
Forest Euphoria
Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
A thrilling book about the abounding queerness of the natural world that challenges our expectations of what is normal, beautiful, and possible.
Growing up, Patricia Kaishian felt most at home in the swamps and culverts near her house in the Hudson Valley. A child who frequently felt out of place, too much of one thing or not enough of another, she found acceptance in these settings, among other amphibious beings. In snakes, snails, and, above all, fungi, she saw her own developing identities as a queer, neurodivergent person reflected back at her—and in them, too, she found a personal path to a life of science.
In Forest Euphoria, Kaishian shows us this making of a scientist and introduces readers to the queerness, literal and otherwise, of all the life around us. Fungi, we learn, commonly have more than two biological sexes—and some as many as twenty-three thousand. Some intersex slugs mutually fire calcium carbonate “love darts” at each other during courtship. Glass eels are sexually undetermined until their last year of life, which stumped scientists once dubbed “the eel question.” Nature, Kaishian shows us, is filled with the unusual, the overlooked, and the marginalized—and they have lessons for us all.
Wide-ranging, richly observant, and full of surprise, Forest Euphoria will open your eyes and change how you look at the world around you.
“An antidote to the loneliness of our species.”—ROBIN WALL KIMMERER
“A master class in how to love the world.”—MARGARET RENKL
Duration - 6h 21m.
Author - Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian.
Narrator - Aven Shore.
Published Date - Monday, 27 January 2025.
Copyright - © 2025 Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian ©.
Location:
United States
Networks:
Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
Aven Shore
Spiegel & Grau by Spotify Audiobooks
English Audiobooks
Findaway Audiobooks
Description:
A thrilling book about the abounding queerness of the natural world that challenges our expectations of what is normal, beautiful, and possible. Growing up, Patricia Kaishian felt most at home in the swamps and culverts near her house in the Hudson Valley. A child who frequently felt out of place, too much of one thing or not enough of another, she found acceptance in these settings, among other amphibious beings. In snakes, snails, and, above all, fungi, she saw her own developing identities as a queer, neurodivergent person reflected back at her—and in them, too, she found a personal path to a life of science. In Forest Euphoria, Kaishian shows us this making of a scientist and introduces readers to the queerness, literal and otherwise, of all the life around us. Fungi, we learn, commonly have more than two biological sexes—and some as many as twenty-three thousand. Some intersex slugs mutually fire calcium carbonate “love darts” at each other during courtship. Glass eels are sexually undetermined until their last year of life, which stumped scientists once dubbed “the eel question.” Nature, Kaishian shows us, is filled with the unusual, the overlooked, and the marginalized—and they have lessons for us all. Wide-ranging, richly observant, and full of surprise, Forest Euphoria will open your eyes and change how you look at the world around you. “An antidote to the loneliness of our species.”—ROBIN WALL KIMMERER “A master class in how to love the world.”—MARGARET RENKL Duration - 6h 21m. Author - Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. Narrator - Aven Shore. Published Date - Monday, 27 January 2025. Copyright - © 2025 Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian ©.
Language:
English
Opening Credits
Duration:00:00:18
Dear Reader
Duration:00:00:17
Dedication
Duration:00:00:10
Interspecies Dens
Duration:00:39:49
Slugs, Snails, and Other Ways of Being
Duration:00:30:31
Swamp Creatures
Duration:00:33:14
Fungal Personhood
Duration:00:53:54
Cemetery Crows
Duration:00:39:44
Purple Love
Duration:00:28:30
Community Time
Duration:00:48:41
The Magnetism of Eels
Duration:00:40:28
Spring Ephemerals: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Duration:00:44:23
Epilogue: Forest Euphoria
Duration:00:18:04
Acknowledgments
Duration:00:02:27
About the Author
Duration:00:00:23
Closing Credits
Duration:00:00:36