PublishedJonathan Cape, October 2017 |
ISBN9781847924551 |
FormatSoftcover, 288 pages |
Dimensions21.6cm × 13.5cm × 2cm |
A beguiling book about our deep connection with the natural world in all its incarnations, from the author of The Hidden Life of Trees.
Mother deer that grieve?
Horses that feel shame?
Squirrels that adopt their grandchildren?
We humans tend to assume that we are the only living things able to experience feelings intensely and consciously. But have you ever wondered what's going on in an animal's head?
More and more researchers are realising that animals in fact experience a rich emotional life. Acting as our interpreter of the animal world and of the fascinating science, Peter Wohlleben brings this new research to life with his own observations of his favourite creatures.
From the leafy forest floor to the inside of a bee hive, The Inner Life of Animals shows us microscopic levels of observation as well as forcing us to confront the big philosophical, ethical and scientific questions. We hear the stories of a grateful humpback whale, of a hedgehog who has nightmares, and of a magpie who commits adultery; we meet bees that plan for the future, pigs who learn their own names and crows that go tobogganing for fun. And at last we find out why wasps exist.
Our fellow creatures are not mindless automatons driven by an inflexible genetic code, but individuals with personality and feeling. The Inner Life of Animals will show you these living things in a new light and will open up the animal kingdom like never before.
Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees has been a best seller, and now he’s turned his pen to the inner lives of animals. In this new book he draws more on the known science of what goes on in animals’ heads. It’s presented in short chapters, and covers subjects like motherly love, gratitude, deception, desire, shame, grief, fear and many more.There are numerous fascinating stories – one fascinating one is of an “abandoned” faun, brought home by children when it had in fact really been carefully hidden by its mother, so that she could graze and replenish her milk reserves. But the faun, raised as a pet, when it matured, far from becoming tame, tried to chase away its human “parents”, which now encroached on its “land”, resulting in violent attacks on its human foster parents.
