Joanna Kavenna

British novelist, essayist and travel writer known for fiction and nonfiction that explore identity, culture and politics.

This list of books are ONLY the books that have been ranked on the lists that are aggregated on this site. This is not a comprehensive list of all books by this author.

  1. 1. A Field Guide To Reality

    A wide-ranging, witty exploration that maps the many ways humans construct and contest what counts as real, weaving together philosophy, science, anthropology, politics and personal reportage to show how perception, language, institutions and technology shape our shared world. The book moves between clear-eyed summaries of competing metaphysical theories and vivid on-the-ground encounters, taking in religious belief, scientific models, virtual realities and the social processes that stabilize or unravel consensus. With skeptical curiosity and occasional dark humor, it asks what practical consequences follow from different answers to the question of reality — for ethics, politics and our ability to respond to crises such as ecological breakdown — and invites readers to live more thoughtfully within the realities they inherit and create.