Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

The author revisits her experiences studying the Kalahari San in Africa and documents their behavior as hunter-gatherers.

A Story of the First People

The Old Way

The author who revealed the secret lives of dogs in the best-selling The Hidden Life of Dogs offers a journey into the hidden life of cats and reports that cats, surprisingly, are not solitary beings. Reissue.

The Tribe of Tiger

An account of an expedition into the Kalahari Desert to study the way of life of the mysterious African Bushmen

The Harmless People

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like to your dog? Or what it smells like? Do dogs have dreams and, if so, what about? And are dogs really capable of emotion? THE HIDDEN LIFE OF DOGS was a sensational bestseller on first publication and is now considered a classic. In her riveting account of thirty years spent living with dogs, wolves and dingoes, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas provides a fascinating insight into a species very different from our own, yet in many respects surprisingly familiar.

The Hidden Life of Dogs

A Walk through the Reaches of Time

The Hidden Life of Life

In The Hidden Life of Deer, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, the New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Dogs, turns her attention to wild deer, and the many lessons we can learn by observing nature. A narrative masterpiece and a naturalist’s delight, The Hidden Life of Deer is based on the twelve months Thomas, a renowned anthropologist, spent studying the local deer population near her home in New Hampshire.

Lessons from the Natural World

The Hidden Life of Deer

Explores how dogs adapt to life with their human owners, contributing to a comfortable environment by making adjustments, accomodating to newcomers, and forming alliances within the household's various subgroups. Reprint.

The Social Lives of Dogs

Sy Montgomery

Extraordinary new insights into the minds and lives of our fellow creatures from two of the world's top animal authors, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Sy Montgomery. A Mail on Sunday "Critic's Pick" Best Read of the Year "In their writing and in their lives and in their remarkable friendship, Liz and Sy break down false barriers and carry us closer to our fellow creatures."--from the foreword by Vicki Constantine Croke, author of Elephant Company Tamed and Untamed―a collection of essays penned by two of the world's most celebrated animal writers, Sy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas―explores the minds, lives, and mysteries of animals as diverse as snails, house cats, hawks, sharks, dogs, lions, and even octopuses. Drawing on stories of animals both wild and domestic, the two authors, also best friends, created this book to put humans back into the animal world. The more we learn about what other animals think and do, they explain, the more we understand ourselves as animals, too. Writes Montgomery, "The list of attributes once thought to be unique to our species―from using tools to waging war―is not only rapidly shrinking, but starting to sound less and less impressive when we compare them with other animals' powers." With humor, empathy, and introspection, Montgomery and Thomas look into the lives of all kinds of creatures―from man's best friend to the great white shark―and examine the ways we connect with our fellow species. Both authors have devoted their lives to sharing the animal kingdom's magic with others, and their combined wisdom is an indispensable contribution to the field of animal literature. The book contains a foreword by Vicki Constantine Croke, author of the bestseller Elephant Company.

Brief Encounters of the Animal Kind

Tamed and Untamed

The absorbing chronicle of an expedition to the tribesmen of northern Uganda.

Warrior Herdsmen

For 20.000 år siden røver en sibirisk jæger kvinden "Bæverrotte" fra en anden stamme og får to børn med hende, indtil hun flygter tilbage til sit eget folk

The Animal Wife

A dog, a goat, and their flock follow the sight and scent of a star in a beautifully illustrated, keenly observed Nativity story. The story begins on a cold upland pasture where coarse grass and scrub cedar grew. The hour was midnight. The day was the first of winter. And the year of our Lord was not 1900 or 1600 or even 100. It was 0. On that night a white goat, Ima, and a huge, gray short-haired sheepdog, Lila, were keeping watch over a small flock of young sheep. Bright and dazzling, a star appears behind the cedars on the eastern skyline. It is big and powerful, and it has a pure, clean scent, like something halfway between honey and water. Lila, the sheepdog, and Ima, the goat, are compelled to follow the star on a journey to a humble manger in Bethlehem, a journey beset with danger, adventure, and love. In a story alive with insight and grace, best-selling author Elizabeth Scott Thomas brings us a striking portrait of the Nativity story from the captivating point of the view of the animal kingdom.

A Christmas Tale

Certain Poor Shepherds

" Les chérubins sont aux anges ce que le chat est au tigre ; ils représentent les deux formes extrêmes d'une même famille, l'alpha et l'oméga de leur espèce. " Anthropologue et zoologiste, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas est avant tout un merveilleux observateur de la vie animale. Qu'elle s'attache à regarder ses propres chats ou qu'elle raconte comment, au revers de celle des espèces carnivores, l'histoire des chats et des félins est née, elle s'interroge sur leur comportement et définit une " culture " qui leur est spécifique. Contrairement aux idées reçues, ni les chats ni les tigres ne sont solitaires : ils sont casaniers, attachés à la propriété et favorisent la vie en clans. Et si tout comme les chiens ils nous incluent dans leur structure familiale, ils nous considèrent comme leurs enfants ou bien même comme leurs parents, entretenant avec nous des relations complexes et changeantes. Ce sont de véritables individus, qui s'adaptent et peuvent inventer des codes de conduite... sans jamais, bien sûr, se départir de cette élégance qui enchante leurs admirateurs.

