Try free for 30 days

  • The Great Indoors

  • The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness
  • By: Emily Anthes
  • Narrated by: Suzie Althens
  • Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins

1 credit a month to use on any title, yours to keep (you’ll use your first credit on this title).
Stream or download thousands of included titles.
Access to exclusive deals and discounts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
The Great Indoors cover art

The Great Indoors

By: Emily Anthes
Narrated by: Suzie Althens
Try for $0.00

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $39.99

Buy Now for $39.99

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

Modern humans are an indoor species. We spend 90 percent of our time inside, shuttling between homes and offices, schools and stores, restaurants and gyms. And yet, in many ways, the indoor world remains unexplored territory. For all the time we spend inside buildings, we rarely stop to consider: How do these spaces affect our mental and physical well-being? Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors? Our productivity, performance, and relationships?

In this wide-ranging, character-driven audiobook, science journalist Emily Anthes takes us on an adventure into the buildings in which we spend our days, exploring the profound and sometimes unexpected ways that they shape our lives. Drawing on cutting-edge research, she probes the painkilling power of a well-placed window and examines how the right office layout can expand our social networks. She investigates how room temperature regulates our cognitive performance, how the microbes hiding in our homes influence our immune systems, and how cafeteria design affects what - and how much - we eat.

Along the way, Anthes takes listeners into an operating room designed to minimize medical errors, a school designed to boost students’ physical fitness, and a prison designed to support inmates’ psychological needs. And she previews homes of the future, from the high-tech houses that could monitor our health to the 3D-printed structures that might allow us to live on the moon.

©2020 Emily Anthes (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

What listeners say about The Great Indoors

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

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.