An Immense World

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

'Wonderful, mind-broadening... a journey to alternative realities as extraordinary as any you'll find in science fiction' - The Times, Book of the Week

Humans have three or four colour-detecting cones in their retinas. Mantis shrimp have 16. In fact, their eyes seem to have more in common with satellite technology than with biological vision as we currently understand it. They have evolved to track movement with an acuity no other species can match by processing raw information; they may not 'see', in the human sense, at all.

Marine molluscs called chitons have eyes which are made of stone. Scorpions appear to see with their entire bodies. It isn't only vision that differs from species to species - some animals also have senses we lack entirely. Knifefish navigate by electrical charge.

An Immense World will take us on an insider's tour of the natural world by describing the biology, physics and chemistry animals use to perceive it. We may lack some of their senses, but our own super-sense lies in our ability to understand theirs. And in the face of the largest extinction event since the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, our only hope of saving other species is bound up with our ability to see what they see, and feel what they feel.

© Ed Yong 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

  • Standing out even during a recent golden age of nature writing, Ed Yong dazzles with a deeply considered exploration of the many modes of sensory perception that life has evolved to navigate the world, written with exhilarating freshness

    Winner of 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

  • [A] wondrous, lustrous, captivating book: Ed Yong’s An Immense World… left me awed and stunned – and revolted by humanity’s destructive pride and planetary abuse

    Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

  • Full of extraordinary discoveries… an encyclopaedic, rigorously researched journey… recasts the world in breath-taking, bewildering immensity

    Daily Telegraph

  • A hymn to the wonders of evolution… fascinating

    Mail on Sunday

  • Yong succeeds in bringing a sense of grandeur to life on every scale

    Financial Times

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