Books like The Light Eaters — picked by fans

It seems odd to add a novel, written in 1952, to non-fiction books delving into hot-button topics...

Better than any current book I know, East of Eden is a classic of human relationships, bringing us back to the greatest mystery of all—why human behavior is so unpredictable. Purported to be a retelling of the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, it is much more than that, in its exploration of good and evil, genetic inheritance, contextual influences, ethnic traits, human needs, and innate capacities, all elements touched on in the other four books.

In the end, Steinbeck implies that deep questions can never be predictable because they depend on the Hebrew concept “timshel," ("thou mayest"), the essential question of the day, the power of choice.

The late Leslie Allan Combs was a deep thinker about consciousness, a word with a world of definitions.

I would suggest that this small book follows books about the sensoria of animals, plants, and the cosmos into the human umwelt. Consciousness has its own multiple taxonomies, states, structures, functions, hierarchies, and facets. From an individual’s point of view, consciousness is the umwelt because our senses are our only windows onto the so-called exterior world.

Because the subject sprawls like an indolent and unwelcome visitor on the couch, it needs explanation. There is no better primer of the subject than this, which one could describe as an explanation of our umwelt’s umwelt. In other words, this is a delightful entry into our most contentious “hard problem.”

I first read this book when I was developing a course for undergraduates at Cornell titled Nature Rx, based on the book I had co-authored. I immediately felt like Florence Williams had written this book just for me. Her tales of traveling to various points in Asia, Europe, and the American southwest to experience firsthand the impact of nature's immersions on humans in various states of health or illness was exactly what I needed to frame the syllabus for this course.

And Williams is more than a casual observer—whether it’s hiking through a Korean forest to gain the benefits of shinrin-roku (forest bathing) or shooting rapids down the Salmon River with a group of injured female war veterans, she makes us feel every aching joint and bead of sweat, engaging the reader in her real-life experiences. While we clearly live in a time in which cynicism is rampant, this book… show more.

We already know that most species possess the same five senses we do, but use them in different ways.

But did you know that animals have other, completely different senses, ones that detect odors, heat, sound, electricity, pressure, tastes, and the Earth’s magnetic field in ways we physically can’t?

I found it hard to finish this book because every time I read something astonishing—that hammerhead sharks sense the electrical fields of prey, that monarchs taste with their feet, that octopus arms think and act independently, that dolphin sonar can see inside bodies—I had to stop and wonder WTF that must be like. 

I loved this book about Mary Sears for many of the reasons I loved the Kariko book.

Like Kariko, she kept doggedly on while suffering many of the same indignities of doing research in a man’s world. The book relates one of her major contributions in mystery-story fashion that keeps the reader eagerly awaiting the outcome. Sears and her team used their understanding of ocean environments to help the U.S. Navy in navigating amphibious landings during WWII, ultimately saving many lives.

Having spent many summers in Woods Hole, where Sears worked, I feel connected to her many achievements that reach far beyond the scope of the book, so many in fact that later a Navy survey ship was named in her honor.

When I go out for nearly daily walks, I’m reminded that time in nature can stimulate us in many ways–from identifying the species we encounter to considering the essential interactions between organisms to simply being awed by the status of humans in the complexity of life on earth.

It is this swirl of nature engagements that Lyanda Lynn Haupt captures so beautifully in Rooted. Part poetic reflections, part call to change our daily habits, Haupt finds wonders in urban green spaces and amazement in greater forests. Along the way, she urges us to walk barefoot, clear our minds of daily worries, engage in forest bathing (but to also get muddy on occasion), and to move beyond our human-centric perceptions. 

Haupt includes enough personal anecdotes to temper her more radical suggestions, weaving insights, excitement, and, yes, humor to grab and hold the reader throughout. After reading this book, I feel that… show more.

The COVID pandemic brought on a struggle of isolation and reduced options, made worse in 2020 and ’21 for those of us in northern climes where winters stretch on for nearly half the year. If you’re like me and you wait impatiently for the first true signs of spring, then you may find the simple structure Angela Douglas employs in Nature on the Doorstep to be just the antidote you need.

Starting on March 22, 2020 (a day after the spring equinox, but nature follows its own calendar), Douglas filled her pandemic days by writing family members one letter each week for a full year’s cycle. She chose as the focus of her missives her own modest backyard and the life–and death–portrayed on that stage. It’s the modesty of this work that was its greatest appeal to me. 

In clear, non-esoteric language, Douglas finds beauty and wonder in Vultures and… show more.

Pollen’s book delving into issues of mind, sense of self and consciousness is the best I have seen in trying to understand the workings of the human mind.

Until recently, such studies were the concern of religious rather than scientific scholarship. Pollen’s is the most reader-friendly and complete of current books on these topics. And even better, for a general reader, his clear and often personal commentary on the strengths and weaknesses of current hypotheses is very helpful.

I read this book after Lighteaters as a logical extension in comparing plant and human intelligence, this time with greater emphasis on what makes humans different. It is by far the best book for non-specialists on this topic.

This book appeared in 1997 and remains controversial today, but its wildly imaginative and intriguing proposal is well worth reading.

Life in the cosmos, he suggests, is like any familiar organism in important ways; it evolves, grows increasingly complex, matures, and reproduces to create the next generation. Thus, it fits into the theme of these books.

Smolin is not a science fiction writer; however, he’s a theoretical physicist. His suggestions, though they seem wild, carry heft. They also offer poetry, a greater achievement.

Imagine that black holes are the children of a universe. Imagine they have the potential to grow into new universes that can, in turn, engender a sufficient number of such ‘light eaters’ (like black holes or plants) to ensure the survival of one or more; it can perpetuate a procession of universes, an evolutionary success. The scale may be immense, but like animals and plants, it creates… show more.

Humans have struggled with uncertainty since the beginning of our species.

We’ve repeatedly tried to reveal secrets of the future, from the flight of birds or cracks in tortoise shells to seances and think tanks. We ask, what challenges does tomorrow hold, and how can we prepare? We answer as best we can. Today, the most common and even occasionally successful method is smart people thrashing out scenarios based on our best contemporary knowledge and mathematical modeling, boosted by imagination. Imagining After Capitalism is a respectable effort to do just that.

Money is the lens through which most contemporary humans look. Money is of course imaginary, a symbolic system of exchange, an arbiter of fairness, and to some, a god that determines destiny. We think of today’s system as “Late Stage” capitalism, which means something is next. Imagining what we want it to be is the first step to getting… show more.