The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being

Evolution and the Making of Us

By: Dr Alice Roberts

Narrated by: Dr Alice Roberts

The presenter of the BBC's The Incredible Human Journey gives us a new and highly accessible look at our own bodies and into the past to uncover the evolutionary secrets hidden in all of us.

Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize.

Alice Roberts takes you on the most incredible journey, revealing your path from a single cell to a complex embryo to a living, breathing, thinking person. It's a story that connects us with our distant ancestors and an extraordinary, unlikely chain of events that shaped human development and left a mark on all of us.

Alice Roberts uses the latest research to uncover the evolutionary history hidden in all of us, from the secrets found only in our embryos and genes - including why as embryos we have what look like gills - to those visible in your anatomy. This is a tale of discovery, exploring why and how we have developed as we have. This is your story, told as never before.

©2014 Alice Roberts (P)2023 Quercus Editions Limited

Critic reviews

"From your brain to your fingertips, you emerge from her book entertained and with a deeper understanding of yourself." (Richard Dawkins)

"A masterful account of why our bodies are the way they are...this book really shines.... Roberts's lightness of touch is joyous, and celebratory." (Observer)

"Witty, personal and above all informed by passion and deep knowledge, this is the story of you, not just from conception onwards but from the millions of years of evolution that have shaped the way we are today." (Adam Rutherford)

Wonderful approach to the topic

Comparative analyses of species current and past, and the changes over time from our conception, and of species evolving.

Evolutionary Anatomy

This book is pitched to a television audience and was simpler than I had expected. It was a very thorough description of where and how humans came to exist. It is always an interesting subject and Alice Roberts is an excellent reader.

Enjoyable listening

The author makes a complex scientific story easy to understand and enjoyable to listen to.

Audio is lacking.

I'm enjoying this book's subject matter. Embryology is fascinating. The narrator speaks with a heavy British accent complete with all the different pronunciations and that coupled with a great deal of new biological terms has me constantly trying to understand her. The audio quality is just not there. Audible tells me that the quality of all the books is now the same and they provide the best on each purchase.

Just superb

Whenever I listen to one of Alice's presentations, I'm struck by how much I've learned, how much more I now realise that I don't know, and by her extraordinary abilities. This book is so much more than I could have imagined. I'm glad Alice read it herself. It is clear and understandable. I saw one comment saying they didn't understand her accent well. I could not disagree with that comment more.