Ed Yong: Immense World (AudiobookFormat, 2022, Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group)
Unabridged, Length: 14 hours 17 minutes, Narrator: Ed Yong
Published June 21, 2022 by Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
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, 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. …
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, 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.”
Even though the book is concerned with the sensory lives of animals, it teaches a whole lot about ourselves and how we perceive the world.
It is densely packed with information and needs a wake mind to read. Even if I will forget most of the facts in no time, the over all Message will stay. Recommend!
An engagingly written exploration of how animals experience their worlds.
Will change the way you see the world, and can't help but make you appreciate just how magnificent all the species who share the world with us are.
What a fabulous book. Everyone should read it.
Will change the way you see the world, and can't help but make you appreciate just how magnificent all the species who share the world with us are.
What a fabulous book. Everyone should read it.
Will change the way you see the world, and can't help but make you appreciate just how magnificent all the species who share the world with us are.
Will change the way you see the world, and can't help but make you appreciate just how magnificent all the species who share the world with us are.
A really stunning exploration of sensing. And a really nice incorporation of von Uexküll's "umwelt." Particularly compelling is the emphasis upon the entanglement of communication and sensory capacity.
A really stunning exploration of sensing. And a really nice incorporation of von Uexküll's "umwelt." Particularly compelling is the emphasis upon the entanglement of communication and sensory capacity.
