Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals [Paperback]

Barbara Peterson (Author), Brenda Peterson (Author), Deena Metzger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 1999

Though women have long felt kinship with animals, in the past, they seldom participated in the study of them. Now, as more women make animals the subject of their investigations, significant new ideas are emerging--based on the premise that animals are honored co-sharers of the earth. This unprecedented anthology features original stories, essays, meditations, and poems by a vast array of women nature writers and field scientists, including:

DIANE ACKERMAN - VIRGINIA COYLE - GRETEL EHRLICH - DIAN FOSSEY - TESS GALLAGHER - JANE GOODALL - TEMPLE GRANDIN - SUSAN GRIFFIN - JOY HARJO - BARBARA KINGSOLVER - URSULA LE GUIN - DENISE LEVERTOV - LINDA McCARRISTON - SUSAN CHERNAK McELROY - RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ - CYNTHIA MOSS - KATHERINE PAYNE - MARGE PIERCY - PATTIANN ROGERS - LINDA TELLINGTON-JONES - HAUNANI-KAY TRASK - GILLIAN VAN HOUTEN - TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As any lover of animals will tell you, creatures of the natural world bring inspiration and spiritual insight to their human admirers. In this collection of essays, ponderings, poems, and interviews, which includes contributions from Jane Goodall, Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula Le Guin, and Tess Gallagher, readers are able to glimpse the personal yet profoundly universal impact of animals on women's lives. Even more, they can experience the relational and spiritual feminine model for animal study. In their introduction, editors Linda Hogan, Deena Metzger, and Brenda Peterson explain, "This strong sense of compassion that many women bring to the study, celebration, and love of animals has been world changing and visionary. We can now say that the old guard of detached science is being replaced with the new guardians, many of them the women in this Book." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This book brings together stories, poems, essays, and meditations by the editors and more than 70 other prominent female nature writers and field scientists, including Gretel Ehrlich, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Terry Tempest Williams, to show how women are reestablishing their relationship with animals on a basis of respect and empathy. Wildlife researchers like Jane Goodall or Cynthia Moss integrate compassion and intuition with the data they report. Native American women explore the wisdom of tribal elders for lessons on sharing the earth with animals. Women who have nurtured or trained individual animals recount, sometimes humorously, how they learned to communicate across the species barrier. All the contributors celebrate animals as our peers on this planet; many also warn against the loneliness and silence of the wasteland we are creating as we push ever more species to the brink of extinction. This collection should appeal to young adults as well as general adult readers. Recommended for academic and public libraries.?Joan S. Elbers, formerly Montgomery Coll., Rockville, Md.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (April 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449003000
• ISBN-13: 978-0449003008
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #861,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Explores a connection surpassed only by motherhood..., April 3, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (St. Paul, Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals (Hardcover)

As a scientist studying wolves, as the owner of several pets, as someone who loves nature and wildlife, and as a woman...this book spoke to me. It offers a vivid reminder of the very unique, emotional and primal bond that women share with animals. Narratives, interspersed with poetry, are organized loosley into several sections, focusing on diverse aspects of this bond. In one section, women who had made this communality part of their careers- studying animals in the field- share their insights as to how their work and their lives have been affected by what they study. Other sections explore the more common bond between womenand their pets, or the wildlife they find around them, and how this supplements and supports the lives they have created for themselves. The book has all the hallmarks of an epic work of fiction- humor, love, tragedy, revelation, loss- and yet never for a moment do you forget that these are real women speaking. Intimate Nature is not only about the unique bond between women and animals, but the bond we share as women as well.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The compassionate connection between women and animals, May 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals (Hardcover)

A beautiful, moving anthology of stories about the bond between humans (in this book, specifically female) and animals. I especially loved the story of Isabel the cat and what her human companion learned from her about play and healing. I recently found an interview on this site with the author of the story, Brenda Peterson (who is also a co-editor of Intimate Nature). To find the interview, go to Browse Subjects, then Non-fiction, then Non-fiction by Subject, then Women's Studies. Look down the page until you find "What Animals Can Teach Us." Then "read more..." about Intimate Nature!

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent parallel to Peterson's "Living by Water"., June 20, 1999

By 

Lynnette Bruce ([e-mail]) (Vancouver, B.C. Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals (Paperback)

I have always resonated with the way Brenda Peterson writes about her connection between our natural world and people. I found poignant parallels between the experiences described in "Bond" and Peterson's previous "Living by Water". God, how I wish I could talk to her. This latest book by Peterson (et al.) has struck a chord in me , and I feel this book is an important read for all women. Highly recommended.