A World Appears A Journey into Consciousness

A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan — Published by Penguin Random House (February 24, 2026)

Instant New York Times Bestseller — from the #1 bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind

A panoptic exploration of consciousness — what it is, who has it, and why — and a meditation on the essence of our humanity. When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature's greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self?

In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives — scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual, and psychedelic — to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life. He takes readers to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical and less materialist theories of consciousness. He introduces plant neurobiologists searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the ineffable quality of inner life.

Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes readers into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and our deepest selves.

Michael Pollan is the author of eight books, including The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Botanic Garden, and How to Change Your Mind. He is the Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer and Senior Fellow at Harvard University and the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley.