Life Everlasting, Bernd Heinrich
Life Everlasting, Bernd Heinrich
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Life Everlasting
The Animal Way of Death

Author: Bernd Heinrich

Narrator: Rick Adamson

Unabridged: 6 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 02/18/2020


Synopsis

From one of the finest naturalists and writers of our time, a fascinating investigation of Nature’s inspiring death-to-life cycle.

How does the animal world deal with death? And what ecological and spiritual lessons can we learn from examining this? Bernd Heinrich has long been fascinated by these questions, and when a good friend with a terminal illness asked if he might have his “green burial” at Heinrich’s hunting camp in Maine, it inspired the acclaimed biologist and author to investigate. Life Everlasting is the fruit of those investigations, illuminating what happens to animals great and small after death.

From beetles to bald eagles, ravens to wolves, Heinrich reveals the fascinating and mostly hidden post-death world that occurs around us constantly, while examining the ancient and important role we too play as scavengers, connecting death to life.

“Bernd Heinrich is one of the finest naturalists of our time. Life Everlasting shines with the authenticity and originality that are unique to a life devoted to natural history in the field.”—Edward O. Wilson, author of The Future of Life and The Social Conquest of Earth

""Despite focusing on death and decay, Life Everlasting is far from morbid; instead, it is life-affirming . . . convincing the reader that physical demise is not an end to life, but an opportunity for renewal.""—Nature

“A worldwide tour of the role of death in nature that is consistently fascinating and fun to read.”—Seattle Times

About Bernd Heinrich

BERND HEINRICH is an acclaimed scientist and the author of numerous books, including the best-selling Winter World, Mind of the Raven, Why We Run, The Homing Instinct, and One Wild Bird at a Time. Among Heinrich's many honors is the 2013 PEN New England Award in nonfiction for Life Everlasting. He resides in Maine.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Clare on July 11, 2012

Bernd Heinrich's new book is a beautiful musing on death, but more so, it is about life. An organism, an animal, is a being that processes energy -- energy comes in, becomes ordered, and eventually leaves. What happens to that energy after it leaves is Heinrich's subject. It doesn't disappear, but r......more

Goodreads review by Myke on September 01, 2015

Life Everlasting is a collection of essays that addresses the broad topic the human taboo surrounding death and its corresponding impact on our decision to remove human bodies from the biosphere. The book ultimately serves two functions: it's a call to write a new creation myth that destigmatizes th......more

Goodreads review by Diane on October 28, 2012

Vultures and other scavengers may give us the willies, but the author of Life Everlasting shows us in careful, touching, and sometimes funny ways how essential they are to life—and what we humans, as the biggest scavengers of them all, have in common with them. I found charming the story of the beetl......more

Goodreads review by J. Lee on January 11, 2020

A great book for anyone who is interested in the processes that make the natural world work. Much more accessible to the average reader than I found Heinrich's 'Winter World' to be. There are some short sections that are written in a more academic style that can be difficult to get through if you do......more

Goodreads review by Naomi on August 31, 2012

Tightly crafted essays illumine the necessary connections between life and death, namely, how matter is transformed from death into life. Heinrich's writing, as ever in his books for general readers, is lyrical and accessible. The last essay wends into reflection on how we make meaning from life and......more