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The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
(Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)

Book Cover for "The Light Eaters"
Author:
Schlanger, Zoë
Published:
HarperCollins 2024
Format:
Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Status:
Checked Out

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The New Yorker's Best Books of 2024 • TIME's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 • New York Magazine's 10 Best Books of the Year • Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2024 • Smithsonian's 10 Best Science Books of the Year • A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, New York Public Library, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly • An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

"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, "destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself." (The New Yorker)

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.

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Nature
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More Details

Street Date:
05/07/2024
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780063073876
ASIN:
B0CFM4SMPF

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Citations

APA Citation (style guide)

Zoë Schlanger. (2024). The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth. HarperCollins.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Zoë Schlanger. 2024. The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life On Earth. HarperCollins.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Zoë Schlanger, The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life On Earth. HarperCollins, 2024.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Zoë Schlanger. The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life On Earth. HarperCollins, 2024.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.

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There are 21 holds on this title.

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Date Added:
May 10, 2024 16:26:48
Date Updated:
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Last Metadata Check:
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The New Yorker's Best Books of 2024 • TIME's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 • New York Magazine's 10 Best Books of the Year • Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2024 • Smithsonian's 10 Best Science Books of the Year • A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, New York Public Library, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly • An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

"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, "destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself." (The New Yorker)

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.

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The New Yorker's Best Books of 2024 • TIME's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 • New York Magazine's 10 Best Books of the Year • Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2024 • Smithsonian's 10 Best Science Books of the Year • A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, New York Public Library, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly • An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

"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...

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