Fox and I

Reviews / Votes

A tender, shrewd exploration of the redemption that comes when we start to know that we, whoever and wherever we are, are wild things, crucially defined by our relationship with the wild. * Charles Foster, author of <i>Being a Beast</i> and <i>Being a Human</i> * A wise and intimate book about a solitary woman, a biologist by training, who befriends a fox. More than that, it's the tale of a human mind trained to be logical being touched by nature and coming to realize a greater truth. If Thoreau had read The Little Prince, he would have written Fox and I. -- Yann Martel, bestselling author of Life of Pi A smart and tender memoir of an unexpected bond between a biologist and a fox... Fox & I crisply upends the hierarchy that places humans at the top of a pyramid. -- Katherine E. Standefer * New York Times * Intimate and poetic . . . . By paying ecstatic attention to grasses, insects, birds, and animals, Catherine Raven allows us to hear what nature is saying to us. Fox and I is essential reading for anyone concerned about the catastrophe human beings are inflicting on the environment from which they and all other creatures sprang. -- Stephen Batchelor, author of The Art of Solitude This tale of wilderness, in the tradition of Thoreau and Steinbeck, is distinguished by a narrator who sees herself as one of the many creatures she lives among . . . . Catherine Raven has achieved something unique in the literature of nature-writing: genuine love for the wild within the rigor of scientific observation. The voice of this storyteller is startlingly original. I read it breathlessly. -- Andrei Codrescu The observations of high-desert nature -- of wildlife, plants, landscapes, weather -- in this book are some of the best you will ever read. The story of Catherine Raven's and the fox's friendship charmed me and drew me in completely. -- Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains Fox and I is a mesmerizing, beautifully written, and entirely unsentimental book about the connection amongst all things: the author and her fox friend, but also magpies, brown dogs, fawns, voles, and junipers. Catherine Raven helped me reorient myself in the universe; she encourages readers to stop, listen, and look at the landscapes around us without putting ourselves in the center of them. I learned as much about the meaning of friendship from this book as I have from any work of nonfiction that I've ever read. -- Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Your Life Book Club and Books for Living