Les chats et leur culture

" Je rêvais de pénétrer dans l'univers mental des chiens, dans leur monde subtil de sons et d'odeurs, de savoir quelles pensées les habitent, quels sentiments les agitent... Je voulais être acceptée par eux, comme une des leurs. " Pendant près de trente ans, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas a observé, avec l'attention et la discrétion d'une anthropologue, une meute de chiens ou plutôt, une famille canine. Jour après jour, elle les a suivis dans leurs expéditions, elle les a regardés trouver leur place dans la maison, organiser le rituel de leurs repas, faire face à la mort d'un proche. Et elle a découvert que ces animaux - que l'on croyait familiers - se donnent, quand ils sont entre eux, des lois et des usages très complexes ; qu'ils sont capables aussi d'émotions, d'imagination, de créativité, voire de spiritualité. C'est cette expérience unique, ce voyage intime au pays des chiens qu'Elizabeth Marshall Thomas nous raconte dans cet ouvrage à la Konrad Lorenz, qui se lit comme un passionnant roman d'aventures, avec ses rires, ses drames et ses amours.

LA VIE SECRETE DES CHIENS. Une anthropologue en pays canin

From the revered author of the bestselling The Hidden Life of Dogs, a witty, engaging, life-affirming account of the joy, strength, and wisdom that comes with age. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has spent a lifetime observing the natural world, chronicling the customs of pre-contact hunter-gatherers and the secret lives of deer and dogs. In this book, the capstone of her long career, Thomas, now eighty-eight, turns her keen eye to her own life. The result is an account of growing old that is at once funny and charming and intimate and profound, both a memoir and a life-affirming map all of us may follow to embrace our later years with grace and dignity. A charmingly intimate account and a broad look at the social and historical traditions related to aging, Growing Old explores a wide range of issues connected with growing older, from stereotypes of the elderly as burdensome to the methods of burial humans have used throughout history to how to deal with a concerned neighbor who assumes you’re buying cat food to eat for dinner. Written with the wit of Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck and the lyrical beauty and serene wisdom of When Breath Becomes Air, Growing Old is an expansive and deeply personal paean to the beauty and the brevity of life that offers understanding for everyone, regardless of age.

Notes on Aging with Something like Grace

Growing Old

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has spent a lifetime observing the natural world, chronicling the customs of pre-contact hunter-gatherers and the secret lives of deer and dogs. In this book, the capstone of her long career, Thomas, now 88, turns her keen eye to her own life. The result is an account of growing old that is at once funny and charming, intimate and profound - both a memoir and a life-affirming map all of us may follow to embrace our later years with grace and dignity. Growing Old explores a wide range of issues connected with ageing, from stereotypes of the elderly as burdensome to the methods of burial that humans have used throughout history to how to deal with a concerned neighbour who assumes you're buying cat food to eat for dinner. Written with wit and compassion, this book is an expansive and deeply personal paean to the beauty and the brevity of life that offers understanding for everyone, regardless of age.

Notes on ageing with something like grace

“A whole culture is imaginatively and authoritatively illuminated” in this “suspenseful, insightful, poignant” novel of prehistoric times (Publishers Weekly). Twenty thousand years ago, a courageous girl lived in Siberia near Woman Lake, a place you won’t find on any modern map. Only thirteen, Yanan and her companions—hunters of deer, gatherers of roots and twigs—struggle to survive the harsh realities of hunger and cold, bound by an unending cycle of birth, kinship, violence, and death. As Yanan recounts the terrible adventures of her brief life, she departs on spirit journeys that evoke the lives of the animals to which she and her people are intimately linked. A lyrical novel of our species’ prehistory, Reindeer Moon opens up corridors to the imagination that lead us back to the long-forgotten echoes of our distant human past. “Unforgettable . . . Reindeer Moon beautifully resurrects a lost world of merciless magnificence. Dozens of memorable characters live and die in this moving tale, which should become a classic.” —Chicago Tribune Book World “Those familiar with the author’s landmark study, The Harmless People, will not be surprised at the range of anthropological information she brings to her first novel, or at the lucidity of her prose. What will astonish, engross and move readers in her narrative of a group of hunter-gatherers who lived 20,000 years ago is the dramatic immediacy of the story and the depth and range of character development.” —Publishers Weekly

A Novel

Reindeer Moon

Von großen und von kleinen Tieren

Gezähmt und ungezähmt

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has spent a lifetime observing other creatures and other cultures, from her own backyard to the African savannah. Her books have transported millions of readers into the hidden lives of animals—from dogs and cats to deer and lions. She’s chronicled the daily lives of African tribes, and even imagined the lives of prehistoric humans. She illuminates unknown worlds like no other. Now, she opens the doors to her own. Dreaming of Lions traces Thomas’s life from her earliest days, including when, as a young woman in the 1950s, she and her family packed up and left for the Kalahari Desert to study the Ju/Wa Bushmen. The world’s understanding of African tribal cultures has never been the same since. Nor has Thomas, as the experience taught her not only how to observe, but also how to navigate in male-dominated fields like anthropology and animal science and do what she cared about most: spending time with animals and people in wild places, and relishing the people and animals around her at home. Readers join Thomas as she returns to Africa, after college and marriage, with her two young children, ending up in the turmoil leading to Idi Amin’s bloody coup. She invites us into her family life, her writing, and her fascination with animals—from elephants in Namibia, to dogs in her kitchen, or cougars outside her New England farmhouse. She also recounts her personal struggles, writing about her own life with the same kind of fierce honesty that she applies to the world around her, and delivering a memoir that not only shares tremendous insights, but also provides tremendous inspiration. Dreaming of Lions, originally published in hardcover as A Million Years With You, is slightly updated and includes a powerful new afterword by the author.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

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