NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024 TIME’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 New York Magazine’s 10 Best Books of the Year Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2024 Smithsonian’s 10 Best Science Books of the Year A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, Scientific American, New York Public Library, Christian Science Monitor, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Nonfiction Prize Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History “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 Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of natural history and popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom, “destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself.” (The New Yorker) 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—a fascinating display of plant behavior and sensory abilities, 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 this captivating exploration of plant intelligence, 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 insights into plant communication 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, tackling the enthralling question of plant consciousness along the way.

“Mesmerizing… Exquisite… The written equivalent of a Botticelli or a Michelangelo.” –The Portland Oregonian “Stunning… Uplifting… Not to be missed.” –Entertainment Weekly “Hauntingly beautiful.” –The New York Times “Each and every person in this finely spun assemblage is distinct and true.” –USA Today “Intertwines secret radio broadcasts, a cursed diamond, a soldier’s deepest doubts into a richly compelling package… Irresistible.” –People “Gorgeous… Moves with the pace of a thriller.” –San Francisco Chronicle “Enthrallingly told, beautifully written.” —Amanda Vaill, The Washington Post “Dazzling . . . Startlingly fresh.” —John Freeman, The Boston Globe “Intricate . . . A meditation on fate, free will, and the way that, in wartime, small choices can have vast consequences.” —The New Yorker “Brims with scrupulous reverence for all forms of life. The invisible light of the title shines long after the last page.” —Tricia Springstubb, The Cleveland Plain Dealer “Anthony Doerr writes beautifully. . . . A tour de force.” —Elizabeth Reid, Deseret News “Anthony Doerr again takes language beyond mortal limits.” —Elissa Schappell, Vanity Fair “Perfectly captured . . . Doerr writes sentences that are clear-eyed, taut, sweetly lyrical.” —Josh Cook, Minneapolis StarTribune “A beautiful, expansive tale . . . Ambitious and majestic.” —Steph Cha, Los Angeles Times “Doerr is an exquisite stylist; his talents are on full display.” — Alan Cheuse, NPR “The craftsmanship of Doerr’s book is rooted in his ability to inhabit the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner.” — Steve Novak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Doerr deftly guides All the Light We Cannot See toward the day Werner’s and Marie-Laure’s lives intersect during the bombing of Saint-Malo in what may be his best work to date.” — Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor “To open a book by Anthony Doerr is to open a door on humanity. . . . His sentences shimmer. . . . His paragraphs are luminous with bright, sparkling beauty.” —Martha Anne Toll, Washington Independent Review of Books “Endlessly bold and equally delicate . . . An intricate miracle of invention, narrative verve, and deep research lightly held, but above all a miracle of humanity . . . Anthony Doerr’s novel celebrates—and also accomplishes—what only the finest art can: the power to create, reveal, and augment experience in all its horror and wonder, heartbreak and rapture.” —Shelf Awareness “Intricately structured . . . All the Light We Cannot See is a work of art and of preservation.” —Jane Ciabattari, BBC “Magnificent.” —Carmen Callil, The Guardian (UK) “The whole enthralls.” —Good Housekeeping “A revelation.” —Michael Magras, Bookreporter.com “Doerr conjures up a vibrating, crackling world. . . . Intricately, beautifully crafted.” — Rebecca Kelley, Bustle.com “There is so much in this book. It is difficult to convey the complexity, the detail, the beauty, and the brutality of this simple story.” —Carole O’Brien; Aspen Daily News “Beautifully written . . . Soulful and addictive.” —Chris Stuckenschneider, The Missourian “A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr’s magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed. . . . Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably re-creates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers.” —Booklist (starred review) “Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “If a book’s success can be measured by its ability to move readers and the number of memorable characters it has, Story Prize–winner Doerr’s novel triumphs on both counts. Along the way, he convinces readers that new stories can still be told about this well-trod period, and that war—despite its desperation, cruelty, and harrowing moral choices—cannot negate the pleasures of the world.” —Publishers Weekly (starred r

