Zoë Schlanger, author of The Light Eaters, in conversation with Katherine J. Wu
When:
Tuesday, May 21, 2024 7:00p -
7:00p
Tuesday, May 21, 2024 7:00p -
7:00p
Where:
Porter Square Books
25 White St.
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140
Admission:
FREE
Hosted by:
Categories:
Event website:
https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/zo%C3%AB-schlanger-author-light-eaters-conversation-katherine-j-wu
Porter Square Books is thrilled to welcome for Zoë Schlanger for the release of her book The Light Eaters! Science writer Katherine J. Wu will join Schlanger in conversation. This event will take place on Tuesday, May 21 at 7pm at Porter Square Books (25 White St. Cambridge, MA 02140).
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ABOUT THE LIGHT EATERS
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.
PRAISE FOR THE LIGHT EATERS
“The Light Eaters is a masterpiece of science writing. Burning with open-minded curiosity, this exploration of the emerging revolution in plant science will challenge what you think you know and ignite a new way of seeing the plant world. Part detective story, part field trip and part philosophy, this brilliant book stretches the mind, toward a profound new understanding of the sophistication of under-appreciated plants. I feel it as an antidote to arrogance, as it engenders humility, respect and awe for the light eaters who make the world.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
"I’ll never look at plants—or the natural world—in the same way again, after reading Zoë Schlanger’s stunning book. Instead of trying to ram the square peg of botanical life into the round holes of human biology and metaphors, Schlanger instead considers plants on their own terms, as they actually are. The result is mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful." — Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes
“A brilliant must-read about the marvels of the green world. This book shook and changed me, revealing plant intelligence as more strange and wondrous than I could imagine. Zoë Schlanger’s explorations brim with curiosity and every page brings new revelation and insight.” — David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen
“Like its subject, The Light Eaters is rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it! You will look at the world in a new way.” — Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers climate change. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Time, Newsweek, The Nation, Quartz, and on NPR among other major outlets, and in the 2022 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. A recipient of a 2017 National Association of Science Writers’ reporting award, she is often a guest speaker in schools and universities. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Katherine J. Wu is a staff writer for The Atlantic, where she covers science. Previously, she was at The New York Times, where she covered COVID-19 vaccines, immunity, transmission, and testing during the height of the pandemic. She won the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications in 2022, a Science in Society journalism award in 2021, and the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists in 2020. Her writing has also been featured in the Best American Science and Nature Writing. She holds a PhD in microbiology from Harvard University.
