Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Ed Yong opens a door most of us never knew existed. His 2022 book introduces the concept of the “Umwelt”—the unique sensory bubble each animal inhabits—and then takes us on a journey through dozens of them: the magnetic field a sea turtle navigates by, the electrical pulses fish use to communicate, the ultraviolet patterns bees see in flowers that are invisible to us. The Earth we think we know turns out to be layered with richness we’ve never perceived. For readers exploring Earth as a living organism, this book makes visceral what can otherwise feel abstract—that the planet is alive with intelligence, communication, and sensation at every scale, and that human perception barely skims the surface of it. Susan Orlean calls it “a journal of discovery and animal magic,” while Jennifer Ackerman describes it as “brilliant, marvellous and mesmerizing.” Winner of both the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the 2023 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, An Immense World doesn’t just expand knowledge—it expands the imagination of what it means to share a living planet.
