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In a Polish forest, a young woman befriends a boar. An Englishman sets up home with two beavers in Saskatchewan. A zoologist watches a fish make a conscious decision. Darwin finds the evidence for evolution in the backyards of pigeon fanciers. The entire population of Croatia anxiously awaits the arrival of a single stork. A gorilla cracks a joke.
Animals have shaped our lives, our land, our civilisation, and they will shape our future. Yet as our impact on the world and the animals we share it with increases, there has never been a greater urgency to understand this foundational relationship.
Beastly is the 40,000-year story of animals and humans as it has never been captured before, seen eye-to-eye and claw-to-hand through those humans who have stepped into the myriad worlds of our animal relatives. Our relationship with animals has always been paradoxical, but the greatest paradox may yet be this: diversity of life can heal ecosystems. Animals – if given the chance – could save us.
Keggie Carew is the author of Dadland, which won the 2016 COSTA biography award, and Quicksand Tales. Before writing, her career was in contemporary art. Keggie lives with her husband Jonathan in Wiltshire where they have a small nature reserve.
"What a wonderful and unexpected book. The very opposite of beastly: heavenly and amazing, powerful and affecting, a beloved and very fine teller of tales reminds us how small we are in the face of a nature that we neither understand nor wish to respect or, in any real sense, live with"
– Philippe Sands
"[An] entertaining and mind-expanding book so full of surprising facts and fascinating stories that my copy has practically every page folded down or highlighted or annotated with exclamation marks. Keggie's writing makes me laugh but it also makes me think; the perfect combination. Beastly is a brilliant book for anyone who questions how we might live more ethically, more harmoniously and more happily alongside the other creatures in this crowded and beautiful world"
– Cal Flyn
"Wondruous true stories of kinship between humans and our fellow creatures [...] [An] impassioned account about the ways in which wild animals have shaped, and will continue to shape, our lives, particularly in the teeth of the climate emergency"
– Caroline Sanderson, Bookseller
