Becoming Earth
Book description
A vivid account of a major shift in how we understand Earth, from an exceptionally talented new voice. Earth is not simply an inanimate planet on which life evolved, but rather a planet that came to life.
“Glorious . . . full of achingly beautiful passages, mind-bending conceptual twists, and…
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked Becoming Earth as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Deep history is the subject in non-fiction today, just as travel writing was in the ’80s, the new nature writing following Robert Macfarlane in the noughties. With 4 billion years of life on earth to play with, it’s a rich field. Ferris Jabr’s book covers similar broad ground to my Thinking Small and Large, but the examples in the two books are mostly different, a demonstration of the burgeoning information now available on the evolution of life. Jabr takes James Lovelock’s Gaia theory as his touchstone, demonstrating the one-ness of life and the earth’s physical features and continuing evolution. At…
If you love Becoming Earth...
What Walks This Way
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…