If you liked
Books like An Immense World
by Ed Yong
An Immense World is Ed Yong's Pulitzer-Prize-winning popular-science book about the Umwelt — the specific perceptual world that each species inhabits. Bat echolocation, electric eels, the magnetic compass of birds. If you finished it and needed more popular science of equivalent quality, these are our picks.
The shortlist
What to read next
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankindby Yuval Noah Harari
“Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari 2014 review. A single-volume history of Homo sapiens from cognitive revolution to the present. The popular-history bestseller that defined the 2010s book-club shelf, with the trade-offs that ambition requires.”
Project Hail Maryby Andy Weir
“Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir 2021 review. A junior-high science teacher wakes alone on a deep-space craft with no memory. Andy Weir's third novel and the canonical contemporary hard science fiction novel about a single problem solved correctly.”
The Anxious Generationby Jonathan Haidt
“The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt 2024 review. The smartphone-and-social-media-driven youth mental-health crisis and a four-point reform proposal. The most-cited contemporary book on adolescent psychology.”
The Devil in the White Cityby Erik Larson
“The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson 2003 review. The 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the serial killer H. H. Holmes, whose hotel operated three blocks from the fairgrounds. The narrative-nonfiction bestseller that defined the contemporary popular-history register.”
The Wagerby David Grann
“The Wager by David Grann 2023 review. The 1741 shipwreck of HMS Wager off Patagonia and the two contradictory mutiny narratives that returned to England. Grann's third major narrative non-fiction book and the canonical contemporary maritime-disaster story.”
Klara and the Sunby Kazuo Ishiguro
“Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 review. Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches the children passing by the storefront and waits to be chosen. Late-career Ishiguro at his most patient and most strange.”
FAQ
Common questions about An Immense World read-alikes
- What is the closest match for An Immense World?
- Sapiens. Different scale (Sapiens is species-history, An Immense World is animal-sensory) but the same patient discipline of layering empirical research into popular-science prose. Both books reward slow reading and reread.
- I want more Ed Yong.
- I Contain Multitudes (2016) is the Yong book on the microbial ecosystems inside the human body. His Atlantic coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic (collected as the Pulitzer-Prize-winning archive on the Atlantic site) is the canonical contemporary American pandemic-era science journalism.
- I want more narrative non-fiction.
- The Wager (David Grann's maritime-disaster narrative non-fiction) and The Devil in the White City (Erik Larson's 1893 Chicago) are the closest matches in our catalog. Both are excellent next reads.
- I want fiction that does adjacent sensory-world work.
- Klara and the Sun (the Umwelt of an AI companion). Project Hail Mary (the Umwelt of a spider-sized rock-eating alien). Both are doing related conceptual work in fictional form.
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