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Zoë Schlanger Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Zoë Schlanger
Photo by Heather Sten

Zoë Schlanger

How to pronounce Zoë Schlanger: SHLANG-er

Zoë Schlanger Biography

Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at the Atlantic, where she covers climate change. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Time, Newsweek, The NationQuartz, and on NPR among other major outlets, and in the 2022 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. A recipient of a 2017 National Association of Science Writers' reporting award, she is often a guest speaker in schools and universities. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Zoë Schlanger's website

This bio was last updated on 05/03/2024. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Interview

A Q&A with the author about her book, The Light Eaters.

Q. What, to you, is THE LIGHT EATERS about?

A. The most interesting part of this book for me is the undercurrent of a question that runs through it: What would change if we began to regard plant life as sentient in its own way? Everything suddenly becomes quite alien. That's what happened for me in  reporting this book: being outside—or at home with my houseplants—became an  encounter with alien life-forms. Once I pulled back the veil on what they were truly  doing, the natures of their idiosyncratic and totally active lifestyles, it became impossible to regard them as passive objects. Plants became subjects, full of desires and cunning strategies. My experience as a human on earth also fundamentally shifted; I began to be able to see myself as part of a system that relies on other organisms— especially plants!—for my continued survival in a very literal, tangible way. It opened me up to a different ethical orientation as well. I had to ask myself how I should move through the world if I know that plants have the capacity to feel, to remember, to count. It's an astounding reorientation, something I'm still working on understanding today.  It's both an urgent and deeply rewarding...

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Books by this Author

Books by Zoë Schlanger at BookBrowse
The Light Eaters jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Zoë Schlanger but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Jackie Higgins

    Jackie Higgins

    Jackie Higgins is a graduate of Oxford University with an MA in zoology and has worked for Oxford Scientific Films for over a decade, along with National Geographic, PBS Nova, and the Discovery Channel. She has also written, ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Light Eaters

    Try:
    Sentient
    by Jackie Higgins

  • Ruth Kassinger

    Ruth Kassinger

    Ruth Kassinger is the award-winning author of eight science and history books for young adults. In addition, her science and health writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, National Geographic Explorer, ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Light Eaters

    Try:
    A Garden of Marvels
    by Ruth Kassinger

We recommend 4 similar authors

View all 4 Read-Alikes

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Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The Frozen River
    by Ariel Lawhon
    "I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been ...
  • Book Jacket
    Prophet Song
    by Paul Lynch
    Paul Lynch's 2023 Booker Prize–winning Prophet Song is a speedboat of a novel that hurtles...
  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
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The Story Collector
by Evie Woods
From the international bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop!
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