Natalie Lawrence is a writer, researcher, and illustrator living in London.
Natalie Lawrence is a writer, researcher, and illustrator living in London. She is the co-author of Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence (2022, Bridge Street Press) with Paco Calvo. She is the author of Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meanings (2024, Weidenfeld & Nicholson).
Lawrence has a background in zoology and a masters and PhD in history and philosophy of science. She grew up in London, spending as much time as she could on Hampstead Heath, and did her undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Cambridge. She now lives in London, in a converted church filled with natural history specimens, teaching and working as a freelance writer and illustrator.
Find her online at https://www.nataliejlawrence.com/.
Have you ever sat and watched a plant? The very idea itself might seem strange. We like to watch things that move, that do something. But in fact, plants are doing a great deal too - plants behave, as animals do - they are just doing it on a very different timescale. They cannot move about freely like animals do, so they grow into space instead and make new chemicals to interact with the species around them. Not only that, but what causes them to do these things, what drives this behavior, is far more similar than we humans, with our speedy, animal-centric perceptions, have always assumed. If we learn to look differently, we might be amazed at what we find.
We are dismantling the traditional hierarchies of nature: we are becoming increasingly aware of the interior lives of other species and how much we share with them. We are also coming to understand that there are many more ways to be intelligent than we have previously believed. We can't see ourselves as the only, privileged intelligent life on Earth any more. And if we are to save the global biome, we must not. Planta Sapiens opens up the plant kingdom like never before and will transform how you view other forms of life, to see plants as allies in tackling global problems rather than as mere resources; as teachers from whom we can learn about our own minds.
whitelistUser:WikiVisor
The hydra rears its many heads in a flurry of teeth and poisonous fumes. The cyborg lays waste to humanity with a ruthless, expressionless stare.
From ancient mythology to modern science fiction, we have had to confront the monsters that lurk in the depths of our collective imagination. They embody our anxieties and our irrational terrors, giving form to what we don't wish to know or understand. For millennia, monsters have helped us to manage the extraordinary complexity of our minds and to deal with the challenges of being human.
In Enchanted Creatures, Natalie Lawrence delves into 15,000 years of imaginary beasts and uncovers the other-worldly natural history that has evolved with our deepest fears and fascinations.
Join Lawrence on a tour of prehistoric cave monsters, serpentine hybrids, deep-sea leviathans and fire-breathing Kaiju. Discover how this monstrous menagerie has shaped our minds, our societies and how we see our place in nature.