• God Is an Octopus

  • Loss, Love and a Calling to Nature
  • By: Ben Goldsmith
  • Narrated by: Simon Bubb
  • Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins

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God Is an Octopus  By  cover art

God Is an Octopus

By: Ben Goldsmith
Narrated by: Simon Bubb
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Publisher's summary

'Intensely readable, poetic, truthful, wise and wonderful.' STEPHEN FRY

'An extraordinary book.' SUNDAY TIMES

Struggling to comprehend the shocking death of his teenage daughter, Ben Goldsmith finds solace in nature by immersing himself in plans to rewild his farm.

In July 2019, Ben Goldsmith lost his fifteen-year-old daughter, Iris, in an accident on their family farm in Somerset. Iris’s death left her family reeling.

Grasping for answers, Ben threw himself into searching for some ongoing trace of his beloved child, exploring ideas that until then had seemed too abstract to mean much to him. Missing his daughter terribly and struggling to imagine how he would face the rest of his life in the shadow of this loss, Ben found solace in nature, the object of a lifelong fascination. As Ben set about rewilding his farm, nature became a vital source of meaning and hope.

This book is the story of a year of soul-searching that followed a terrible loss. In an instant, Ben’s world had turned dark. Yet, unbelievably to him, the seasons kept on turning, and as he immersed himself in the dramatic restoration of nature in the place where it happened, he found healing.

In God is an Octopus, Ben tells a powerful, immersive and inspiring story of finding comfort and strength in nature after suffering loss and despair.

©2023 Ben Goldsmith (P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

An event of unimaginable trauma is transformed into a message of beauty and optimism through Ben’s passion for nature, which acts as his nurse, teacher and redeemer. (Joanna Lumley)
Stunningly beautiful, immensely sad, immensely uplifting, this is a book of grief and joy and wonder and renewal. (George Monbiot)

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