How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals

by Sy Montgomery

Echidnas are egg-laying mammals, one of only two kinds on Earth (the platypus is the other).

“The Earth feels so new here,” I wrote in my field journal. “No wonder we can sometimes feel its molten, beating heart.”

“Oh, but you do feel them,” he said gently. “What you are feeling when you miss them is not their absence. It’s their presence.”