AN IMMENSE WORLD
An Instant New York Times Bestseller * Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction * Finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction * Finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in Science and Technology
One of the Ten Best Books of 2022 according to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, People, Publisher’s Weekly, Philadelphia Inquirer, Outside, Bookpage, and more.
One of the Best Books of 2022 according to Barnes and Noble, the New Yorker, Oprah Daily, the Guardian, Time, the Economist, Amazon, Kirkus, Esquire, New Statesman, the Globe & Mail, Mental Floss, Reader’s Digest, Barack Obama, and more.
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Enter a new dimension—the world as it is truly perceived by other animals—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes.
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world.
In An Immense World, author and Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved.
Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”
ADVanced Praise for AN IMMENSE WORLD
“One of the year’s best popular natural histories.” —Kirkus, starred review
“Ed Yong! What strange sensory power does this man have, that he's able to roam the vast universe of animal science, homing in on the most fascinating discoveries? Every page finds the reader mouthing quiet whoas, as the world she thought she knew opens out into a hundred others, improbable, strange, and fabulous. I don’t know how to put into words the awe I felt while reading this book—for the incredible sensory diversity of our planet, and for Ed Yong’s talents.”—Mary Roach, author of Stiff
“There is almost no writer I admire as much as I do Ed Yong. He’s an extraordinary reporter and a writer of such grace that his work seems effortless. An Immense World is a journal of discovery and animal magic, and a sensory exploration that is a joy to read.”—Susan Orlean, author of On Animals
“A stunning achievement, steeped in science but suffused with magic.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Gene
“What would we do without Ed Yong? This book feels like a tremendous burst of oxygen, animating everything around us with life and color and texture and wonder at precisely the moment we all need it.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
“Equal parts science and poetry: Yong guides us through the magic of the animal kingdom in ways that have unlocked something inside of me I didn’t know was there. I’ll never look at our planet the same way again.”—Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed
“A powerful and immersive deep dive into the perceptual lives of other organisms—and a persuasive case for more empathy and understanding of the complexity, sophistication, and sheer riotous joy of the nonhuman world—it’s an instant classic.”—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Authority
“An Immense World is an expansive, constantly revelatory exploration of the biosphere’s sensorium, from the rigidly pheromonic behavioral programming of ants to the constant subsonic conversations of elephants. Ed Yong is my favorite contemporary science writer.”—William Gibson, author of Agency
“Though we can’t sense magnetic or electrical fields and have noses too blunt to see the world, this book gives us the next best thing: appreciation for those who can. Ed Yong expands our world as he lets us see into others’.”—Alexandra Horowitz, author of Inside of a Dog
“Yong’s writerly gifts offer us a thoughtful blend of whip-smart enchantments–dazzling revelation after revelation about animals and how they encounter the world. The breadth and depth of his knowledge is downright effervescent and exacting.”—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders
“A cornucopia of wonders—a fascinating reminder that most of what happens among life forms on Earth is beyond our ken.”—David Quammen, author of The Tangled Tree
“Utterly surprising, like stepping into Alice in Wonderland . . . the perfect mixture of revelation, curiosity, science, beautiful prose, and buckets full of wonders.”—Andrea Wulf, author of The Invention of Nature
“A whirlwind tour of animal perceptual abilities, this magnificent book challenges your imagination and fills you with wonder about the living world.”—Frans de Waal, author of Different
I love this book. Reading it is a delightful sensory experience... I truly enjoyed Yong's adventures in Wonderland! ― Gaia Vince, author of Transcendence
A magic well of surprising, enlightening discoveries about the sensory worlds of other species. With wit, insight, and masterful storytelling, Ed Yong invites us to sway outside ourselves and dwell in the lives of orb weavers, bats, beetles, and whales.... A brilliant book, marvellous and mesmerizing —Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Genius of Birds
Magnificent - an unbelievably immersive and mind-blowing account of how other animals experience our world. —Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees and The Inner Life of Animals