Books like Punk Ikebana — picked by fans

Plants, too, have an umwelt, which makes this a companion to An Immense World.

Plants may not seem like a subject for ethics and philosophy, but the author makes a crucial case for humans changing their behavior toward them. They are neither mute nor static objects; they have senses. They feel things, solve complex problems, communicate with each other in various ways we would call ingenious.

At times, they communicate with animals. Their world is more alien to us than the animals’. I know someone who describes evolution as a story of planimals and aniplants. I initially thought this was a whacky idea, but consider the emerald green sea slug (Elysia chlorotica), a tiny animal that appropriates chloroplasts from algae and photosynthesizes food for the rest of its year-long life.

There is such magic on every page of this book.

As a world traveler, I feel that it's important to understand to language to "grok" the culture one is exploring. Although I personally am not very good with spoken language sounds, I find the underlying linguistic structure always fascinating. For example, Japanese grammar explains many things about Japanese culture.

In that light, Petersen's "The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Worlds Behind World-Building" is fascinating. As the subtitle indicates, Petersen was called on to invent plausible languages for the Riders of Rohan, the Dothraki, and more. Petersen explains what goes into plausible language creation, and how the creation of the language mirrors the underlying culture in this fascinating and detailed book.