How Animals Heal Us - by Jay Griffiths (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"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 powerful and deeply personal exploration of the healing bond between humans and animals.

Animal lovers have long sensed that animals can heal. In How Animals Heal Us, Griffiths brings together scientific research, historical accounts, and Indigenous knowledge to show how and why that instinct is true.

Original, playful, and wise, this book explores the many ways animals contribute to healing at every level, from individual well-being to collective renewal. Griffiths shares remarkable stories: a pot-bellied pig who saved her owner's life, dogs capable of detecting cancer, the restorative power of birdsong, and the ethical lessons humans might learn from wolves. Through these stories, she places animals at the center of a broader vision for healthier, fairer, and more compassionate societies.

Lyrical and thought-provoking, How Animals Heal Us invites readers to reconsider the role of animals in our lives and in the future we hope to build.

"A wild and vital treasure trove of stories, woven together with Griffiths' characteristic exuberance and joyfully untamed mind." --Helen Jukes, author of A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings

Review Quotes

A song to our deep relationship with our animal friends, showing the many things we
could learn from them

--Katherine May, author of 'Wintering'

[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"

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'

Evocative and heart-warming, this brilliantly researched bookis 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'

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"

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'

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

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'

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'

About the Author

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.