Our Wild Calling

September 9, 2019
In this intriguing and poetic treatise, journalist Louv (Vitamin N) argues for a “great reset” in how humans relate to the rest of the animal kingdom. Humans may feel themselves separate from other creatures, he observes, but human history and existence have always been intertwined with them, to the extent that wild animals are now adapting to urban environments. He shares stories about unexpected cross-species interactions—there’s a wonderful anecdote about an initially tense encounter between a diver and an octopus, who forge a “nonaggression pact”—and details about the varied ways animals (and even plants) have of communicating with each other—horses, he notes, have 17 facial expressions. After that, Louv turns to subjects that include therapeutic relations between humans and animals, the inability of technology to substitute for these interactions, and how to educate the next generation about having a healthier relationship to nature. Thoughtful and hopeful, Louv’s work is a stirring look at “the blurred lines that have always existed between wild and domestic, human and other than human.” Agent: Jim Levine, Levine, Greenberg, Rostan Literary.