Description

A WATERSTONES BEST BIOGRAPHY OF 2024

My son’s death will never make sense to me. But it has taught me that it’s possible to find meaning, collectively and individually, in the loss of what we love. And in finding them, transform. Resilience is a seed that we all bear inside us. It germinates in emergencies. It sets down roots in astonishing and unexpected ways. And if we notice it, and tend to it, it blooms.

Liz Jensen’s son, a zoologist, conservationist and ecological activist, was twenty-five when he collapsed and died unexpectedly. She fell apart. As she grieved, forest fires raged, coral reefs deteriorated, CO2 emissions rose and fossil fuels burned.

Your Wild and Precious Life is the story of how a mother rebuilt herself, reoriented her life and rediscovered the enchantment of the living world. Set against the backdrop of climate and ecological catastrophe, it’s an argument for agency, legacy and the wild possibility of hope after devastation.

Publisher Review

This book is made of diamonds and tears, glittering with brilliance, a work of priceless insight -- JAY GRIFFITHS Liz Jensen is an amazing writer and there is huge force and power in this story of reckoning with loss -- CATHY RENTZENBRINK Written with power and emotion, [this] beautiful and moving book explores how we live, love and grieve * * Stylist * * Fierce and fizzing with life. It faces the monster of parental loss absolutely head on and turns it into a joyous celebration. Raph / Iggy will carry on living because of this book -- MARK HADDON A clear-eyed, passionate and beautifully written account of love and loss. It is no small measure of Jensen's talent that a book about such a terrible and sudden event is heart-breaking yet compulsively readable, uplifting - even humorous at times: and ultimately, it is a call to action over the most pressing global issue that confronts human survival as we know it -- LOUISE DOUGHTY A deeply moving, powerful, resonant book about the enormity of love and grief, and what it is to be alive yet mortal. Liz Jensen writes profoundly about how the impossible pain of losing a child can somehow coexist with joy, meaning and even happiness. Her meditation on 'the fierce life in grief' is beautiful -- RACHEL CLARKE Like all truly great memoirs, Your Wild and Precious Life enlightens the reader, bestows wisdom and lifts the heart. Jensen's world, in the aftermath of her son's death, is full of magical insight and spiritual growth. Her narrative is far from tragic; it is marvellous and wondrously strange. A masterpiece for our troubled times -- MONIQUE ROFFEY Like any parent, I was terrified of reading a book about the loss of a child. But I came away from it energised and uplifted by the conviction that the soul can emerge from the deepest trauma and not just thrive, but flourish. It's like nothing else I've ever read. Uplifting, sublimely beautiful, funny, skilful, courageous and deeply necessary, Your Wild and Precious Life is a luminous love letter to a lost son, a spiritual journey, and a celebration of the living world in all its astonishing manifestations -- LALINE PAULL One of the most beautiful and profoundly moving portraits of love I have ever read, with prose so luminous and vital. The power of imagination, the power of love. It has fired me up -- LUCY JONES Devastating, luminous, and gloriously alive. The presence - rather than absence - of Liz's son exalts every landscape, inner and outer, his spirit felt so deeply that at times he seems to co-author the prose -- CHLOE ARIDJIS