Alive - by Melanie Challenger

What does it mean to be alive? In Alive, researcher and natural philosopher Melanie Challenger takes us through the latest discoveries in biology and physics to reveal a radical truth: to be alive is first and foremost a way of being a body. From Greenland sharks that live for centuries to slime moulds that solve mazes, this book presents a scientifically grounded challenge to the idea that life is either a machine run by genes or an essence separable from the body. It restores agency, purpose, and meaning to organisms in an era dominated by artificial intelligence and biodiversity loss.

Why This Book?

• Embodied Intelligence: Explores a radical new perspective on how life, purpose, and consciousness arise directly from our physical bodies.
• Fascinating Animal Insights: Highlights extraordinary real-world examples, from magnetic-field-sensing birds to half-millennium-old Greenland sharks.
• Scientifically Grounded: Blends cutting-edge biology and physics to challenge traditional views of genes and machine-like life.
• Rethinking Our Place in Nature: Restores agency and meaning to living organisms in an age of AI and environmental change.

Reviews

"Alive hits like a shock to the body: bracing and brilliant. Melanie Challenger is an alert and fascinating guide through tricky terrain, leading us from ancient philosophical academies to cutting-edge biology labs..." – Jonathan Blake

"Written with equal parts wit, eloquence, and erudition, Alive introduces us to a world teeming with agents, each one inseparable from its embodied form..." – William Egginton

About the Author

Melanie Challenger is a writer, researcher, and host of The Psychosphere podcast, specialising in the philosophy of science and human-nature relationships. Author of How to Be Animal, she is an award-winning poet, librettist, National Geographic Explorer, and Vice President of the RSPCA.

Hardback, 352 pages.