An Immense World
How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us: The Sunday Times bestseller
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4.5 • 15 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
** WINNER OF THE 2023 ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE ** AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER **
This is our world, as you've never seen it before.
'Immersive and mind-blowing' Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving only a tiny sliver of this world.
In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, welcoming us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. 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.
A NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, ECONOMIST, SPECTATOR, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT and NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
**Winner of 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction**
'Suffused with magic' Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Song of the Cell
'A book that prompts awe at the world around us' Sunday Times
Sunday Times bestseller, July 2023
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pulitzer-winning journalist Yong (I Contain Multitudes) reveals in this eye-opening survey animals' world through their own perceptions. Every animal is "enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble," he writes, or its own "perceptual world." Yong's tour covers vision (mantis shrimp have "12 photoreceptor classes"), sound (birds, researchers suggest, hear in a similar range as humans but they hear faster), and nociception, the tactile sense that sends danger signals (which is so widespread that it exists among "creatures separated by around 800 million years of evolution"). There are a wealth of other senses outside the standard five: sea turtles have two magnetic senses, electric fish generate currents to "sense their surroundings" as well as to communicate with each other, and the platypus's sensitive bill gives it what scientists think may be "electrotouch." Yong ends with a warning against light and sound pollution, which can confuse and disturb animals' lives, and advocation that "natural sensescapes" ought to be preserved and restored. He's a strong writer and makes a convincing case against seeing the world as only humans do: "By giving in to our preconceptions, we miss what might be right in front of us. And sometimes what we miss is breathtaking." This is science writing at its best.
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.