“Once a decade a book like The Every advances the frontier of literary excellence: a book that reflects our culture. Predicts our future. Worm-holes into our subconscious. Delivers artful and complex characters, metaphor, ideas, narrative. Provides percussive movements of levity, gravity, grace, suspense, hilarity.” —Kerri Arsenault, The Boston Globe “(A) great-grandchild of Zamyatin’s We, but now the 'perfect society' is Silicon Valley. Be careful what you wish for!” —Margaret Atwood, via Twitter “Eggers is a wonderful storyteller with an alert and defiant vision. His down-home decency means he pulls short of articulating a thought that recurred for me throughout reading The Every: threatened with spiritual extinction through conformism, sanitization, shame, inanity and surveillance, it might yet be our evil, our perversity, our psychopathology, our hate that prove the saving of us.” —Rob Doyle, The Guardian “Fiction like Eggers’s can show how socially destructive technology is normalized. . . . His exquisite portrayal of how this dynamic builds over time complements scholarly descriptions. . . . Eggers reveals something most of us can’t perceive in real time when we start using a new gadget promoted by a Big Tech company: the big picture and the likely endgame.” —Evan Selinger, Los Angeles Review of Books “Highly engaging, deeply unsettling . . . The strength of Eggers’ book lies in its wicked extrapolations of current technological fads to expose their latent flaws. . . . [Eggers’] writing always delivers a moral message in the most engaging literary form.” —John Thornhill, Financial Times “Corporate autocracy is explored through satire, social criticism, and emotion, to evoke ideas Eggers considers terrifying, funny and ludicrous. . . . The Every captures our time, the world around us, and the lives within it.” —Michael Silverblatt, KCRW “One has to admire Eggers’ belief in the power of fiction to make a difference, and his determination to use his publishing company to make a difference while remaining modestly pragmatic by necessity. The Every is smart, funny and very sharply pointed. If it doesn’t hit on every aspect of the diffused totalitarianism of the tech companies and the way smartphones, cameras and computers have negatively impacted humanity, it sure hits on many of them.” —Eric Ackland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “[This is a] remarkable piece of satire, riven as it is with horribly plausible ideas and horribly good jokes. It’s one thing to sound a warning about how we are on a slippery slope to a kind of consumerist fascism where we exchange liberty for convenience. What Eggers does so well is make the Every alluring as well as alarming. . . . Eight years after The Circle was published, there is all too little that rings false about its predictions about social media. If the same is true of The Every, we are in even more trouble than we thought we were.” ―The Times “A darkly hilarious narrative that doesn’t just hit close to home. It burns the home down and then coldly assassinates all insurance adjusters who arrive on the scene to offer redemption.” —Eric Mack, CNET “Prescient; sardonic and more than a little frightening.” —Paul Wilner, San Francisco Examiner “Eggers has long established his almost supernatural storytelling skills, and this new book is positively mesmerizing and wholly original.” —BookPage (starred review) “A thought-provoking and wickedly dark satire.” —Brad Stone, Bloomberg “A prescient—and hilarious—meditation on the rise of tech giants and how our blind trust in them could ultimately be our demise.” —Harper’s Bazaar “What a perfect summation of our growing fears about Big Tech . . . cleverly speculating on the dystopia we’d face if these firms joined forces.” —Alison Beard, Harvard Business Review “Daringly explodes cherished assumptions . . . A riveting, astute, darkly hilarious, and deeply unnerving speculative saga.” —Booklist (starred review) “Dave Eggers is one of my favorite people to t

“Once a decade a book like The Every advances the frontier of literary excellence: a book that reflects our culture. Predicts our future. Worm-holes into our subconscious. Delivers artful and complex characters, metaphor, ideas, narrative. Provides percussive movements of levity, gravity, grace, suspense, hilarity.” —Kerri Arsenault, The Boston Globe “(A) great-grandchild of Zamyatin’s We, but now the 'perfect society' is Silicon Valley. Be careful what you wish for!” —Margaret Atwood, via Twitter “Eggers is a wonderful storyteller with an alert and defiant vision. His down-home decency means he pulls short of articulating a thought that recurred for me throughout reading The Every: threatened with spiritual extinction through conformism, sanitization, shame, inanity and surveillance, it might yet be our evil, our perversity, our psychopathology, our hate that prove the saving of us.” —Rob Doyle, The Guardian “Fiction like Eggers’s can show how socially destructive technology is normalized. . . . His exquisite portrayal of how this dynamic builds over time complements scholarly descriptions. . . . Eggers reveals something most of us can’t perceive in real time when we start using a new gadget promoted by a Big Tech company: the big picture and the likely endgame.” —Evan Selinger, Los Angeles Review of Books “Highly engaging, deeply unsettling . . . The strength of Eggers’ book lies in its wicked extrapolations of current technological fads to expose their latent flaws. . . . [Eggers’] writing always delivers a moral message in the most engaging literary form.” —John Thornhill, Financial Times “Corporate autocracy is explored through satire, social criticism, and emotion, to evoke ideas Eggers considers terrifying, funny and ludicrous. . . . The Every captures our time, the world around us, and the lives within it.” —Michael Silverblatt, KCRW “One has to admire Eggers’ belief in the power of fiction to make a difference, and his determination to use his publishing company to make a difference while remaining modestly pragmatic by necessity. The Every is smart, funny and very sharply pointed. If it doesn’t hit on every aspect of the diffused totalitarianism of the tech companies and the way smartphones, cameras and computers have negatively impacted humanity, it sure hits on many of them.” —Eric Ackland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “[This is a] remarkable piece of satire, riven as it is with horribly plausible ideas and horribly good jokes. It’s one thing to sound a warning about how we are on a slippery slope to a kind of consumerist fascism where we exchange liberty for convenience. What Eggers does so well is make the Every alluring as well as alarming. . . . Eight years after The Circle was published, there is all too little that rings false about its predictions about social media. If the same is true of The Every, we are in even more trouble than we thought we were.” ―The Times “A darkly hilarious narrative that doesn’t just hit close to home. It burns the home down and then coldly assassinates all insurance adjusters who arrive on the scene to offer redemption.” —Eric Mack, CNET “Prescient; sardonic and more than a little frightening.” —Paul Wilner, San Francisco Examiner “Eggers has long established his almost supernatural storytelling skills, and this new book is positively mesmerizing and wholly original.” —BookPage (starred review) “A thought-provoking and wickedly dark satire.” —Brad Stone, Bloomberg “A prescient—and hilarious—meditation on the rise of tech giants and how our blind trust in them could ultimately be our demise.” —Harper’s Bazaar “What a perfect summation of our growing fears about Big Tech . . . cleverly speculating on the dystopia we’d face if these firms joined forces.” —Alison Beard, Harvard Business Review “Daringly explodes cherished assumptions . . . A riveting, astute, darkly hilarious, and deeply unnerving speculative saga.” —Booklist (starred review) “Dave Eggers is one of my favorite people to t