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  • An Immense World

  • How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
  • By: Ed Yong
  • Narrated by: Ed Yong
  • Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (223 ratings)
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An Immense World cover art

An Immense World

By: Ed Yong
Narrated by: Ed Yong
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Humans have three or four colour-detecting cones in their retinas. Mantis shrimp have 16. In fact, their eyes seem to have more in common with satellite technology than with biological vision as we currently understand it. They have evolved to track movement with an acuity no other species can match by processing raw information; they may not 'see', in the human sense, at all.

Marine molluscs called chitons have eyes that are made of stone. Scorpions appear to see with their entire bodies. It isn't only vision that differs from species to species—some animals also have senses we lack entirely. Knifefish navigate by electrical charge.

An Immense World will take us on an insider's tour of the natural world by describing the biology, physics and chemistry animals use to perceive it. We may lack some of their senses, but our own super-sense lies in our ability to understand theirs. And in the face of the largest extinction event since the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, our only hope of saving other species is bound up with our ability to see what they see, and feel what they feel.

©2022 Ed Yong (P)2022 Penguin Audio

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What listeners say about An Immense World

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Absolute tour de force

This book has forever altered my understanding of the creatures that live around me. Even the senses I thought I understood become dazzling in the words or Ed Yong, I can’t recommend enough.

(The one bugbear is the odd use of non-metric units throughout - in a book about science)

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12 people found this helpful

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Great content, idiosyncratic performance

It might just be me, but I have a real problem with authors who narrate their own books. There are some obvious exceptions, eg Neil Gaiman, but so many don't grasp the necessary skillset. Ed Yong mispronounced toward as toword so many times and he clearly ran out of enthusiasm for the task about half way through.
To give him his due, he wrote a fascinating book and structured the information well.

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Interesting subject but…

I loved Ed Yong’s ‘I contain Multitudes’, so rushed to buy his latest. However, less than half way through I am giving up. This is partly because of the stilted narration - I’m sure a better narrator would make it more readable. It is also just not as personally interesting as the story about microbes and microbiome as recounted in Multitudes. There is a lot of fascinating information about the umwelten (the perceptual worlds) of different animals. Me, personally, I’m very interested in the umwelt of my (late) dog, a bit curious about the umwelt of a mosquito that might find me appetising, but not so hungry to understand the way the world might look to a microscopic spider I’ve never heard of and, as it seems, wouldn’t be able to see if it tried to bite me.

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2 people found this helpful

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Wonderful exploration...

This book reads like a collection of facts or curiosities. But each of them is absolutely fascinating and can change the way you think about everything that's around, and how other senses may perceive it.

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Absolutely awesome book that broadens the awareness of the world around us. I am forever changed and will read it over again

Stuck for words big enough to express my joy and awe at what I have learnt from this book. More please!! It is incredible.

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Fascinating

Very easy to listen to well narrated a fascinating collection of what science knows and does not know about the sensory perceptions of other species

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Absolutely wonderful

Every single thing about this book is perfect. The information is fascinating and challenging, the narration is beautiful.
If you look very the natural world you need this book.

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A glimpse into other worlds

The author does an excellent job of describing the sensory worlds of other animals. It’s the closest answer yet to ‘what is it like to be a bat’

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Eye-opening…

…and totally mind-blowing. An essential listen for anyone interested in the natural world, or who enjoys learning about all the ways our perception is narrow, and could be so different.

The writing is really great: walking a line between being informative and poetic, and hitting just the right balance.

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Absolutely beautiful and brilliant.

Thie is a book that you will come back to. The amount of information in it is huge but because of this you can see, hear and feel many different worlds.

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