How Animals Heal Us

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’Animal magic in Jay Griffiths’s uniquely beautiful voice. Facts have never been so lovingly told – Laline Paull, author of ‘The Bees’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 PartyGriffiths’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’Exuberant, playful, and deeply inspirational … Jay Griffiths offers a refreshing vision of how animals heal us … A wonderful read * Psychology Today *From life-saving pot-bellied pigs to cancer-detecting dogs, animals have a deep capacity to protect or heal us … Drawing on science, historic records and indigenous knowledge, this book looks closer at this fascinating topic * Woman’s Own Magazine *

Jay Griffiths is the author of many books, such as Wild- An Elemental Journey, Kith- The Riddle of the Childscape, Tristimania and Pip Pip- A Sideways Look at Time. She won the Discover award for the best first-time author in the USA; the inaugural Orion award and the Hay Festival International Fellowship. She has been commissioned to write for Radiohead and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her work has received widespread accolades, including from Gary Snyder, Barry Lopez, Don Paterson, John Berger, Philip Pullman, KT Tunstall and Nikolai Fraiture.