Mother deer that mourn their young?

Horses that feel shame?

Squirrels that take in and raise their grandchildren?

We often imagine that humans alone experience deep, conscious emotion, yet the animal world tells a very different story. From the author of the bestselling masterpiece The Hidden Life of Trees comes The Inner Life of Animals, a book that invites us to pause and wonder: what truly goes on inside an animal’s mind?

Travelling from forest undergrowth to the humming intricacy of a beehive, this captivating book moves from microscopic observations to some of the biggest ethical and scientific questions of our time. Along the way, we encounter a thankful humpback whale, a hedgehog beset by nightmares, and a magpie with a scandalous love life. We meet forward-thinking bees, pigs that recognise their own names, and joyful crows who toboggan for the sheer delight of it. And, crucially, we finally discover the unexpected ecological purpose behind wasps.

As an expanding body of research shows, animals possess an emotional richness that mirrors, and sometimes surprises, our own. The Inner Life of Animals offers a fresh, illuminating perspective on how other creatures feel, think and relate to their world, opening the animal kingdom in ways that transform how we see the living beings around us.