The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion—Surprising Observations of a Hidden World

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As in his astonishing work, The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben opens a portal into a world that is largely invisible to people, but is both fascinating and essential to the functioning of our larger world. The Inner Life of Animals is an eye-opening and surprising look at pigs, deer, magpies, horses, butterflies, and many other animals as they grieve, feel, think, and plan. You will not look at animals the same way after reading this book. Recommended By Jill O., Powells.com

"Like The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben's The Inner Life of Animals will rock your world. Surprising, humbling, and filled with delight, this book shows us that animals think, feel and know in much the same way as we do — and that their lives are, to them, as precious as ours are to us." — Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus

Through vivid stories of devoted pigs, two-timing magpies, and scheming roosters, The Inner Life of Animals weaves the latest scientific research into how animals interact with the world with Peter Wohlleben's personal experiences in forests and fields.

Horses feel shame, deer grieve, and goats discipline their kids. Ravens call their friends by name, rats regret bad choices, and butterflies choose the very best places for their children to grow up.

In this, his latest book, Peter Wohlleben follows the hugely successful The Hidden Life of Trees with insightful stories into the emotions, feelings, and intelligence of animals around us. Animals are different from us in ways that amaze us — and they are also much closer to us than we ever would have thought.

"Animal lovers everywhere will be enthralled by The Inner Life of Animals. Find out what squirrels, deer, and other animals really do out in the woods." Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation

"With the same charm and clarity that drew so many readers to The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben has produced another gem. I found delight on every page, thanks to the author’s rare skill at blending scientific discoveries with his own wealth of insightful personal experiences." Jonathan Balcombe, author of What a Fish Knows

"Peter Wohlleben’s convincing, highly readable stories about free-living and domestic animals show there’s much overlap between how humans and other animals experience bonding, loss, and the great, shared themes of life." Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words, What Animals Think and Feel

"From trees to nonhuman animals, Peter Wohlleben challenges us to come to terms with what they are thinking and feeling. In his latest book, we learn a lot about animal intelligence and a wide array of animal emotions in diverse species, stemming from his own extensive personal experiences and some of the latest science. The Inner Life of Animals is an important reminder that while we surely are different from other animals, the similarities in our cognitive, emotional, and moral lives are not only surprising and daunting, but very real. And, we must use this information on their behalf in an increasingly human-dominated world." Marc Bekoff, author of The Animals' Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age

Peter Wohlleben spent over twenty years working for the forestry commission in Germany before leaving to put his ideas of ecology into practice. He now runs an environmentally-friendly woodland in Germany, where he is working for the return of primeval forests. He is the author of numerous books about trees.

Jane Billinghurst’s career has been in book publishing in the UK, the US, and Canada, as an editor, publisher, writer, and translator. She is the translator of the international bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees by German forester Peter Wohlleben.