Welcome to Litsy!

I had the good fortune to hear Ed Yong speak last week. He says, “All of my work is about curiosity and empathy. It‘s about trying to take the perspective of lives that are very different from ours on the grounds that those lives are worth understanding and knowing, and that our lives are richer for making the effort.” His work is a generous, wonderful gift to us all. (Photo credit: Friends of the Hennepin County Library.)

Perhaps people who experience the world in ways that are considered atypical have an intuitive feeling for the limits of typicality.

Our species and our culture are so driven by sight that even people who are blind from birth will describe the world using visual words and metaphors.

I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat,” Nagel wrote. “Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task.

How many senses are there? Around 2,370 years ago, Aristotle wrote that there are five, in both humans and other animals—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. This tally persists today. But according to the philosopher Fiona Macpherson, there are reasons to doubt it.

The senses constrain an animal‘s life, restricting what it can detect and do. But they also define a species‘ future, and the evolutionary possibilities ahead of it.

Light is just electromagnetic radiation.Sound is just waves of pressure.Smells are just small molecules.It‘s not obvious that we should be able to detect any of those things,let alone convert them into electrical signals or derive from those signals the spectacle of a sunrise,or the sound of a voice,or the scent of baking bread.The senses transform the coursing chaos of the world into perceptions and experiences things we can react to and act upon

They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

They move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

There are animals with eyes on their genitals, ears on their knees, noses on their limbs, and tongues all over their skin.

There are animals that can hear sounds in what seems to us like perfect silence, see colors in what looks to us like total darkness, and sense vibrations in what feels to us like complete stillness

It is all that we know, and so we easily mistake it for all there is to know. This is an illusion, and one that every animal shares.

Trees of green, red roses too, skies of blue, and clouds of white—these are not part of its wonderful world. The tick doesn‘t willfully ignore them. It simply cannot sense them and doesn‘t know they exist.

Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal can only tap into a small fraction of reality‘s fullness. Each is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world

This is packed with facts about how different animals use the five senses. While having a lot of information the prose is very accessible and not overly scientific.

I am 36% into this book.

Everyone should read this. This isn't just a “pick“ this is an “I'M SHOUTING AT YOU RIGHT NOW TO READ THIS.“

Ed Yong is so passionate and his narration is so humorous and deeply thoughtful. My whole world perception has been challenged and changed without feeling overwhelmed. It's beautiful.

I absolutely loved this. This book explains the umwelt concept -- which basically supposes that we can't imagine the experience of other animals because we can't know their sensory world. Essentially we would need to know everything about another animal to understand how they perceive their environment and we don't even know what organs that animals use for magnetoreception, etc. I really enjoyed learning more about some of my favorite animals ⬇️

There‘s been a lot of love for this book so I‘m in the minority for this one. There were definitely interesting parts, but some parts were a bore. It‘s well researched, an interesting overall book but too long for me. I am looking forward to discussing it at book club and I‘m pretty sure I know the readers of the group who will have enjoyed the book and those who DNF 😂

On the difficulties of providing numbers for comparing humans‘ and dogs‘ olfactory systems: “It is easy to find estimates, and vey hard to find primary sources for them; after an hours-long search that included a university paper that sourced a factoid to a book in the For Dummies series, I fell into an existential void and questioned the very nature of knowledge.” 🤣

Chapter One: Leaking Sacks of Chemicals
“I don't think he's been in here before, “ Alexandra Horowitz tells me, “So it should be very smelly.“

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl
#WeekendReading

This was fantastic! I cannot recommend it strongly enough. I learned so much, and I'd like to get a physical copy now to read because there's so much fascinating information. The final chapter alone should be required reading. #highlyrecommend #mustread

A patron recommended this to me - I don‘t think I have the attention span, even though it‘s really kind of cool. This is probably going to be a “read a chapter, then read something else, then read another chapter” kind of thing for me. #animmenseworld #edyong #animals #biology #science

Such a fantastic book! Been meaning to get to it since well before it came out bc I love Ed Yong (his previous book I Contain Multitudes, plus his Atlantic writing in general and his pandemic pieces in particular). Endless cool facts about how animals sense the world (as best we can tell!). And a wonderful reminder that humans' perceptions of the world are limited by our own senses and perspectives...but learning can expand both of these. 💚

3-9 Feb 22 (audiobook)
Thought-provoking book about ‘umwelt‘ how the world of each living creature is shaped by their differing senses and capabilities. Fascinating to consider how different creatures experience the world, although as the author concedes it is quite impossible for humans to really step out of their umwelt.
My return to a pescatarian diet was short-lived. There is always an element with these books of preaching to the converted.

Check out this footnote to text ratio

Playing catch up since I forgot to post yesterday. For August, it's definitely Ed Yong's amazing book An Immense World. I recommend it to everyone who's interested in nature, animals or ecology. September choice is Douglas Wolk's All The Marvels. It is a detail dissection of the story Marvel Comics has been producing since the 1960s. The mere idea of reading every Marvel Comic ever published boggles the mind.
#12Booksof2022 @Andrew65

Another year of great reads in the books! Here are my top ten nonfiction reads of this year. I wasn‘t able to get my nonfiction/fiction ratio exactly 50/50 like I wanted (it ended up being 47% nonfic which isn‘t too shabby) - but I‘ll work on that next year for sure. 😄

Will also try to read more broadly in topic/type of nonfiction in 2023 (as there tends to be some themes in my current nonfic selections).

