Books like "An Immense World" by Ed Yong?

September 22, 2024 2:52 PM

What is the book equivalent to "An Immense World" but for plants? Space? Mushrooms? Deserts? Microbes? Anything else?

Things I loved about Ed Yong's "An Immense World":

Accessible: Love how he writes from his perspective and shares anecdotes in his very easy-to-read writing style
Timely: Covers recent research and scientific exploration currently underway; also features a variety of scientists throughout the book
Empathic: I could really feel his wonder and deep appreciation for the topic (animals), and it was contagious
Next-level information, but not *too* deep: I tend to be familiar with "nature show"-level factoids and intriguing things about various animals. But I am no expert and this is a hobby interest of mine. This book went one step beyond that first level of information to reveal almost all-new info for me, but it also didn't go too far into the depths of the science that would lose me.

I would love to read a book like this on all types of natural science topics.

bonus points for books on bats, mushrooms, or trees.

posted by dede to Science & Nature (18 answers total)

Underland: A Deep Time Journey, by Robert McFarlane. All about stuff that happens under the ground, rich with winder, much like An Immense World. (Includes, iirc, a chapter or more on trees and mushrooms.)
posted by entropone at 2:58 PM on September 22

The mushroom one is Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. He's a little more unstable to mysticism than Yong, iirc (though I may be holding it against him that his father is Rupert Sheldrake, the morphic resonance guy), but everything is rooted in science—maybe it's more than mushrooms just happen to be really trippy to wrap your head around.

For space, it's quite a specific aspect (alien life, and really more how we imagine alien life) but you might enjoy The Possibility of Life by Jaime Green, which is also rigorous and accessible.

The microbe one is I Contain Multitudes, also by Ed Yong! In the field of being Ed Yong, Ed Yong is unmatched.
posted by babelfish at 3:10 PM on September 22

I didn't read "An Immense World" yet. But maybe The Lives of a Cell is the equivalent for biology. It was beautifully written, as I recall.
posted by superelastic at 3:11 PM on September 22

Antarctica: The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth, Elizabeth Rush
Bears: Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future, Gloria Dickie
Wolves: Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear, Erica Berry
posted by box at 3:21 PM on September 22

Suzanne Simard has done groundbreaking research in forest ecology, especially regarding plant communication and how that interacts with mycorrhizal networks. Basically demonstrating that these plants and fungi are smart and have far richer communication and behavior than most people would ever expect. She has a widely acclaimed pop-sci book called Finding the Mother Tree.
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:51 PM on September 22

Zoë Schlanger’s The Light Eaters is exactly what you’re looking for!
posted by pinkacademic at 4:28 PM on September 22

I first tried Ed (who I adored on twitter, I just hadn't gotten around to books) recently when I was in a Mary Roach mood but have listened to all her books already, and some of her books are kinda gross (you can figure out which from the synopses) and you shouldn't read/audiobook while eating or maybe at all if you're really sensitive. They aren't the same - she's a bit more of an American "OMG can you believe that??" tone rather than Yong's form of wonder, but it's sincere. Her most recent, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, is probably a perfect jumping-off point from Yong.

They both remind me of Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I never really caught on to Kingsolver's fiction but I think this may have been the first book of this nature I ever read and it changed me.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:33 PM on September 22

You might look at Betsey Dexter Dyer's A Field Guide to Bacteria.
posted by away for regrooving at 4:37 PM on September 22

This is my favorite type of non-fiction! My two most recent reads (The Light Eaters and Entangled World) have already been recommended so I’ll add a couple older ones: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben and Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith
posted by tinymojo at 7:18 PM on September 22

Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape; the complete history of Britain's trees, woods and hedgerows (1976) Oliver Rackham
The Tangled Wing: biological constraints on the human spirit (1982) Mel Konner
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:05 AM on September 23

Empire of Ants: The Hidden World and Extraordinary Lives of Earth's Tiny Conquerors by Susanne Foitzik and Olaf Fritsche took me by complete surprise when i read it. Engrossing, well-written, full of startling "woah!" moments, and left me with a totally different and better appreciation of these incredible insects.
posted by underclocked at 10:29 AM on September 23

Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps by Seirian Sumner
Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods by Danna Staaf
Krakatoa by Simon Winchester
A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer
The Hidden Forest by Jon R Luoma
The Forest Unseen by David Haskell
Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz
posted by polecat at 1:39 PM on September 23

I highly recommend reviews by The Inquisitive Biologist, these books are exactly what he reviews. I pretty much ordered everything remotely of interest from his 'best of' list from the last couple years. He does a good job of discussing how difficult the book is, and if necessary recommending another as better for various readers. (oh hey, Metafilter is in his blogroll!)

A sample from the above recs:
Book review – Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life
Book review – Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
Book review – Underland: A Deep Time Journey

Full Archive
posted by lemonade at 2:08 PM on September 23

An older recommendation, but it really had an effect on me: When Elephants Weep by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy (4.0 stars on Goodreads & 4.5 on Amazon). The first author has published other books about cats and dogs that I haven't read.

Thanks for asking about this! I'm looking forward to adding some of the other reccs to my reading list =)
posted by acridrabbit at 7:56 PM on September 23

metazoa [g]
posted by HearHere at 10:02 PM on September 23

+1 many of the above recs, but also:

The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine: How I Spent a Year in the American Wild to Re-create a Feast from the Classic Recipes of French Master Chef Auguste Escoffier by Steven Rinella

The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt (the Schmidt Sting Pain Index guy!)
posted by 168 at 2:29 AM on September 24

I'd highly recommend ">Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter: I really enjoy the way the book thinks through the relationship between humans and the natural world, and I learned a lot too!
posted by lavenderhaze at 6:22 AM on September 24

David Quammen is exceptional. His tome on zoonotic disease, Spillover, is incredible. The long section on hiv has been expanded into it's own title, The Chimp and the River. More recently, Breathless covers the emergence and unfolding catastrophe of SARS-COV2.

Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies is a history of cancer and it's treatment. Song of the Cell is...cells.
posted by j_curiouser at 7:05 PM on September 25