Becoming Animal by David Abram

Becoming Animal

An Earthly Cosmology

David Abram

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · September 6, 2011

David Abram’s first book, The Spell of the Sensuous has become a classic of environmental literature.

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Who it’s for
A thoughtful, attentive meditation on animals, wilderness, and what it means to be earthly.
Genres
Nature Writing, Ecology, What We Can Know
Published
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, September 6, 2011

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For younger readers: The Botany of Desire Young Readers Edition, Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines, The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth

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About this book

David Abram’s first book, The Spell of the Sensuous has become a classic of environmental literature. Now he returns with a startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature. As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land.

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For too long we’ve ignored the wild intelligence of our bodies, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. Abram’s writing subverts this distance, drawing readers ever closer to their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the human body and the breathing Earth. The shape-shifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in this book.

Wild Attention

A thoughtful, attentive meditation on animals, wilderness, and what it means to be earthly.

Come here for

  • serious nature writing
  • layered reflection on animals and wilderness

Expect

  • insight over plot
  • a prestige, essay-like register

Where it sits

Nature Writing37%
What We Can Know33%
Ecology24%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Ecology
  • What We Can Know
  • Cosmology
Authors
David Abram
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published
September 6, 2011
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Ecology