The Light Eaters

How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

De: Zoë Schlanger

Narrado por: Zoë Schlanger

Duración: 10 h y 56 m

Resumen del Editor

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“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.

©2024 Zoë Schlanger (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Agency commands respect

Zoe's approach of presenting remarkable research discoveries across several disciplines reveals plants' surprising behavior in a way that really spoke to me

If only the messages contained were received by the artificially intelligent and authentically ignorant timber barons: that the greatest value is protecting the magnificent redwood overstory and fragile fern, trillium, mycellium, etc understory from decimation for short term profit and perennial greed

CalFire's operating budget comes from whacking the fragmented forest remnants, leaving behind disturbed and desiccated dust, perfect habitat for gorse and thistle, stable climax forest reversed to invasive spiny weedscape baking in the heat where there used to be cool, fragrant shade

Same story in Amazonia, Borneo, Congo...

It's surprising that the book optimistically lays out all the research displaying intelligence, more in the plant world than in our ZuckerMusk-infected monkey sphere

The survivors in all the kingdoms will rejoice and re-speciate when we are gone: in the meantime, listen to The Light Eaters and be amazed at their stories

Glorious

Lovely, glorious science writing on an intriguing topic, written passionately, poetically yet extremely erudite in its dealings with scientific concepts and explanations. A masterpiece!

Best Book I've Read In Years

Thank you so much for writing this amazing book! I learned so much! Excellent narration too!

The caring authenticity of the author

Thank you for exploring the lives of the plant world. Your research is fascinating and inspiring.

Staggering, beautiful, engrossing

An absolutely fantastic exploration of the world. A must-read for all humans. Beautifully written, wisely considered, and humanely told.

Dazzling acheivement!

What a wonderfully researched, shaped and told story this is. I was listening to Ed Yong's "I contain Multitudes" when I heard Zoe Schlanger interviewed on Fresh Air and just had to let her jump the queue.

There is much that overlaps between the two books and amazement in each. I found The Light Eaters to be even more filled with delight and astonishment and the author's commitment to her story was fabulous.

It is very heartening that there are people like Schlanger, Yong, Sheldrake, Lent and others who can gather knowledge from disparate fields and synthesize it for us. We need to know how unbelievably complex and interconnected our world is before it's too late. I hope these are the grains of rice that will eventuate the avalanche and change how we interact with each other and the world (metaphor taken from Jeremy Lent)

Our world is truly alive!

Thanks to the author for tackling issues that could be career-ending for scientists and journalists. The acceptance of plants as living, sensitive, aware beings, as having communities, relationships, and so much more is so welcome! Indigenous peoples have long known and accepted this reality of plant life as “real” life. It will be amazing if all humankind can accept the same, and act appropriately!

Fascinating stuff!

Overall I loved this - there were too many days where I walked around quoting research I learned from this book - I’m sure people were rolling their eyes but I couldn’t help it!
I felt it got a little long in the second half. While I appreciate the wealth of detail regarding different experiments and observations on said experiments, I found myself zoning out in parts because it got pedantic in the explanations. But that might just be my ignorance.
The author has a very lovely, soothing way of speaking but it was at times monotone, not a lot of excitement in her voice. I didn’t mind it, it was a very relaxing listen, but contributed to the mind wandering.

New information on plants

I liked learning more about plants including the new field of study: plant communication.
This makes me curious to learn more!

Mind-blowing

i will never think of plants as inanimate objects again. They are creatures with real agency in the world. They make decisions. Many species can count and remember events in the past. They comunicate with each other and with insects. I can't recommend this audio book highly enough.