If you‘ve got any recs send my way!

I found this fascinating. It‘s all about how different animals sense the world…. while I probably couldn‘t pass a quiz on the vast amount of material and recent research & discovery I just listened to.. I was was constantly thinking “wow that‘s cool”

Utterly amazing what animals are capable of, how we‘ve figured out a small bit of it, and how much more we have to learn! I already love animals and this epic work of science writing gave me a much deeper appreciation and understanding of the way animals interact with our world. Completely eye-opening, life-changing. A top pick for me and deserving of the many “best of 2022” lists it appears on. Also, fabulous audio narration! #NYTTopTen2022

It‘s hard to pick a fave when there are so many amazing animals.

This is Doldol, the tiniest elephant newborn Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has ever rescued. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is focused on the conservation of these amazing creatures. https://sheldrickwildlifetrust.org

And the tagged book is a wonderful read on seeing the world through the lens of the amazing creatures we share this planet with

#winterreadathondailychallenge

❄️ Getting out after a snowfall and seeing the trees all dressed in white

☃️ All I want for Christmas is the first female director for Encouragement.

📚 the tagged, and Shakespeare and Co by Sylvia Beach

Anyone planning on participating in Nonfiction November? I set a goal a handful of nf books last November & if I recall correctly I ended up reading around 6, including graphic memoirs. I would like to read at least 3 & plan on having a small pile with options for graphic memoir, true crime, essays & a nature book.

Excellent, interesting, well researched, cheeky, readable and informative- this book by Yong explores a wide variety of animals and how they sense the world. Each chapter explores a different sense like hearing, echolocation, electric fields, UV rays, touch, seismic waves, etc. It changed how I‘ll teach the electromagnetic spectrum to my high school class. Great book!

This book was an amazing look at the world of senses that animals have. I couldn't possibly do it justice, but one passage jumped out at me more than others: that the platypus has electro sensors in its bill that it uses for detecting hidden food. My friends were subscribed to animal facts as I read them, leading 4 of them to go and get the book themselves. If you've wondered how your pet perceives things, you'll learn that and a whole lot more.

This book has been mind blowing, finding out about the senses and hidden worlds in our own, but this one really got me this morning. The idea that cats might be getting low to sense prey? (Unlike most of what this book covers, this part is a guess, other content is strongly supported with research, but this is plausible enough that now I'll keep an eye out for research!)

I loved I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong‘s book about the microbiome, so I had to try his newest even though the subject wasn‘t as exciting to me. An Immense World is a dizzying tour through daily life on our planet through the vastly different senses of animals. A great reminder that our view of the world is but a fragment of the picture. I do wish Yong had done more editorializing as sometimes I got lost in the science but definitely worth reading!

📚 Tagged! Amazing book, I highly recommend it to everyone, no matter your interest in science or nature.
📚 I learned so much from this book, it changed the way I view nature and the animals in it.
Thanks for the tag @TheSpineView #Two4Tuesday

105/150 What an amazing book!! This book will give you a whole new appreciation of nature and the animals within it, you will definitely see it differently. It's kind of humbling, as humans we think we're the top of the evolutionary ladder, but its mind boggling all the sights, sounds, smells and tastes we never experience that other animals do on a day to day basis. Continued in comments ⬇️⬇️

I knew I would love this book. I did not know it would end up on my all time favorite list. It‘s absolutely fantastic! Ed Yong explores the world of animal senses, showing what the world is like for those animals. It‘s just wonderful and I hope it gets widely read. Yong is an incredible writer.

Finally get around to posting my July wrap up. A couple of already returned library books aren‘t pictured.

Best of the month were Legends and Lattes, Recursion, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, The Prophets, and An Immense World. Lots of good reads this month!

In my favorite science writing of the year so far, Yong immerses you in the world of various animals and their senses. From the seismic sensors of an elephant to an internal magnetic compass in whales to electric sensors on many fish species, the world is indeed far more immense that we realize. He writes about the five classic senses in animals, too, including fascinating bits on enhanced color vision in birds. Great end to July with another 5⭐️!

Friend gifted me a flat of apricots as a thank you for my help advocating for his farm, threatened w/ being divided. Audio-canning, jam & apricot-rum sauce! I loved Yong‘s We Contain Multitudes. The topic is right up my alley but I wish I‘d done print. I have background on the subject and could have skimmed parts.. Yong narrates & his voice grates on me. Authors should leave narration to the professionals unless they have a real gifted voice.

Soubhi! You‘re so awesome! What a wonderful birthday gift! I love it all and am especially excited to dive into the Yong (as soon as I get home next week). You always gift me the best bookmarks and these stickers were basically made for me. I was side-eyeing the candies a little, but I tried them and really like them! Thank you so, so much. You really made me smile.

This was completely fascinating. Non fiction about how we and other creatures perceive the world. It‘s about the senses humans have plus others we don‘t- such as electrical and magnetic. The idea that creatures have the same receptors for information that we have but on different body parts, and that some have many we don‘t have at all or some we don‘t understand yet.

My mind was blown by the description of dogs‘ smelling sense and how ⬇️