Den of Thieves: Pantera - New movie
Limited time offer
3 months for 99p/month
£0.99
  • Get 3 months of Audible membership for just £0.99/month
  • Includes 1 audiobook of your choice each month + unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks and podcasts.
  • After 3 months Audible is £7.99 /month.
  • Renews automatically. Cancel monthly Terms apply.
Learn more about membership
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
  • We offer the following benefits with your trial:
  • One credit a month, good for any title to download and keep.
  • Unlimited listening to thousands of select Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks.
  • Cancel monthly.
  • Audible is £7.99 /month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See audible.co.uk/ft for eligibility.
Learn more about membership
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
List Price: £12.99
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible’s Conditions Of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice.
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

The Sea Inside Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Philip Hoare (Author), Philip Pope (Narrator), Fourth Estate (Publisher)
4.4 out of 5 stars 91 ratings

A startling book, his most personal to date, from Philip Hoare, co-curator of the Moby-Dick Big Read and winner of the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize for ‘Leviathan’.

The sea surrounds us. It gives us life, provides us with the air we breathe and the food we eat. It is ceaseless change and constant presence. It covers two-thirds of our planet. Yet caught up in our everyday lives, we barely notice it.

In ‘The Sea Inside’, Philip Hoare sets out to rediscover the sea, its islands, birds and beasts. He begins on the south coast where he grew up, a place of almost monastic escape. From there he travels to the other side of the world – the Azores, Sri Lanka, New Zealand – in search of encounters with animals and people. Navigating between human and natural history, he asks what these stories mean for us now.

Along the way we meet an amazing cast; from scientists to tattooed warriors; from ravens to whales and bizarre creatures that may, or may not, be extinct. Part memoir, part fantastical travelogue, ‘The Sea Inside’ takes us on an astounding journey of discovery.

Previous slide of product details
  1. Listening Length
    9 hours and 23 minutes
  2. Author
    Philip Hoare
  3. Narrator
    Philip Pope
  4. Audible release date
    29 April 2021
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Fourth Estate
  7. ASIN
    B0933L6THQ
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
Next slide of product details

Product details

Listening Length 9 hours and 23 minutes
Author Philip Hoare
Narrator Philip Pope
Audible.co.uk Release Date 29 April 2021
Publisher Fourth Estate
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B0933L6THQ
Best Sellers Rank 157,387 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
84 in Biographies of Environmentalists & Naturalists (Audible Books & Originals)
200 in Ecosystems & Habitats
507 in Oceanography

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
91 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find this book to be a fantastic read with an engaging writing style and wonderful narrative. Moreover, the content is always enticing, with one customer describing it as a moving meditation. Additionally, the book reveals amazing facts about marine life, and customers appreciate its pacing, with one noting its great atmosphere of sea stories.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more

10 customers mention ‘Readability’10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable, with one mentioning they wanted to reread passages.

"...Macfarlane and Roger Deakin but he has his own voice and is worth re-reading...." Read more

"One of the most interesting books I've read, it makes me just want to travel around the coast of the UK...." Read more

"A wonderful book...." Read more

"An excellent book which I chose purely on account of the reviews posted by others...." Read more

9 customers mention ‘Writing style’9 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the writing style of the book, finding it engaging and wonderfully descriptive, with one customer noting how it combines nature writing with literary anecdotes.

"...Part quirky memoir, part nature writing seeded with literary anecdotes, local history and curious links, for example Julia Margaret Cameron..." Read more

"...This is a thoughtful, moving book, as you'd expect from the author of Leviathan - Philip Hoare also lectures in creative non-..." Read more

"...this is a fantastically descriptive and informative book, sewing together literature, mythology..." Read more

"...His narrative is wrapped in poetical prose with references to scientists, adventurers, indigenous populations, human and animal and the everpresent..." Read more

8 customers mention ‘Enticing content’8 positive0 negative

Customers find the book engaging, with one describing it as a moving meditation and another noting it's never boring.

