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Losing Eden
Losing Eden
Oct 10, 2024 4:25 PM

Author:Lucy Jones,Lucy Jones

Losing Eden

Brought to you by Penguin.

A TIMES AND TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR

Today many of us live indoor lives, disconnected from the natural world as never before. And yet nature remains deeply ingrained in our language, culture and consciousness. For centuries, we have acted on an intuitive sense that we need communion with the wild to feel well. Now, in the moment of our great migration away from the rest of nature, more and more scientific evidence is emerging to confirm its place at the heart of our psychological wellbeing. So what happens, asks acclaimed journalist Lucy Jones, as we lose our bond with the natural world-might we also be losing part of ourselves?

Delicately observed and rigorously researched, Losing Eden is an enthralling journey through this new research, exploring how and why connecting with the living world can so drastically affect our health. Travelling from forest schools in East London to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault via primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists' couches, Jones takes us to the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience and psychology, and discovers new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth.

Urgent and uplifting, Losing Eden is a rallying cry for a wilder way of life - for finding asylum in the soil and joy in the trees - which might just help us to save the living planet, as well as ourselves.

'Beautifully written, movingly told and meticulously researched ... a convincing plea for a wilder, richer world' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

'By the time I'd read the first chapter, I'd resolved to take my son into the woods every afternoon over winter. By the time I'd read the sixth, I was wanting to break prisoners out of cells and onto the mossy moors. Losing Eden rigorously and convincingly tells of the value of the natural universe to our human hearts' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun

© Lucy Jones 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Reviews

Earnest, painstakingly-researched...A heartfelt love-letter to the outdoors

—— Daily Mail

The benefits of experiencing nature may be far greater than is commonly appreciated ... A fascinating exploration of the new science of our connection to the natural world ... written in such lush, vivid prose that reading it, one can feel transported and restored.

—— New Statesman

Beautiful...science is proving just how deeply the cycles and rhythms of the natural world have been knitted into our every cell

—— Anthony Doerr , Daily Mail

Urgent, accessible, moving ... A beautifully written, research-heavy study about how nature offers us wellbeing

—— Observer

Losing Eden provides the evidence of how nature makes us calmer, healthier, happier, even kinder. Jones moves between close biological evidence -- how our parasympathetic nervous system is triggered when we're in nature, how bacteria found in soil increases stress resilience -- to large-scale environmental studies. The book is shot through with personal experience [...but is] not really a memoir; it's about all of us.

—— TLS

Wonderful ... This is an important book

—— Telegraph Book of the Year

We've all heard it said that going for a dawdle in the park is good for us, but we probably assumed that such ideas are rooted in whimsy rather than empirical fact. Lucy Jones tracks down evidence for the benefits of rewilding our lives. People, research suggests, are not just happier when cities are greener but are also less violent. Losing Eden is just the right blend of the personal and the scientific as she also recounts how reconnecting with nature gave her some meaning after a period of coming undone.

—— The Times Books of the Year

Beautifully written, movingly told and meticulously researched, Losing Eden is an elegy to the healing power of nature, something we need more than ever in our anxiety-ridden world of ecological loss. Woven together with her own personal story of recovery, Lucy Jones lays out the overwhelming scientific evidence for nature as nurturer for body and soul with the clarity and candour that will move hearts and minds - a convincing plea for a wilder, richer world.

—— Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

By the time I'd read the first chapter, I'd resolved to take my son into the woods every afternoon over winter. By the time I'd read the sixth, I was wanting to break prisoners out of cells and onto the mossy moors. Losing Eden rigorously and convincingly tells of the value of the natural universe to our human hearts. It's a simple message but Lucy Jones looks at it by using so many interesting and diverse ideas and places that it always stays vital. It is exciting, pertinent and elegantly written: I recommend it to anyone who makes decisions.

—— Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun

Brilliant

—— Melissa Harrison

Fascinating ... the connection between mental health and the natural world turns out to be strong and deep - which is good news in that it offers those feeling soul-sick the possibility that falling in love with the world around them might be remarkably helpful. And those who fall in love with the world might protect it, a virtuous cycle that would make a real difference in the fight for a workable planet.

—— Bill McKibben, author of Falter; Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

An absorbing book...more than just a scientific treatise: Jones writes beautifully about nature and her own experiences of its healing powers

—— Country and Townhouse

Fantastic

—— Guy Shrubsole

Powerful...Vibrant...Unique... If worry is the staple emotion that most climate fiction evokes in its readers, The Last Migration - the novelistic equivalent of an energizing cold plunge - flutters off into more expansive territory

—— Los Angeles Times

How far do we have to go to escape our pasts and find ourselves? Charlotte McConaghy’s luminous, brilliant novel, set in a future when wildlife is rapidly becoming extinct, is indeed about loss—but what makes it miraculous is that it is also about both the glimpses of hope and the shattering persistence of love, if we are only brave enough to acknowledge them. Written in prose as gorgeous as the crystalline beauty of the Arctic, The Last Migration is deeply moving, haunting, and, yes, important

—— Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You

A gutting portrait of a woman worn down by a world she never quite fit into

—— TIME

A lovely, haunting novel about a troubled woman’s quest to follow the last surviving Arctic terns on their southerly migration. As she tries to make peace with the ghosts of her painful past, she must choose whether she herself wants – or deserves – to survive, in spite of everything she, and all humans, have destroyed and lost

—— Ceridwen Dovey, author of In the Garden of the Fugitives

Beautifully haunting... Spanning oceans and decades, Franny's physical and emotional journeys are at times devastating and, at others, surprisingly, undeniably hopeful... Brimming with stunning imagery and raw emotion, The Last Migration is the incredible story of personal redemption, self-forgiveness and hope for the future in the face of a world on the brink of collapse

—— Jennifer Oleinik , Shelf Awareness

Transfixing, gorgeously precise...[The] evocation of a world bereft of wildlife is piercing; Franny's otherworldliness is captivating; and her misadventures and anguished secrets are gripping

—— Booklist

A torrent of pure, unmediated fervour . . . an extraordinarily accomplished work for any writer, let alone one who is still a teenager . . . This is writing at its wild and unruly best

—— Dr Rachel Clarke , The Lancet

An extraordinary diary . . . it's a powerful pitch for why the school curriculum needs to be wilded and a reminder of the value of neurodiversity in literature

—— The Times

Rovelli opens windows onto the imagination for all of us

—— Antony Gormley

I always find with Carlo Rovelli's books that there are moments when you get a real hit of understanding -- a jigsaw in your mind that just falls into place

—— Robin Ince

Helgoland is a wonderful guide to the most extraordinary story in physics. It will reset your view of the universe

—— Marcus du Sautoy

Hooked me so hard I read the entire book in one sitting. And then twice more

—— Lisa Feldman Barrett , Chronicle of Higher Education

The old, solid world, if you believed in it at all, breaks into a glorious shimmer of limitless potential

—— Brian Morton , Tablet

Rovelli has an uncanny knack for instilling wonder and explaining complex theories in plain, entertaining ways

—— Irish Times

I'm keen for everyone to read Helgoland: a wonderfully lucid and poetic account of the foundations of quantum physics. It combines a compelling history with Rovelli's own intriguing - and for me very appealing - views about the basis of all things

—— Anil Seth, author of Being You
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