An Immense World
Discover how animals perceive the world and see nature as you never have before.
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4.5 • 18 Ratings
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
The Sunday Times Bestseller on how animal senses reveal the world around us
Award-winning science writer Ed Yong takes readers on an astonishing journey through the hidden senses of Earth’s creatures. From the magnetic compass of migratory birds to the ultraviolet vision of bees and the echolocation of bats, Yong welcomes us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.
Drawing on the latest research in neurobiology and animal behaviour, An Immense World explores how each species lives within its unique environment, uncovering the sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields that form its sensory bubble of experience.
This is science writing at its most transporting: showing us that in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes.
Winner of the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
A New York Times, Guardian, Economist, Spectator, TLS and New Statesman Book of the Year
‘Immersive and mind-blowing’ Peter Wohlleben
‘Suffused with magic’ Siddhartha Mukherjee
‘A book that prompts awe at the world around us’ Sunday Times
Customer Reviews
The real multiverse
A fascinating dive into the many ways animals perceive our shared world. Yong writes with a lightness that feels authoritative but never too bogged down in detail, with the chapter on pain a particularly difficult read for omnivores such as me.
Great read
The chapters are divided by sense and provide great insight into how other animals perceive the world around them. Each chapter offers multiple examples of how these senses are used in a variety of ways and shaped by the ‘umwelt’ of an animal’s predators or mates.
This book was incredibly interesting and it’s final chapter invites us to think about the impact of humans on other animals sensescapes and how we can minimise the damage we have already and continue to cause.