Born Free
Joy Adamson, 1960
★ 4.16 from 33.9k ratings on Goodreads
A lioness raised by hand, then taught to hunt and live wild: the true story that changed how people looked at animals. The voice is warm and patient, the pace unhurried, and the mood full of wonder, tenderness, and quiet moral questioning.
Feels like wonder, tenderness and serenity. About freedom, society and morality.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy true animal stories, field notes from Kenya, and careful reflections on wildness and care. Some readers find the account repetitive, and the hands-on handling of wild animals may trouble you.
Why read it
It offers a close look at an animal learning to live free, and at the people who had to let her go; the questions it raises about care and wildness still feel current.
A page from the book
The astonishing thing is not that she could kill him, but that she didn't.
To whatever way of thinking the reader of Elsa’s history may lean, it provides a record of absorbing interest depicting the gradual development of a controlled character which few would have credited as possible in the case of an animal potentially as dangerous as any in the world. That such a creature when in a highly excited state, with her blood up after a long struggle with a bull buffalo, and while still on top of it, should have permitted a man to walk up to her and cut the dying beast’s throat to satisfy his religious scruples, and then lend her assistance in pulling the carcass out of a river, is an astonishing tribute no less to her intelligence than to her self-control. What readers say
Readers often describe being deeply moved, sometimes tearful, and inspired by the bond between a lioness and her caretakers and its conservation legacy. Others found the account repetitive and were troubled by the handling of wild animals.
Joy Adamson.Joy Adamson was born in Austria-Hungary and moved to Kenya in 1938; she was an artist and illustrator before she became famous as a naturalist.
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Questions readers ask
- Is Born Free for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy true animal stories, field notes from Kenya, and careful reflections on wildness and care. Some readers find the account repetitive, and the hands-on handling of wild animals may trouble you.
- What is Born Free like?
- The voice is warm and patient, the pace unhurried, and the mood full of wonder, tenderness, and quiet moral questioning. Feels like wonder, tenderness and serenity. About freedom, society and morality.
- What should I read after Born Free?
- If you liked Born Free, try Profiles in Courage (John F. Kennedy), The Joy of Sex (Alex Comfort) and John Adams (David McCullough).
A taste of the feed
A revolution begins in minds, long before the first shot.
As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760–1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.
John Adams · David McCullough
The cost of becoming conscious of your own gift.
His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.
A Moveable Feast · Ernest Hemingway
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