Zoë

Schlanger

Bestselling Author

Award Winning Writer & Journalist

Travels from: New York, NY

“A masterpiece of science writing.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass

Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at the Atlantic, where she covers climate change. She is the author of The Light Eaters, a New York Times bestselling book about the world of plant-behavior-and-intelligence research, published by HarperCollins. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, and The New York Review of Books, among other major outlets. She was the recipient of a 2017 National Association of Science Writers reporting award for coverage of air pollution in Detroit, and a finalist for the 2019 Livingston Award for a series on water politics at the Texas-Mexico border. She is often a guest speaker at journalism schools. She lives in New York.

The Light Eaters is a New York Times bestseller that has been dubbed a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom. It is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence.

Zoë's Featured Titles

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth

Harper |

May 7, 2024

Botany

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“A masterpiece of science writing.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass

“Mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful.” –Ed Yong, author of An Immense World

“Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!” –Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction

“A brilliant must-read. This book shook and changed me.” –David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom, “destabilizing not just how we see the green things of the world but also our place in the hierarchy of beings, and maybe the notion of that hierarchy itself.” (The New Yorker)

It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents.

The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.

What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.

We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for—if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.

Bestseller, Environmental Concerns, Natural World, Nonfiction, Science & Technology

Coming Soon!

“Zoë Schlanger’s virtual event on The Light Eaters was truly an extraordinary program. She brought a captivating blend of deep scientific insight, engaging storytelling, and thought-provoking ideas that left our audience engaged and inspired. Her ability to make complex plant science accessible and enthralling sparked curiosity and meaningful conversation throughout the event and on after. Zoë doesn’t just share knowledge—she invites us to see the living world in an entirely new way. This was more than a talk; it was a reawakening to the brilliance and agency of plants. A truly unforgettable experience.” — The Aldo Leopold Foundation, 2025

“The contemporary world of botany is divided over the matter of how plants sense the world and whether they can be said to communicate. But research in recent decades has prompted the question that animates Schlanger’s book: Are plants intelligent? Schlanger writes about scientists who are studying how plants change their shape and respond to sound, how they use electricity to convey information, how they send one another chemical signals. Along the way, she becomes a sort of anthropologist of botanists. The book’s focus on the researchers themselves overcomes a challenge inherent to science writing: where to find drama. The Light Eaters is a special piece of science writing for the way it solves the genre’s bind; it doesn’t force people or their findings into narrative engines. Instead, the field of botany itself functions like a character, one undergoing a potentially radical change, with all the excitement, discomfort, and uncertainty that transformation brings. The book’s power comes from showing a field in flux and reminding us that ideas have their own life cycles: from crackpot theory to utter embarrassment to real possibility to the stuff of textbooks.” — The New Yorker

“The Light Eaters is a masterpiece of science writing. Burning with open-minded curiosity, this exploration of the emerging revolution in plant science will challenge what you think you know and ignite a new way of seeing the plant world. Part detective story, part field trip and part philosophy, this brilliant book stretches the mind, toward a profound new understanding of the sophistication of under-appreciated plants. I feel it as an antidote to arrogance, as it engenders humility, respect and awe for the light eaters who make the world.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

“To read The Light Eaters is to be astounded by the complex behaviors of these ostensibly lower life-forms. Ms. Schlanger’s prose is precise yet loving. . . . There are lots of gee-whiz moments here. . . . Fertilize your brain with The Light Eaters and you’ll never look at your favorite, or least favorite, plants the same.” — Wall Street Journal

“Schlanger’s captivating exploration renders a rich world of plants: weird fern sex, sagebrush chemical communication, scientific debates on flora intelligence, and more.” — Vanity Fair

“The vegetable kingdom is full of wonders and mysteries, as Schlanger lavishly demonstrates in The Light Eaters . . . These are the unsung miracles that surround us daily . . . The Light Eaters ushers those marvels onto center stage.” — Slate

“Schlanger’s well-crafted descriptions provide a rare and welcome glimpse into the humanity and dedication of botanists . . . The Light Eaters overflows with the author’s infectious enthusiasm. Plant lovers will find much of interest in Schlanger’s inspiring tale of where her curious mind has led her.” — Nature

“The Light Eaters is riveting and revolutionary and I’m devouring it in small bites to digest how it’s reorganizing my universe.” — Rebecca Solnit, author of A Field Guide to Getting Lost and Men Explain Things to Me

“I’ll never look at plants—or the natural world—in the same way again, after reading Zoë Schlanger’s stunning book. Instead of trying to ram the square peg of botanical life into the round holes of human biology and metaphors, Schlanger instead considers plants on their own terms, as they actually are. The result is mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful.” — Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes

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Honors, Awards & Recognition

New York Times Bestseller
NY Public Library Best Adult Book of 2024
Cited as The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2022
Honorable Mention in The 2020 Society of Environmental Journalists Awards
Finalist for the 2019 Livingston Award
Finalist for the Morley Safe Award for Outstanding Reporting
Finalist for the National Academies of Science Award
Winner of the 2017 National Association of Science Writer’s Science Reporting Award
Winner of the Best Article 2015 from The Population Instititute’s 36th Global Media Awards