster care to incarceration—that exposes the deep-rooted biases shaping the system, witnessed through the lives of several Black families.
-
-
A Great Book with Compelling Insights
- By Pbc fun on 03-21-24
By: Jessica Pryce
-
Airplane Mode
- An Irreverent History of Travel
- By: Shahnaz Habib
- Narrated by: Deepa Samuel
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The color of one's skin and passport have long dictated the conditions of travel. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Habib threads the history of travel with her personal story as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom roundtrips are an annual fact of life. Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, this insightful debut parses who gets to travel, and who gets to write about the experience.
By: Shahnaz Habib
-
The Tree Doctor
- By: Marie Mutsuki Mockett
- Narrated by: June Angela
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the unnamed narrator of Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s stirring second novel returns to Carmel, California, to care for her mother, she finds herself stranded at the outset of the disease. With her husband and children back in Hong Kong, and her Japanese mother steadily declining in a care facility two hours away, she becomes preoccupied with her mother’s garden—convinced it contains a kind of visual puzzle—and the dormant cherry tree within it. She soon starts a torrid affair with an arborist who is equally fascinated by her mother’s garden, and together they embark on reviving it.
-
You Get What You Pay For
- Essays
- By: Morgan Parker
- Narrated by: Morgan Parker
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dubbed a voice of her generation, poet and writer Morgan Parker has spent much of her adulthood in therapy, trying to square the resonance of her writing with the alienation she feels in nearly every aspect of life, from her lifelong singleness to a battle with depression. She traces this loneliness to an inability to feel truly safe with others and a historic hyperawareness stemming from the effects of slavery.
By: Morgan Parker
-
Devout
- A Memoir of Doubt
- By: Anna Gazmarian
- Narrated by: Rachel LeBlang
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Anna Gazmarian is diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2011, she’s faced with a conundrum: while the diagnosis provides clarity about her manic and depressive episodes, she must confront the stigma that her evangelical community attaches to her condition. Over the course of ten years, we follow Anna on her journey to reframe her understanding of mental health to expand the limits of what her religious practice can offer. In Devout: A Memoir of Doubt, Anna shows that the pursuing our emotional health and our spiritual well-being is one single mission and, in both cases, an act of faith.
-
-
Beautifully Real
- By Kathleen Boone on 04-14-24
By: Anna Gazmarian