God Is an Octopus

Loss, Love and a Calling to Nature

English language

Published Oct. 19, 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

ISBN:
978-1-3994-0835-6
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4 stars (1 review)

Struggling to comprehend the shocking death of his teenage daughter, Ben Goldsmith finds solace in nature by immersing himself in plans to rewild his farm.

In July 2019, Ben Goldsmith lost his fifteen-year-old daughter, Iris, in an accident on their family farm in Somerset. Iris's death left her family reeling.

Grasping for answers, Ben threw himself into searching for some ongoing trace of his beloved child, exploring ideas that until then had seemed too abstract to mean much to him. Missing his daughter terribly and struggling to imagine how he would face the rest of his life in the shadow of this loss, Ben found solace in nature, the object of a lifelong fascination. As Ben set about rewilding his farm, nature became a vital source of meaning and hope.

This book is the story of a year of soul-searching that followed a terrible loss. In an instant, Ben's world …

1 edition

Conveys a rich life experience

4 stars

(em português → sol2070.in/2023/12/livro-god-is-an-octopus/ )

"God Is An Octopus" (2023) is englishman Ben Goldsmith's autobiographical account of the loss of his 15-year-old daughter and how his involvement with reforestation initiatives saved him, as the subtitle describes: "Loss, love and a call to nature."

Because it's a true story, which easily arouses empathy, and quite significant in the face of the current ecological collapse, it's a book that conveys a rich life experience like few others. All the more so because the language is almost oral, so simple.

After his loss, Goldsmith begins a spiritual quest to try to find meaning and, in the end, he arrives where he has always been. Ever since he was a child, he treated the union and (the attempt at) harmony with nature as a kind of spirituality, although this dynamic was not 100% conscious.

The long process of mourning showed the author in practice …