A review by billyjepma
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong

informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

“Wilderness is not distant. We are continually immersed in it. It is there for us to imagine, to savor, and to protect.”

Like many, I wanted to be a zoologist or paleontologist as a kid. While that drive went away (somewhat) when I later realized I might not be wired for those careers, that love and curiosity for the natural world (past and present) never left. And after reading Yong’s book, I’ve started to wonder if maybe I should try rewiring my brain so it can live in the world of science, discovery, and mystery that he writes about in this book because I didn’t want to leave it. 

This is a dense book, with lots of vocabulary words and heady scientific concepts and theories—some I recognized from my school days, many were new to me—that I usually had to limit myself to a chapter at a time or else run the risk of not fully absorbing the material. But don’t get me wrong; Yong’s writing is very readable, even lovely, at times. My occasional forays into books of this ilk usually satisfy whatever curiosity brought me to them but don’t often satisfy the reader who values compelling writing. Yong’s book did both. This being a broader exploration of fields of study and creatures certainly helps with the approachability, but I never felt shorted by any of the sections. Yong eases you into the science, provides plenty of notes and asides for additional context, and leaves you with enough takeaways to feel like you’ve learned something important while also knowing how much more there is to know. And, most importantly, he’s just a good writer with something to share and say. I’ll be recommending this book to anyone who will listen for the foreseeable future.