Lichens: Toward a Minimal Resistance

by Vincent Zonca, Jody Gladding (Translator), Emanuele Coccia (Preface)

Covering almost 8 percent of the earth's terrain, lichens are living beings which are familiar to everyone, known to no one. They are one of those organisms that seem to offer nothing to hold our gaze. But the more time we spend with lichens, the more they reveal their beauty, their mysteries and their strange power of attraction. Part-algae and part-fungus, lichens call into question our customary ways of classifying forms of life, and allow us to conceive of an ecology that is no longer based on distinctions between nature and culture, urban and rural, competition and cooperation. The result of several years of investigation carried out on several different continents, this remarkable book offers an original, radical, and, like its subject matter, symbiotic reflection on this common but mostly invisible form of life, blending cultures and disciplines, drawing on biology, ecology, philosophy, literature, poetry, even graphic art. What if lichens were at the heart of some of the most pressing and topical questions of our day? Does the fact that they can live everywhere, even in very harsh environments, that they persist when almost all other traces of life have disappeared, mean that, despite their fragility, lichens are a force of resistance? After reading this book you will never see lichens, or the world, in the same way again.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction

250 pages, Hardcover

Published January 24, 2023

Reviews

[Daniel Brigham-Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bear in mind, when buying this book, that there is very little science involved in its narrative. It is almost entirely thoughts on philosophy and poetry that relate, sometimes quite loosely, to lichen. Maybe this book is more than two stars, but I was expecting to learn about the biology and ecology of lichen (and I didn't).

[Saphira Bloom-Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I hoped existed, that gave me great hopes for the treasures it would contain (and lived up to it!!), a book that makes me happy to be alive and around to read it. My book is now stripey blue and white and my highlighter has travelled miles along its words.

It's a book that defies categorisation, part philosophy, part art, part history, part literature, part science, part poetry. To be sipped not sculled, it's like a literary port :)

It is also a beautiful compilation and reference guide for lichen thinkers and artists. I often lamented the lack of lichen art and literature but there is tonnes, especially in other languages. Extracts from other texts are included all throughout but Zonca adds his own insights, too. A perfect medley.

I cannot overstate how much I loved this book. If I could give it ten stars I would.

[John Oswald · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extraordinary book. I've been taking close-up images of lichen with my iPhone for years - something about seeing universes in tiny things makes me really happy and centred. I tried once to read a proper work of botany about lichen but given my woeful scientific knowledge and background it proved too difficult. So this book was a revelation - a socio-cultural-literary-philosophical account of the cultural history and future of lichen! It's practically the book I'd have wanted to write myself. It belongs to that rather recent trend towards blending genres and fighting against the urge to categorise in neat boxes of knowledge that unfortunately characterises natural history. Think: Braiding Sweetgrass, Entangled Life. Zonca's book depicts the history of our perception and understanding of lichen, from parasites and disease through to our much more enlightened recent understanding as symbiosis, cooperation and - in short - an entirely new and much more hopeful way of understanding nature itself, with massive implications for how we ourselves live. This was practically a hymn to how I've felt and experienced lichen on a deeply personal level - a symbol for a different worldview and a metaphor for better living. I was practically cheering every chapter along as Zonca brought together such a wide array of thinkers, poets, scientists and commentators. So tiny, so ignored and yet so critical for the future of our understanding of how we live. Lichen are truly remarkable, as is this book.

[Sierra Mathews · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I was expecting actual scientific information, there is little science in this book. Its full of fluffy philosophical thoughts and soooo many quotes. The amount of excerpts in this book is crazy, not much original content.

[Kristina Watts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading for the scientific information, I skipped a lot of the literature quotations. Which was most of the book. When it did contain actual fact, it was very interesting.