Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe

In her classic, In the Shadow of Man, Jane Goodall wrote of her first ten years at Gombe. In Through a Window she continues the story, painting a more complete and vivid portrait of our closest relatives. On the shores of Lake Tanganyika, Gombe is a community where the principal residents are chimpanzees. Through Goodall's eyes we watch young Figan's relentless rise to power and old Mike's crushing defeat. We learn how one mother rears her children to succeed and another dooms hers to failure. We witness horrifying murders, touching moments of affection, joyous births, and wrenching deaths. As Goodall compellingly tells the story of this intimately intertwined community, we are shown human emotions stripped to their essence. In the mirror of chimpanzee life, we see ourselves reflected.

About the Author :
Jane Goodall was a young secretarial school graduate when Louis Leakey sent her to Tanzania in 1960 to study chimpanzees. She later received a PhD from Cambridge University and has become one of the world's most honored scientists and writers. Her books include Reason for Hope, In the Shadow of Man, and Through a Window. Originally from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in Northeast England, audiobook narrator Pearl Hewitt currently lives with her husband and two children in Houston, Texas. Over the years she has worked as a customer service rep, a teaching assistant, and a teacher, but deep down there was always a performer wanting to get out. In 2007 her twelve-year-old son told her that he believed she was so good at reading stories out loud that she should do that as a job. That was her defining, eureka! moment, and she's never looked back. Pearl discovered the world of voice-overs and pursued a career in voice acting. She attended workshops, training seminars, and conferences, and began volunteering as the resident mystery and suspense narrator for Houston Sight-Into-Sound Radio, where her work earned numerous IAAIS awards for narration and production. In 2012 Pearl decided to focus on audiobooks, and her professional career blossomed while working directly with authors and narrating for a number of major publishers. Pearl's voice is perfectly suited to British Regency romance and cozy murder mysteries, but her personal favorites are the classics, especially children's literature.

Review :

"Both humbling and an exalting book, the result of thirty years of voyeurism that ranks with the great scientific achievements of the twentieth century."

"Narrator Pearl Hewitt deftly continues the story renowned primatologist Jane Goodall began in...In the Shadow of Man, her first memoir of her work with chimpanzees at Gombe National Park, Tanzania...Once more, listeners will strongly relate to the chimpanzees, as does Goodall...Hewitt warmly shares snippets of Goodall's personal life..Most atmospheric is Hewitt's delivery of Swahili passages and African workers' humor and melodious English."