Into this vacuum comes Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet, a volume packed thick with descriptive essays of life in the Anthropocene — the emergent word to describe our own era, in which human hands have reshaped the planet’s environment and climate. Penned by a motley mix of mycologists, lemur biologists, sci-fi writers, anthropologists, and zoologists among others, these 18 pieces jaunt across the world, trying to make sense of plants and animals interacting with each other in a polluted landscape.

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