Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild by Lucy Jones (JR 2001-03) is our OKS Book of the Month for August 2026. 

About the Book

Losing Eden is a love letter to the restoring power of nature. It is a book about all the ways the natural world enhances our health, both mentally and physically. 

At the start of the book, Lucy tells readers how much we've travelled inwards as human beings - many of us live indoor lives with a disconnect to the natural world. A shocking statistic explains that we spend only 1 to 5% of our time outdoors, and that three-quarters of children aged 5-12 now spend less time outside than prisoners. The book poses a question: do we need the wild to be happy? To answer this, Jones uses science and research to explain the value of a connection with nature 

Travelling from forest schools in East London, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, via Poland's primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists' couches, Jones takes us to the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience and psychology, and discovers new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth. 

"We've all heard it said that going for a dawdle in the park is good for us, but we probably assumed that such ideas are rooted in whimsy rather than empirical fact. Lucy Jones tracks down evidence for the benefits of rewilding our lives. People, research suggests, are not just happier when cities are greener but are also less violent. Losing Eden is just the right blend of the personal and the scientific as she also recounts how reconnecting with nature gave her some meaning after a period of coming undone."

― The Times Books of the Year

Losing Eden was named by The Times and The Telegraph as Book of the Year in 2020. 

Recommended for:

• Lovers of nature and the wild 
• Anyone seeking a deeper connection with the natural world 
• Those with an interest in wellbeing 

About the OKS Author: 

Lucy Jones is a writer and journalist based in Hampshire, England. She previously worked at NME and the Daily Telegraph, and her writing on culture, science and nature has been published in GQ, BBC Wildlife, The Sunday Times, The Guardian and the New Statesman. She has also appeared on radio shows such as BBC Radio 4 and BBC's Woman's Hour. 

Her first book, Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love & Loathing in Modern Britain, was long-listed for the Wainwright Prize and won the Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award. Her latest book Matrescence is about the transformations of motherhood. 

Losing Eden was published in 2020 by Penguin Books. An Audio book version is also available on Spotify, Audible and Apple Books.