Light Eaters

I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by the author, and it was just so good.

I loved the way the narrative played out as she described her talks with botanists around the world. She covered so much ground and made a potentially difficult topic super fun and engaging.

I really love how she mulled alongside the scientists she interviewed and it made me thing a lot about the plants that are around me and how they may feel in the environment.

Exactly the kind of approachable and fun writing I hope to see from journalists. I wonder what the author will take on next!

Good overview of plant intelligence/consciousness/philosophy for laypeople. Some accompanying accounts of personal enlightenment that were less interesting.

Intrigued by the rapidly burgeoning scientific research on plant capacities, a climate journalist turns to current questions of intelligence, consciousness, and sociality. Overlaps with Franz de Waal, Donna Haraway, Future Ecologies, etc in pushing at our human-centered and exploitative perspective on the world to wonder what it would mean to consider our intellectual capacities diffused to all distant kin.