Sample
  • The Light Eaters

  • How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
  • By: Zoë Schlanger
  • Narrated by: Zoë Schlanger
  • Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (187 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Light Eaters

By: Zoë Schlanger
Narrated by: Zoë Schlanger
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.19

Buy for $25.19

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
activate_WEBCRO358_DT_T2

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“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

“A brilliant must-read. This book shook and changed me.” –David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of 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, 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.

©2024 Zoë Schlanger (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about The Light Eaters

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    158
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    4
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    152
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    4
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    149
  • 4 Stars
    13
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Agency commands respect

Zoe's approach of presenting remarkable research discoveries across several disciplines reveals plants' surprising behavior in a way that really spoke to me

If only the messages contained were received by the artificially intelligent and authentically ignorant timber barons: that the greatest value is protecting the magnificent redwood overstory and fragile fern, trillium, mycellium, etc understory from decimation for short term profit and perennial greed

CalFire's operating budget comes from whacking the fragmented forest remnants, leaving behind disturbed and desiccated dust, perfect habitat for gorse and thistle, stable climax forest reversed to invasive spiny weedscape baking in the heat where there used to be cool, fragrant shade

Same story in Amazonia, Borneo, Congo...

It's surprising that the book optimistically lays out all the research displaying intelligence, more in the plant world than in our ZuckerMusk-infected monkey sphere

The survivors in all the kingdoms will rejoice and re-speciate when we are gone: in the meantime, listen to The Light Eaters and be amazed at their stories

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Gave me a whole new perspective

I loved the authors approach, starting from exhaustion being a climate reporter to delving deeper and deeper into the world of plants by talking to one researcher at a time. I liked plants before. Now I am enthralled by them. Thank you for the new way of seeing the world around us.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Backed by science

Wonderful read on the controversial yet undeniable existence of “intelligence” challenging the mainstream’s “unconscious“ knowing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Truly Amazing Book! A New Light On Plants They Desperately Needed.

So glad to see the science blossoming for plants and that they’re finally being seen the way they are and not the way people always thought them to be which was incredibly close minded. I hope that more people will be more open minded and respectful to the lives of plants. They’re truly a wonder along with all their coexisting counterparts (Fungi, insects, animals and the rest of the world)! Glad to see science is also starting to truly see the interconnectedness of all life. Great job to everyone that contributed to these findings no matter the age. Everything y’all do help contribute to helping others understand the lives of plants and others when they so choose to learn and see it.
If you’re pondering about getting this book, I highly recommend it. If you know nothing about plants or are just curious about their world, this is a good one to start with. It’ll definitely change your perspective on them to help you see them for the living beings they are. If you do know plants, then it’ll help solidify what you already know 😉 and/or teach you something new.
It helped me see evidence for hope for people as a whole as I hope this new light on plants spreads like wildfire (in a good way). Maybe it can help us gain the respect they deserve to help them regrow what we’ve destroyed.
Progress is progress and glad to see that there is some! ☺️

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent and thought provoking.

The author meticulously weaves together her ideas in elegant prose and provides the narrative as well.
Well worth the time spent to listen to her.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Breathtakingly beautiful

I would never have thought that a book about plants could be poetic (Whitman’s Leaves of Grass wasn’t primarily about plants of course). This book is both lyrical and profound. I am in awe of the author’s writing ability.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

insightful, unifying, transcending

Delicate,fragile,powerful,inspiring,attentive to every relevant,integrating detail. Beautiful,fluid,startling prose style. Vivid images and multi-sense associations .
Please, wrie more books!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The caring authenticity of the author

Thank you for exploring the lives of the plant world. Your research is fascinating and inspiring.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Staggering, beautiful, engrossing

An absolutely fantastic exploration of the world. A must-read for all humans. Beautifully written, wisely considered, and humanely told.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

I learned to appreciate plants more

This read like a science textbook, and I was happy to find it was on audible. Interesting but laborious to read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!