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The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
Current price:
$29.99
Publication Date: May 7th, 2024
Publisher:
Harper
ISBN:
9780063073852
Pages:
304
Available for Preorder
Description
“A masterpiece of science writing.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass
“Mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful.” –Ed Yong, author of An Immense World
“Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!” –Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction
“A brilliant must-read. This book shook and changed me.” –David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen
Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom and reveals the astonishing capabilities of the green life all around us.
It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents.
The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.
What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.
We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for—if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.
Praise for The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
“The Light Eaters is a masterpiece of science writing. Burning with open-minded curiosity, this exploration of the emerging revolution in plant science will challenge what you think you know and ignite a new way of seeing the plant world. Part detective story, part field trip and part philosophy, this brilliant book stretches the mind, toward a profound new understanding of the sophistication of under-appreciated plants. I feel it as an antidote to arrogance, as it engenders humility, respect and awe for the light eaters who make the world.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
"I’ll never look at plants—or the natural world—in the same way again, after reading Zoë Schlanger’s stunning book. Instead of trying to ram the square peg of botanical life into the round holes of human biology and metaphors, Schlanger instead considers plants on their own terms, as they actually are. The result is mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful." — Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes
“A brilliant must-read about the marvels of the green world. This book shook and changed me, revealing plant intelligence as more strange and wondrous than I could imagine. Zoë Schlanger’s explorations brim with curiosity and every page brings new revelation and insight.” — David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen
“Like its subject, The Light Eaters is rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it! You will look at the world in a new way.” — Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction
“…an astounding exploration of the remarkable abilities of plants and fungi.…There are mind-bending revelations on every page, and Schlanger combines robust intellectual curiosity with delicate lyricism….Science writing doesn’t get better than this.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“This is that rare book that fascinates, challenges widely held assumptions, and enlightens in like measure…. it is hard to imagine a more thorough introduction or a writer more dedicated to her subject and provocative in the questions she asks.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Just as books by Peter Wohlleben and Suzanne Simard have deepened our understanding of trees, the discoveries Schlanger shares in this involving, vibrant, and affecting dispatch from the vanguard of plant research profoundly expands our appreciation for plants, their essential role in the great web of life, and how recognition of plant intelligence can help us reverse environmental decimation.” — Booklist (starred review)
"[A] fascinating journey through contemporary botanical research." — Amy Brady, Orion
“A stunning book…. will transform how you see not only plants but the nature of all life.” — Scientific American
