The Light Eaters

How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

By: Zoë Schlanger

Narrated by: Zoë Schlanger

Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

“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

“A brilliant must-read. This book shook and changed me.”–David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom and reveals the astonishing capabilities of the green life all around us.

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? Zoë 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.

©2024 Zoë Schlanger (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

We owe our very existence to plants. Fascinating book.

Absolutely fascinating and very well done. As a plant collector I fully agree with the sentiment of the author.

Our world is truly alive!

Thanks to the author for tackling issues that could be career-ending for scientists and journalists. The acceptance of plants as living, sensitive, aware beings, as having communities, relationships, and so much more is so welcome! Indigenous peoples have long known and accepted this reality of plant life as “real” life. It will be amazing if all humankind can accept the same, and act appropriately!

Rocked my World!

Okay, now it is official—my mind is truly blown! I mean, wow! Plants can hear, see, remember, count, cooperate, use tools and even act with altruism. We have spent billions to find intelligent life on other worlds, while we are here destroying countless intelligent beings without a thought. I am so glad to have read this book and to have my world ROCKED.