Becoming Earth

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