Becoming Earth

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What to expect

The New York Times Bestseller.

A radically thought-provoking account of a major shift in how we understand our Earth, not simply as an inanimate planet on which life evolved, but rather as a planet that came to life.

‘Full of conceptual twists and wonderful character’ - Ed Yong, author of An Immense World
'Poetic . . . engaging . . . lucid' - The Times Literary Supplement

The notion of a living world is one of humanity’s oldest beliefs. Though once scorned by many scientists, the concept of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance in recent decades. Life not only adapts to its surroundings – it also shapes them in dramatic and enduring ways.

Over billions of years, life transformed a lump of orbiting rock into our cosmic oasis, breathing oxygen into the atmosphere, concocting the modern oceans, and turning rock into fertile soil. Life is intertwined with Earth’s capacity to regulate its climate and maintain balance.

Through compelling narrative, evocative descriptions and lucid explanations, Becoming Earth shows us how Earth became the world we’ve known, how it is rapidly becoming a very different world, and how we will determine what kind of Earth our descendants inherit for millennia to come.

'Wide-ranging and thought-provoking' - The Guardian
'A compelling account of interconnectedness' - New Scientist


* Becoming Earth was a New York Times bestseller week of 13.04.25

Critics Review

Poetic . . . engaging . . . lucid
The Times Literary Supplement
Vivid . . . eloquent . . . beautiful
The Wall Street Journal
Wide-ranging and thought-provoking
The Guardian
A compelling account of interconnectedness
New Scientist
An ode to life's ability to adapt, transform, and create the conditions for its own flourishing . . . Elegantly told
Los Angeles Review of Books
Mind-opening
The Atlantic
Wonderful
Big Think
Lyrical, smart . . . will make you appreciate our home planet in countless new ways
NPR
This is the book I'd been waiting for. It tells my favorite kind of science story: one that seems at first counter-intuitive, but then quickly becomes obviously true – a story so important and compelling that I am going to be recommending it for years.
Hank Green, co-host of Vlogbrothers
Becoming Earth is a glorious paean to our living world, full of achingly beautiful passages, mind-bending conceptual twists, and wonderful characters. Ferris Jabr reveals how Earth not only gave rise to life, and now teems with it, but has also been profoundly, miraculously shaped by it.
Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and author of An Immense World, winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize
I did not expect to experience joy when I opened Becoming Earth, but I did, and I do. The ambition, eloquence, and erudition in this dragonfly droneflight of a book are absolutely exhilarating.
John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather and winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2023
An astonishing book, weaving together science, history, and the author's unfailingly precise observations with the grace of a poet.
Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize
This wondrous book reveals our living planet for the miracle that it is. By the end, you may even feel that 'miracle' is an understatement. The story of Earth is the story of a planet reworked, remade – and, to an astonishing degree, created – by life itself. Wow.
Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
Fascinating, thought-provoking, and, ultimately, inspiring.
Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
Gorgeously written and brimming with fascinating science and provocative ideas
Dan Fagin, author of Toms River, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
We tend to take our rare jewel of a home planet for granted. In his startlingly beautiful and insightful book, Becoming Earth, Ferris Jabr shows us exactly why we shouldn't. The Earth lives, breathes, and rewrites our history even as we read, reminding us once again that there is in fact no place like home.
Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Poisoners' Handbook and The Poison Squad
A remarkable achievement: a loving homage to our glorious planet that's at once as thematically vast as the ocean, and as precise on the page as a fungal filament. Ferris Jabr, a science writer with a poet’s soul, is among the few scribes worthy of serving as biographer for the life-encrusted rock we call home.
Ben Goldfarb, author of Eager and winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Becoming Earth is the rare book that asks us to reexamine our fundamental understanding of the planet. Full of rich and surprising insights, it succeeds magnificently.
Joshua Foer, author of Moonwalking with Einstein
There are times, reading this paradigm-shifting book, when you will feel like you are peering right down into the very heart of our living planet. It is, quite simply, a work of genius.
Robert Moor, author of On Trails: An Exploration
In Becoming Earth, Ferris Jabr exalts life forms as artists of planetary change – microbes become sculptors, yaks are architects, and even forests dance. Jabr is a mesmerizing, even photosynthetic writer in his ability to draw deep meaning from all that he illuminates.
Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches
A masterwork of journalism . . . Popular science writing at its very best
Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Jabr is an exceptional new science writer.
Jury of the Whiting Foundation Grants for Creative Non-Fiction

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