"...Hoare's style is clear, conversational and unfussy and yet always enticing...." Read more

"...amazing facts about where I live and what happened in history, it's never boring and it has a great atmosphere of sea stories." Read more

"...Reading it is an exhilarating experience, impossible not to be embraced within the fire of the author; but at times I am glad to be on 'terra firma'." Read more

"...Every page is a delight, so full of interest., an incredible number of strands drawn together.. it be read and reread many times" Read more

5 customers mention ‘Knowledge’5 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's depth of knowledge, revealing amazing facts, with one customer noting its references to scientists and another mentioning its conversational style.

"...nature writing seeded with literary anecdotes, local history and curious links, for example Julia Margaret Cameron connecting the photographing of..." Read more

"...It reveals such amazing facts about where I live and what happened in history, it's never boring and it has a great atmosphere of sea stories." Read more

"...this is a fantastically descriptive and informative book, sewing together literature, mythology and science and presenting the..." Read more

"...His narrative is wrapped in poetical prose with references to scientists, adventurers, indigenous populations, human and animal and the everpresent..." Read more

4 customers mention ‘Pacing’4 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the pacing of the book, with one mentioning its great atmosphere of sea stories, while another notes its quirky points on natural history.

"As others have noted this book cannot easily be categorised. Part quirky memoir, part nature writing seeded with literary anecdotes, local history..." Read more

"...what happened in history, it's never boring and it has a great atmosphere of sea stories." Read more

"...Philip Hoare has once again written a personalised and charming account of his marvellous pursuit of the glories of the sea and it's surroundings..." Read more

"Good book. Great if you like quirky points on natural history...." Read more

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • The Welk
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant musings on man and his relationship with the sea
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 April 2017
    Verified Purchase
    As others have noted this book cannot easily be categorised. Part quirky memoir, part nature writing seeded with literary anecdotes, local history and curious links, for example Julia Margaret Cameron connecting the photographing of Tennyson on the Isle of Wight with her final years in Sri Lanka.

    It is very well written. Hoare's style is clear, conversational and unfussy and yet always enticing. I have never been to the Azores or Sri Lanka but I can test his experiences on the shores of Sholing and around Netley. I live in Southampton and know well the strange wilderness on the foreshore set against the backdrop of the gas flares from the Fawley oil refinery and the detritus from passing shipping. He captures this superbly well although I would not be tempted to swim there voluntarily having fallen out of a few boats sailing out of Western.

    My other point of reference is Tasmania. As an Australian I can vouch for his description of the rather grim port city of Hobart with its strange contrast of fishing trawlers and a 21st c Tate Modern style art gallery. He captures well the extraordinary contrast of the wild shoreline and the bizarre almost suburban model prison at Port Arthur. Is there a stranger place to find a Victorian park complete with band stand?

    Hoare's real strength is his compelling description of various forms of Cetacea. He writes with real authority as readers of Leviathan will know. His accounts of swimming with dolphins and whales are compelling and for this alone I would recommend this book.

    Hoare is an exceptionally original writer with great range and depth of knowledge. He shares some of the terrain with authors such as Robert Macfarlane and Roger Deakin but he has his own voice and is worth re-reading. The next time I walk the shoreline out of Southampton I will look out for him and will gladly hold his towel but I'd need stronger arguments than his before joining him in the brown murky slush of the Solent!
    8 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • The Book Witch
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Thoughtful, Moving Meditation on our Relationship with the Sea.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 July 2013
    Verified Purchase
    We are 50% water - `we all contain the sea inside us' - and evolution shows that life on earth originally crawled out of the sea. But there is a theory that human beings may have emerged out of the ocean more recently than other life-forms. We still have vestigial webbed feet and fingers, almost the same ratio of fat to body mass as a dolphin, a natural instinct to hold our breath under water, and other adaptations that suggest a close connection with the mammals who live in the watery elements. Was our ancestor a `watery ape'?

    Our relationship with the sea fascinates Philip Hoare, who swims in it every day, often before dawn, and in every type of weather. `The Sea Inside' is a series of meditations on its mythologies, its biological and chemical complexity, its influence on our climate, and the importance of the oceanic eco-systems to our own survival. `The sea defines us,' he writes, `connects us, separates us. Most of us experience only its edges, our available wilderness on a crowded island'.

