The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

By Zoë Schlanger

Book Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The New Yorker's Best Books of 2024 - TIME's 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 - New York Magazine's 10 Best Books of the Year - Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2024 - Smithsonian's 10 Best Science Books of the Year - A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, Scientific American, New York Public Library, Christian Science Monitor, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly - An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Nonfiction Prize - Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize - Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize - Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History

"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

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zo 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? Zo 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0063073862
• ISBN13: 9780063073869
• Release Date: May 2025
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A book filled with incredible information that has the potential to change how one thinks plants.

Enjoyable read that reminded me of a more recent scientifically/politically careful version of 'The Secret Life of Plants'. Built upon recent scientific studies the author takes us on a journey that raises the question what is consciousness and intelligence. Many studies she references as well as other facts from the animal kingdom challenges the world view many have today about our clear lines between plant, animals, and humans.

Upheaval in the World of Botany

This is a tough book to review; I can scarcrly imagine what it took to write it. Apparently, unbeknownst to most of us, the science of botany has been undergoing a seachange in its views regarding plants in recent years. What are plants, exactly? Are they conscious? Do they feel? How do they communicate with each other and with animals? Do they possess a form of intelligence? Once strictly taboo within the walls of academia, serious study of these questions has grown in recent years and has produced some highly surprising findings. Drawing from various fields--including philosophy, agriculture, and all areas of biology--the author shares the fascinating story of her own growth and discovery as she attempts to come to a new understanding of the complexity of plants and the interconnectedness of all life on earth. I recommend this book to readers who are willing to entertain the possibility that plants may have a whole lot more going on than we generally give them credit for.