As we resume this fall, our first book is An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Wong (see info below). We will discuss the first half Tuesday, September 12, and the second half/whole book on September 26.

If you need a copy of the book and did not reserve one earlier in the library systems, there are a couple of ways to still obtain the book. One of us had success posting on the local Nextdoor website asking to borrow a copy. Your local Buy Nothing website is another option to find a copy to borrow as would be neighbor email lists, etc. Also note that a paperback version has now been released.

In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved.

Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.” 

(Quote from amazon.com)