    Philip Hoare lives in these edgelands, on the fringes of the city of Southampton. `I didn't choose to; it chose me. I might have found a more picturesque place, wild and romantic or urban and exciting; the kind of places people pass through here to reach. A port city relies on its relationship to elsewhere. Perhaps that's why I like it so well, since it does not impose any identity on me'. Living there, he is more aware than most of the dangerous foundations we have built our civilisation on. When he cycles to the shore every morning, he passes a forest of industrial installations; `tapering spires for a new place of worship; circular tanks as giant igloos... silos like newly-landed space ships ... There's no human scale to this petropolis ... it is brutal, practical, inevitable.'

    In the book the author travels the world to swim with whales and record the sad history of human depredation. We are not being kind to the ocean, but we need to change our ways, because our own salvation is carried in its deepest currents.

    This is a thoughtful, moving book, as you'd expect from the author of Leviathan - Philip Hoare also lectures in creative non-fiction - not quite in the same league, but beautifully written - haunting.
    13 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Jack
    5.0 out of 5 stars It reveals such amazing facts about where I live and what happened in ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 June 2015
    Verified Purchase
    One of the most interesting books I've read, it makes me just want to travel around the coast of the UK. It reveals such amazing facts about where I live and what happened in history, it's never boring and it has a great atmosphere of sea stories.
    3 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Mr D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book. I had feared it would just be ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2015
    Verified Purchase
    A wonderful book. I had feared it would just be a selection of off-cuts from Hoare's earlier book Leviathan, and while there is some reference to it- (almost as if Hoare cannot write about the sea without finding himself drawn back to whales) this is a fantastically descriptive and informative book, sewing together literature, mythology and science and presenting the results in lyrical prose.
    4 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • ACB(swansea)
    4.0 out of 5 stars The Wonders of The Sea.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 June 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Philip Hoares's latest book is a labour of love. From early words 'The sea defines us, connects us, separates us', he embarks on an adventure that takes us from his home near Southampton to London and then faraway destinations of Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and The Azores. His journey is written with passion, fascination and intimate knowledge of his subject. His narrative is wrapped in poetical prose with references to scientists, adventurers, indigenous populations, human and animal and the everpresent and ongoing threat to their survival. The author imparts a portrait of the beauty and alluring attraction of the sea and it's environment. 'No chart presents the reality of it's greatest ocean', he writes, with the oceans covering two thirds of the Earth's surface.

    Philip Hoare has once again written a personalised and charming account of his marvellous pursuit of the glories of the sea and it's surroundings with illustrations. Reading it is an exhilarating experience, impossible not to be embraced within the fire of the author; but at times I am glad to be on 'terra firma'.
    19 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • Ryan
    5.0 out of 5 stars Tranquil read
    Reviewed in the United States on 3 November 2022
    Verified Purchase
    I discovered this book by chance. It has been my favorite book for years. The subject and form of the book bring me a profound sense of ease and calm. Reading this book is like talking about a beloved part of our world with someone who cherishes it as much as I do. For a long time I have been grateful for this book, for validating some of the most profound feelings I’ve experienced. This book is a lesson in how to find and feel a carefully attentive meaning in anything.
    Report
  • book lover
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful read
    Reviewed in the United States on 16 March 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Fantastic history of whaling, literature of Melville, and other interesting information about 19th century social/intellectual history
    Report
  • Pat Maher
    3.0 out of 5 stars Superb author who has such great insight and love of the natural world
    Reviewed in the United States on 2 June 2015
    Verified Purchase
    This is the most interesting and gripping book I have ever read. Superb author who has such great insight and love of the natural world . Not only that but Philip Hoare brings you along his great adventure and it is as if he has lent his eyes and ears to you to see and observe what he has seen through acute senses and knowledge. A shame if this book doesn't reach the widest possible audience
    Pj maher
    Report
  • A. M. Hager
    5.0 out of 5 stars Vivid writing
    Reviewed in the United States on 18 August 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Thi s is the second book of Hoare's I've read and, once again, I am thoroughly impressed by his beautiful, vivid writing
    Report
  • Sheila Rock
    5.0 out of 5 stars Evocative Poetic Great
    Reviewed in the United States on 25 March 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Evocative
    Poetic
    Great
    Report