An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

“It really is an absolutely marvelous read, from start to finish. It’s just very intriguing. It focuses on animal senses—including smell, sight, hearing, and echolocation, among others. It’s written in a way that truly defines what a great science book is, in that it takes a topic and describes it in a clear scientific manner, but also in a way that really makes the reader think. It really makes you think about all the different senses and all these animals with their amazing senses all around us. The book opens up the reader to a whole new world. As humans, we use sight as our main sense to interpret the world around us. But for dogs, for example, their main sense is smell. Learning how a dog, and all the other animals discussed in the book, interpret the world around them was truly intriguing. I also learned about animals that I’d never heard about before. I learned about the star-nosed mole and the fire-chaser beetle, which is really quite amazing. Fire-chaser beetles sense forest fires from miles away and go there to lay their eggs. I really went ‘Wow!’ learning about that. After finishing the book, I felt I had a new appreciation for the world around me and all the species of animals that inhabit it. It really made me think and understand that we are not the only ones here. It’s quite special.” Read more...

The Best Science Books of 2023: The Royal Society Book Prize

Rebecca Henry, Scientist

“The reason that we thought this book was special was that some of these concepts would be really tough to understand without the book. For example, electromagnetic waves, or how sound is propagated; he gets you to learn some basic physics of how these things work. I think that’s important. It’s a challenging topic, because the physics can be sort of abstract, but he brings in examples of animals that can do all these tasks. It’s also funny and personal.” Read more...

The Best Literary Science Writing: The 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Book Award

David Hu, Scientist

“Ed Yong is a wonderful writer. He’s given us a very erudite and engaging book. There is just so much information in it about the sensory systems of other species and the radical diversity of modes of being that exist in nature. The book taps into the element of wonder, examining these hidden realms that are perhaps not hidden at all. They may be right next to us.” Read more...

The best books on Animal Consciousness

David Peña-Guzmán, Philosopher