Losing Eden

Our Fundamental Need for the Natural World and Its Ability to Heal Body and Soul

By: Lucy Jones

Narrated by: Lucy Jones

Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

A Times and Telegraph Book of The Year 

"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)

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 well-being. 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.

©2021 Lucy Jones (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Did you know that experiencing awe can make us more generous? Or that all human babies, left to their own devices, will eat soil? Or that three-quarters of kids (aged 5-12) in the UK spend less time outdoors than prison inmates? Losing Eden is a powerful and beautifully written survey of the latest scientific research into the vast range of benefits to our minds, bodies, and spirits when we do things outside. It made me want to throw my phone in a drawer and drag my kids outside—so I did!” —Anthony Doerr

“Impassioned . . . urgent and complex . . . Jones conveys in evocative prose the exuberance of her own rediscovery of nature’s wondrousness, a significant component in her recovery from struggles with addiction and depression . . . These vivid elements of personal experience are interwoven with factual information drawn from a wide array of sources . . . compelling and wide-ranging.” —Claire Messud, Harper’s

“Wonderfully intoxicating. In meticulous detail, Jones quests to bring us an impressive array of answers to the question of whether ‘nature connection’ has a tangible effect on our minds, and how and why it does.” —The Irish Times

Loved this Book

This book deserves a giant Thank you! Everyone should read it. We are connected to the world at large and this book helps you to understand all the different ways.

Well done

I really loved this book. As a therapist, I had particular interest in her citations regarding not only the benefits of nature, but the necessity of such. The author’s narration is whimsical, only adding to the enchantment of the books subject- magic. Magic Mother Earth.