Soundings, Doreen Cunningham
Soundings, Doreen Cunningham
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
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Soundings
Journeys in the Company of Whales: A Memoir

Author: Doreen Cunningham

Narrator: Doreen Cunningham

Unabridged: 10 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/12/2022


Synopsis

“A gorgeous journey…You will be glad you’ve joined her.” —Susan Orlean, author of On Animals and The Library Book

In this lyrical memoir of motherhood, love, and resilience that “captures rarely observed natural places” (San Francisco Chronicle) a woman and her toddler son follow the grey whale migration from Mexico to northernmost Alaska.

In this “striking, brave[,] and often lyrical” (The Guardian) blend of nature writing, whale science, and memoir, Doreen Cunningham interweaves two stories: tracking the extraordinary northward migration of the grey whales with a mischievous toddler in tow and living with an Iñupiaq family in Alaska seven years earlier.

A story of courage and resilience, Soundings is about the migrating whales and all we can learn from them as they mother, adapt, and endure, their lives interrupted and threatened by global warming. It is also a riveting journey onto the Arctic Sea ice and into the changing world of Indigenous whale hunters, where Doreen becomes immersed in the ancient values of the Iñupiaq whale hunt and falls in love. Big-hearted, brave, and fearlessly honest, Soundings is an unforgettable journey.

About Doreen Cunningham

Doreen Cunningham is an Irish British writer born in Wales. After studying engineering Doreen worked briefly in climate-related research at the Natural Environment Research Council and in storm modeling at Newcastle University before turning to journalism. She worked for the BBC World Service variously as an international news presenter, reporter, and editor for twenty years. She won the RSL Giles St Aubyn Award 2020 and was shortlisted for the Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writers Award 2021 for Soundings, her first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kathie

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book - a parenting memoir, a travel story, a book about whales, a treatise on global warming? It ended up being a little bit of all of the above, with a love story gently layered in. I learned more about whales, Iñupiaq culture and whale hunting than I ever tho......more

Goodreads review by Claire

3.5 Soundings is a dual narrative memoir, that recounts two journeys a woman make, pursuing her dream to see the grey whales that migrate up the coast from Mexico where her journey begins, to the northernmost Arctic town of Utqiagvik. The Iñupiat have thrived there, in a place periodically engulfed i......more

Goodreads review by Sarah

This book is very uneven in pacing. The parts about Alaska are wonderful, and I liked reading about the whales, but the narrative that Noreen tries to sell as the core story, about a single mother and her son, wasn't compelling.......more


Quotes

"With conviction, confidence, and other broadcast journalism skills, author/narrator Doreen Cunningham provides an inspiring narration of her lyrical memoir."