Ed Yong Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Best American Science and Nature Writing Books

Ed Yong is a science journalist with British American citizenship who works a day job as a reporter for the Atlantic, from his base in Washington DC.

“Poynter” named him the most impactful and important journalist of 2020. The journalist was also the winner of the Explanatory Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for his work reporting on the coronavirus pandemic.

Yong was one of the very few journalists that anticipated how the virus would develop and the many challenges the American government would face as it came up with what he termed as a disastrous response.

In addition to his reporting, he also has deep scientific knowledge and loves to engage with his audiences via insightful conversations about the animal kingdom, the pandemic, and the challenges of science journalism among many others.
Yong published “I Contain Multitudes” his debut work in 2016. This was an entertaining, informative, and groundbreaking examination of the relationship between microbes and animals.

He published “An Immense World” his second work in 2022 as a more comprehensive look into the sensory nature of animals that makes for fascinating reading.

In addition to his work in “The Atlantic,” he has also been featured in “Scientific American,” “National Geographic,” “New Scientist,” the “New Yorker,” “Nature,” and “Wired.”

Back in 2018, Ed Yong the award-winning science author started warning that there would be an infectious disease outbreak. He said that this outbreak would become a huge public health risk in the United States.
Yong foresaw that the country was fragile in the preparation and response for an epidemic due to the shortage of medical supplies and the underfunded healthcare system.

When COVID-19 arrived on American shores, Yong predicted that there would be severe repercussions and that it would become a national issue.

Throughout 2020, he began reporting on the pandemic and provided full accounts of what had been done wrong. He made the conclusion that almost all that had gone wrong with the response to COVID was preventable and predictable.
He would, later on, report on the impact of the pandemic and expectations going forward toward recovery.

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Ed Yong also won the medical science reporting Victor Cohn Prize, the science reporting George Polk Award, and the investigative journalism Neil and Susan Sheehan Award.

For his education, he went to the University of Cambridge where he graduated with natural sciences master’s degree. He also went to University College London from where he graduated with an MPhil in biochemistry.
After that, Ed Yong spent seven years working for Cancer Research UK as the head of the Information and Health Evidence department. This was a nonprofit organization that worked in cancer research and advocacy.
He started writing on science topics in 2006 and over the years working as a freelance journalist, Yong would garner critical acclaim and win many awards.

Ed regularly does interviews and talks and his TED talk on mind-controlling parasites has now had more than 1.9 million views.

Ed has said that he is passionate about empathy, nuances, and accurate reporting. He usually reports on everything that was once or is alive from the quirky lives of scientists to the quirky world of animal behavior.
Ed Yong is married to the founder of “Liminal Creations” Liz Neeley.

“I Contain Multitudes” by Ed Yong asserts that every wasp, animal, human, and squid is home to millions of microbes and bacteria.

While most people believe that microbes are germs that they need to get rid of, many microbiomes provide us with incredible abilities, build our bodies, shape our identities, and protect our health.
In this work, the author takes his readers on a tour of our microbial partners and showcases the many discoveries made by scientists on the cutting edge of research.

Yong is a humorous author but his erudite writing prompts his readers to look at themselves and their microbiome companions in a new light.

Humans and microbiomes are interdependent and interconnected as the latter are part of the immune system and protect us from disease. Those in termites and cows digest the plant material they eat.
In the deep oceans, weird creatures without guts or mouths are fully dependent on microbes to get the energy they need in their bodies.

Squids get their invisibility cloaks from bacteria and the same help the tiny beetles bring down forests, even as the same bacteria can cause diseases that cause much pain to millions of humans.
The work shows how humans have been disrupting these partnerships and how we can use them for our own good.

Ed Yong’s novel “In An Immense World” asserts that the world by nature is teeming with textures and sights, magnetic and electric fields, vibrations and sounds, tastes and smells.

However, every animal usually finds itself in its own very unique sensory bubble and only experiences a tiny sliver of what is the world. The work takes us into another dimension as we look at it from the perspective of other animals.
We find turtles that have the ability to track the magnetic fields of the Earth, beetles drawn to fires, fish that send electrical messages through rivers, and humans that use sonar just like bats do.

While it does look so scaly, we learn that a crocodile;’s face is as sensitive as a human’s fingertips and that even something as simple as a scallop has very complex vision systems.

We get to learn about what bees are attracted to in flowers, what dogs sense of smell is like, and how songbirds interpret their songs.

In this work, Ed Yong the acclaimed science journalist and author coaxes his readers beyond their own senses and allows them to perceive the pulses of pressure all around the electromagnetic waves and skeins of scent all around them.

“Not Exactly Rocket Science” by Ed Yong is a collection of essays in which the award-winning author draws inspiration from the “Not Exactly Rocket Science” blog.

In this book, the author dives into one of the most groundbreaking, interesting, and quirkiest scientific research.

From snow-making bacteria to Mexican waving bees, from the psychology of voting to the neuroscience of jazz, the engaging and vivid writing is what makes these complicated ideas come to life.