Friendship - Book Review

Friendship: The evolution, biology and extraordinary power of life’s fundamental bond

Denworth, L. (2020). Bloomsbury Sigma.

Friendship is a book I found inspiring, thought invoking and while it is filled with biology, sociology and neuroscientific terminology, for the lay-person like myself it was easy to get into. Friendship explores what makes relationships, especially friendships, possible in our changing social world. The book explores relationships and friendships through animals such as rats and mice in the labs, to primates in the wild being studied by scientists. Friendship questions the role of online gaming, social media, connectivity, and the ways our relationships change as we grow, develop and age. 

Friendship explores the facets of what makes someone a good or bad friend, and explores what this looks like in other social groupings of primates, lab animals and people of all ages.

Friendship is a book for academics wanting to learn more about the ways relationships grow and change; but also for anyone curious as to how children and old people have lots of friends and large social circles. I related to this book due to being in my thirties and hitting the ebb of friends, in my twenties that was the time of having lots of friends, in my thirties friendships dropped off and it became more important to see quality over quantity - this continues into peoples forties as well. Friendship explores these themes and talks about ground-roots initiatives making big changes right now in schools in America and Australia; Generation-Xchange for example is a programme for those aged forty plus to help in primary schools for helping school kids have positive adult role models.

Reviewed by Lisa Ryan, Leader and Local Coordinator, GirlGuiding New Zealand