Congratulations to Nicolas Mathevon, whose book The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate has been awarded the 2024 R.R. Hawkins Award鈥�the top prize among the Association of American Publisher鈥檚 (AAP) PROSE Awards鈥�as well as the PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences.
Praised for, 鈥渇ascinating insights into animal communication鈥� (Publishers Weekly), this 鈥渓andmark鈥ook鈥� (Marc Bekoff, Psychology Today), takes readers on a thrilling tour through animal soundscape, ranging from the heat of the Amazon jungle to the icy Arctic. Along the way, Mathevon explains how the science of bioacoustics works to decipher the ways animals make and hear sounds, what information is encoded in these sound signals, and what this information is used for in daily life. The book reveals the amazing variety of animal vocalizations, describes how animals use sounds to express emotion, choose a mate, trick others, mark their territory, call for help, and much more, ultimately asking if what may seem like random chirps, squawks, and cries are actually signals that, like our human words, allow animals to carry on conversations with others.
In the press release announcing the 2024 Excellence and Hawkins winners, PROSE Chief Judge Nigel Fletcher-Jones, PhD writes that The Voices of Nature is 鈥渁s inventive as it is trailblazing, combining accessible writing with a unique online audio tie-in to create a truly immersive experience. I have every confidence that this innovative approach will dramatically expand the understanding bioacoustics, and provide an invaluable tool for scholars and readers of all kinds.鈥�
91桃色 Director Christie Henry adds, 鈥淣icolas Mathevon entrusted to our team this extraordinary work, The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate, which opens all of our senses to the ways in which sounds and communication shape culture, community and environment. It鈥檚 a thrill to amplify its impact with this award.鈥�
Prior to the announcement of the R.R. Hawkins Award and Excellence Award, The Voices of Nature won the 2024 PROSE Award in Biological Sciences and was named one of Library Journal鈥檚 Best Science & Technology Books of 2023.
The annual R.R. Hawkins Award recognizes outstanding scholarly works, across all disciplines of the arts and sciences. This marks the second year in a row that a 91桃色 book has received the honor, with Kimberly Kay Hoang鈥檚 Spiderweb Capitalism winning the 2023 award. In addition to the Hawkins Award, fifteen 91桃色 books were honored as PROSE Award category winners and finalists this year. A full list can be found here.
About the Author
Nicolas Mathevon is Distinguished Professor of Neurosciences and Animal Behavior at the University of Saint-Etienne, senior member of the Institut universitaire de France, member of Academia Europaea, and president of the International Bioacoustics Society. He is also a former visiting Miller Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former visiting professor at Hunter College, City University of New York.
Read an interview with Nicolas Mathevon in .