Losing Eden

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?

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

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

Daily Mail

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

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

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

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

Fantastic

Guy Shrubsole

Brilliant

Melissa Harrison

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