An Immense World

How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

By: Ed Yong

Narrated by: Ed Yong

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “thrilling” (The New York Times), “dazzling” (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Ed Yong

“One of this year’s finest works of narrative nonfiction.”—Oprah Daily

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, People, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Slate, Reader’s Digest, Chicago Public Library, Outside, Publishers Weekly, BookPage

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Economist, Smithsonian Magazine, Prospect (UK), Globe & Mail, Esquire, Mental Floss, Marginalian, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal

The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world.

In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved.

Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”

WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON AWARD

©2022 Ed Yong (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

2023, Royal Society Prize for Science Books: Short-listed

“A dazzling ride through the sensory world of astoundingly sophisticated creatures . . . It’s Mr. Yong’s task to expand our thinking, to rouse our sense of wonder, to help us feel humbled and exalted at the capabilities of our fellow inhabitants on Earth. . . . [A] deeply affectionate travelogue of animal sensory wonders.”—The Wall Street Journal

“One of this year’s finest works of narrative nonfiction . . . Yong’s reporting is layered, seasoned with vivid scenes from laboratories and in the field, interviews with researchers across a spectrum of disciplines.”—Oprah Daily

“A thrilling tour of nonhuman perception . . . Nature’s true wonders aren’t limited to a remote wilderness or other sublime landscape. . . . There is as much grandeur in the soil of a backyard garden as there is in the canyons of Zion.”—The New York Times

Fascinating

Really amazing, science-rich but accessible, read with humor and passion. Worth a second listen and more. Highly recommended!

I’ve already recommended this book to 10 other people!

By far one of the most interesting book I’ve ever read. If I had read this in my 20s I would have become a biologist.

Fascinating

Ed Yong is a terrific writer and excellent storyteller. The animals and scientists he writes about leap off the page. A whole new world has opened up to me now.

Fascinating and Thought Provoking

I learned so much. I am forever changed for the better. Thank you for this amazing compilation of fantastic information.

Fascinating!

So good…
Reminds me of The Hidden Life of Trees except it’s about animals’ senses.

Amazing

What a truly eye opening book. I think everyone should read/listen it. Ed Yong does such a good job of revealing just how ignorant we are of the perceptual worlds of other animals.

Great book

Well worth the time. You will look at all animals differently and walking your dog will take longer.

Fascinating

A remarkable account of the sense a through the experience of amazing creatures in our world.

Slow but wow — what a world

This book is the closest thing to a David Attenborough film that I’ve ever read. At times the scientific minutiae made me glaze over, and then I’d snap back when the author described how the hidden skull bumps of a whale were like invisible peacock feathers for sonar, or when he’d add in a quick quote from Insane Clown Posse. It takes a special author to bring this subject to life, and he deserves massive credit for his humor, grace, and insights. The final call to action offered a whole new way to think about environmentalism that I won’t forget.

Save the quiet & preserve the dark!

A harrowing study of what we humans have done to our environment, our umwelten is not to be imposed upon other species. Pls study this wonderful scientific study!