How To Be Wild

As everyone who has patted a dog, smelled a rose, taken a walk, or even had a drink in the garden well knows, humans have a soul-deep need for non-human forms of life. This book is about pushing our birthright of wildness just that little bit further.

In How to be Wild, Barnes takes us on a year-long journey, from one raucous spring to the next, with elephants and mosquitoes, dolphins and flying squirrels, giraffes and butterflies as his companions. And again and again, he helps us to realise an essential truth: that by enjoying the wild world, by seeking to understand the wild world, our own lives become richer and more satisfying.

“A bracing reminder to us all to keep things open: eyes, ears, hearts, minds. And souls.”
Daily Mail

“This book - packed with so much insight and so many descriptions of wildlife encounters, always right on the button - leaves little for others to write.”
Birds Magazine

“Barnes is a poet of the unexpected lifting of the heart.”
PJ Kavanagh

About Simon Barnes

Simon Barnes is the multi-award-winning chief sportswriter for The Times. He is also a novelist, nature writer and horseman, and the bestselling author of a dozen books. He lives in Suffolk with his family.