Description

‘A moving, essential book . . . Nobody writes about Nature with more beauty and grace than Jay Griffiths’ Brian Eno

From celebrated author Jay Griffiths comes a unique and heartfelt insight into the healing nature of our relationship with animals

All animal-lovers instinctively know that animals heal. This book offers the evidence, drawing widely on scientific discoveries, history, and Indigenous knowledge.

Original, playful and wise, How Animals Heal Us explores how animals can have a role in every level of healing, from the individual to the collective, guiding us in how we might create societies that are healthier, fairer and kinder. From a pot-bellied pig who saved her owner’s life to dogs who can smell cancer; from birdsong healing the hurt psyche to wolves teaching humanity ethics, How Animals Heal Us puts animals at the heart of a restorative vision of health.

‘Fascinating’ Observer

‘A fabulous and important book’ Joanna Lumley

‘A pure praise poem to the more than human world’ Jackie Morris

‘Animal magic in Jay Griffiths’s uniquely beautiful voice’ Laline Paull

‘Marvellous, urgently important and compellingly readable’ Charles Foster

Publisher Review

Fascinating . . . A tribute to our nonhuman companions . . . [How Animals Heal Us] expounds in the most joyful detail all the ways in which creatures great and small can improve our lives . . . [this] book is designed to ensure we never take our animal friends for granted again -- Nick Duerden * Observer * [An] engaging ode to the animal kingdom . . . Griffiths goes beyond the familiar accounts of faithful hounds rescuing their owners or comforting the lonely, to explain in sometimes quirky detail how and why animals are so good at making us healthier and happier * Financial Times * Evocative and heart-warming, this brilliantly researched book is joyful, generous and wise in equal measure, and always written with spirit and flair -- John Lister-Kaye, author of 'At the Water's Edge: A Walk in the Wild' Marvellous, urgently important and compellingly readable . . . A surging, deeply resonant hymn to the joys of entanglement with the more-than-human world -- Charles Foster, author of 'Cry of the Wild' A wonderful book to read, extremely touching, learned, wise beyond words and absolutely fascinating . . . . . . [How Animals Heal Us] articulates what so many of us believe; that animals are more than friends and pets and servants . . . they actually make us well just by being near us . . . A fabulous and important book -- Joanna Lumley Animal magic in Jay Griffiths's uniquely beautiful voice. Facts have never been so lovingly told -- Laline Paull, author of 'The Bees' A song to our deep relationship with our animal friends, showing the many things we could learn from them -- Katherine May, author of 'Wintering' Humbling, inspiring, and so beautifully written, this is an utterly compelling exploration of our relationship with animals, and their extraordinary power to heal us -- Caroline Lucas, former leader of the Green Party Griffiths's genius is to reveal the familiar as wondrous, strange, miraculous. Incredible and heart-wrenching, this gift of a book will shift your relationship to animals -- Ben Rawlence, author of 'The Treeline' Reading Jay's book is like reading a pure praise poem to the more than human world, a poem filled with love, respect and joy. It thrums with wit, wisdom, understanding and research. But mostly the joy of being connected to life, from the smallest insect to the great whales -- Jackie Morris, 'The Lost Words'