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Your Wild and Precious Life

On grief, hope and rebellion

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Your Wild and Precious Life

Written by: Liz Jensen
Narrated by: Fenella Fudge
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A WATERSTONES BEST BIOGRAPHY OF 2024

My son’s death will never make sense to me. But it has taught me that it’s possible to find meaning, collectively and individually, in the loss of what we love. And in finding them, transform. Resilience is a seed that we all bear inside us. It germinates in emergencies. It sets down roots in astonishing and unexpected ways. And if we notice it, and tend to it, it blooms.

Liz Jensen’s son, a zoologist, conservationist and ecological activist, was twenty-five when he collapsed and died unexpectedly. She fell apart. As she grieved, forest fires raged, coral reefs deteriorated, CO2 emissions rose and fossil fuels burned.

Your Wild and Precious Life is the story of how a mother rebuilt herself, reoriented her life and rediscovered the enchantment of the living world. Set against the backdrop of climate and ecological catastrophe, it’s an argument for agency, legacy and the wild possibility of hope after devastation.

 Death & Grief Self-Help
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Critic Reviews

"A mother’s unflinching account of finding meaning in her son’s unexpected death. His is not the only death to haunt the pages of this raw and urgent memoir. Jensen’s focus shifts between her own grief, and a mourning for lost nature"
"This book is made of diamonds and tears, glittering with brilliance, a work of priceless insight" (JAY GRIFFITHS)
"Liz Jensen is an amazing writer and there is huge force and power in this story of reckoning with loss" (CATHY RENTZENBRINK)
"Written with power and emotion, [this] beautiful and moving book explores how we live, love and grieve"
"Fierce and fizzing with life. It faces the monster of parental loss absolutely head on and turns it into a joyous celebration. Raph / Iggy will carry on living because of this book" (MARK HADDON)
"A clear-eyed, passionate and beautifully written account of love and loss. It is no small measure of Jensen’s talent that a book about such a terrible and sudden event is heart-breaking yet compulsively readable, uplifting - even humorous at times: and ultimately, it is a call to action over the most pressing global issue that confronts human survival as we know it" (LOUISE DOUGHTY)
"A deeply moving, powerful, resonant book about the enormity of love and grief, and what it is to be alive yet mortal. Liz Jensen writes profoundly about how the impossible pain of losing a child can somehow coexist with joy, meaning and even happiness. Her meditation on 'the fierce life in grief' is beautiful" (RACHEL CLARKE)
"I really loved Liz Jensen's Your Wild and Precious Life. A memoir of her son, the climate activist and wildlife protector known as Iggy Fox, and of his sudden death at twenty-five, and of his continuing afterlife. The book is a devastating account of a mother's grief, but it is also inspiring and hopeful because it reminds us that our planet contains many universes, not all of which can be seen, touched or measured" (AMITAV GHOSH)
"Devastating, profound, eerie and magical. Jensen's loss is unimaginably huge but her achievement is to make a book which isn't so much about grief as – somehow, mysteriously – about joy" (JULIE MYERSON)
"Like all truly great memoirs, Your Wild and Precious Life enlightens the reader, bestows wisdom and lifts the heart. Jensen’s world, in the aftermath of her son’s death, is full of magical insight and spiritual growth. Her narrative is far from tragic; it is marvellous and wondrously strange. A masterpiece for our troubled times" (MONIQUE ROFFEY)
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