I think I was caught in it by the 'for fans of Entangled Life' phrase in the blurb. But I found the writing very dry and oddly uninteresting for a topic so relevant these days.

3.5 stars
In this book behavioural biologist Madlen Ziege reveals the fascinating world of nonhuman communication. The exchange of information in a variety of ways & surroundings between animals and plants in order for them to survive. I found this quite fascinating, the thought of all these different kinds of coded conversations going on in forests etc really intrigued me. However the chapters were quite quick and text book like not allowing much thought or in my case 'dreaming' of what it is like.
However, I think readers of this genre would still take gain some knowledge from this particular subject. A book I would recommend.
My thanks go to the author, publisher and Netgalley in providing this arc in return for honest review.

My thanks to Scribe UK, and NetGalley for a review copy of this book!

In Nature is Never Silent: How Animals and Plants Communicate With Each Other, author Madlen Ziege takes us on a journey through the world of nature to acquaint us with the many fascinating ways in which different beings—from unicellular to complex organisms—communicate with each other. Communication or the exchange of information between living beings is essential to their very survival—be it in the search for food, to identify and keep at bay predators, or to understand and adapt to the environment around them. In six chapters, divided in three parts, Nature is Never Silent acquaints us with some basics of life and the different ways in which beings receive and send information (through our senses of course)—both signals and receptors (visual, acoustic, chemical), before giving us some interesting examples of communication from different parts of the living world.

From plants to insects and larger creatures, these instances are once again testimony to the fact that nature never ceases to amaze us. We have plants able not only to recognise when they are being invaded but also which predator is attacking them and release the right chemical to repel it (the coyote tobacco plant); and not only that, when it is unable to deal with the ‘enemy’ on its own, it can send out chemical signals to call for help (as can the lima bean). Ziege gives us stories of benign and symbiotic cooperation between different creatures (trees and mushrooms, for instance), but also (answering one question I had) of how the plant and animal kingdom can as well use deception to meet their ends (the red hellerborine, an orchid, attracts pollinators by taking on the appearance of bluebells or worse still, ragworts imitate female insects in shape and colour, and even emit similar chemicals to attract pollinators) and also some horror stories (like of a parasitic fungus that takes control of Carpenter ants turning them almost zombie-like before blowing them up—yes you read that right!). The increasing urbanisation of our spaces has presented new challenges to our natural world as well, seeing changes in the need for communication and behaviour patterns, which they have done in admirable ways (peppered moths, for instance, adapting to the changing colours of trees after the industrial revolution by changing their own colours, and city badgers and rabbits, unlike their rural counterparts, not being as social with looser relationships and bonds among groups, not unlike as the author herself notes, ‘urban singletons’).

I loved all of the interesting information, and especially the truly astonishing stories of our natural world that this book had to tell us, but the first part of the book fell a little short. In explaining the basics of the natural world, and of communication in it (the various ways in which information is sent and received, how receptors/sensors are constructed and function, etc.), I felt that the book touched upon both very basic information (which I only vaguely remembered from science classes in school) as well as some that I needed to get my head around. This part, although the author did give examples, felt a little drier and slower moving than the second part (perhaps if part I had also included some more anecdotes and examples, it would have enhanced my enjoyment)—but once she got into more specifics and examples, the book started to pick up and become really enjoyable!

So overall, a book that I enjoyed a lot but with a small complaint about the first part!

3.9 stars

‘Nature Is Never Silent: how animals and plants communicate with each other’ by Madlen Ziege and Alexandra Roesch

Scribe UK, 2021-10-31

ISBN: ‎978-1913348243

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. I found it very interesting and informative as it contains a wealth of scientific knowledge, including the fact that, amazing as it may seem to many of us, every single living organism on our planet has some means or other of communication with other living organisms, be it through sound, sight, smell, touch or whatever. We know that we are all connected but we don’t always know what form the links take.
For me, the only slightly disappointing thing about the book was that although it contains all that wonderful knowledge, that knowledge is served to us in a somewhat ‘left-brain’, pedestrian style of writing. In other words, it is ‘informational’ rather than ‘inspirational’. It is long on facts and short on poetry. It lacks the open-mouthed wonderment that so many books about Nature express. And I believe that it is the inspirational books that are most needed at this point in history, to motivate people to live ‘greener’ lives.
However I think it would make a really excellent textbook for high school biology and for that purpose I would definitely recommend it.

When I read the title of Malden Ziege's book , Nature is Never Silent, l thought, “Yes, a story of how living things in the natural world communicate with each other, I could get into that!”

Unfortunately, this book fell below my expectations. Ziege undoubtedly knows her stuff, and she does achieve the goals she set for her book: to answer the questions of what is life & how does it communicate? The chapters are filled with interesting information about organisms that transmit and receive information using different methods of communication. But at the end of each chapter I felt disappointed. The sections were short and underdeveloped, and just when I started to find a section interesting, it ended and she moved me on.

I am an avid reader of nature literature, so I think I was hoping for a strong personal narrative to weave and hold together the factual information. I wanted this fascinating story of bio communication to be told through scenes, characters and dialogue. As it stands, this book reads more like a textbook for high school students, the language quirky, with easily digestible snippets of information.

Upon saying this, there’s a great underlying message that comes from this book: every living things is transmitting and receiving information. Imagine standing in a forest and eavesdropping on all those non-human conversations happening around you. Lovely.

It’s the kind of book that’s interesting with some cool facts, a conversational tone that says “look science is not scary” but clearly written by someone who is top in their field. And yet, I am not quite sure why I did no love it more. I thought it was ok in the end.

This book, it turns out, isn't really for me. I devour nature writing and pop science books, so I thought I'd love this one, but it's written more for an audience with very little exposure to either of those genres. Much of the content is very basic biology, and coupled with a pestilence of exclamation marks throughout the book, it gave me the sense of a biology school teacher shouting excitedly in my ears.

There were a few titbits of knowledge that I was delighted to learn, such as how bacteria react to sounds at certain Hertz, However, I found myself skipping through a lot of the rest, and it was a shame that the author spent so little time on so many things. Definitely a case of quantity over quality. Even her own research barely got a look in - near the end of the book, she slowed down to recount her experiences studying urban rabbits, but it was still so short.

Finally, I was concerned to come across an error with regards to mycorrhizal fungi - it is stated that endomycorrhiza "usually occurs between fungi and orchid plants", but endomycorrhiza (as opposed to ectomycorrhiza) are by far the most common among fungi and plants (about 80% of total mycorrhizal relationships in the world I think? While only 10% of plants are orchids), so the book cannot be correct in this case. I happen to have recently read up on mycorrhiza for a project, hence why I caught the error, so there may well be others.

I cannot fault Ziege's enthusiasm in sharing her passion for nature and science, but I wish it had been better executed!

(With thanks to Scribe and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)