Non Fiction

Goodbye Pet & See You in Heaven

When her beloved small dog, Bonnie, died, Bel Mooney was astonished at the depth of her sorrow and the profound effect on her physical and mental health. Sharing her feelings online and in a newspaper article brought a deluge of responses; people sent pictures and stories of their own pets, spurring Bel into exploring these feelings further. Why do humans mourn animals? Are people absurd to imagine their pets can go to heaven?

In Goodbye Pet & See You In Heaven Bel sets off on an emotional journey into what pet bereavement means. She discusses whether animals can themselves grieve and how we should mourn them. She talks about ritual, watches her dog's ashes being turned into glass and is reminded of ancient reliquaries. She finds out about Ancient Egypt (where they embalmed animals) and discovers what the great world faiths think about animals and the afterlife. She also looks back over her own life and reflects on lessons learnt from companion animals - and wildlife too.

The memoir is in part, a 'ghost' story - describing an extraordinary series of 'signs' that followed Bonnie's death, which Bel cannot explain. It poses the question that has preoccupied many cultures: do animals have a soul? Not knowing for sure, Bel explores many answers, talks to experts and discusses the mysterious energy of love, which can endure beyond death.

Goodbye Pet & See You in Heaven is an intensely personal, moving and uplifting look at the relationship we have with our pets, both in life and in death. Enriched by heartfelt stories and beautiful words, it is a book that will be treasured by anyone who has loved an animal.

Published by The Robson Press ISBN: 978-1785900600

Bel Mooney's Lifelines - Words to Help You Through

This selection includes problems, responses and some of the wide-ranging mini essays that appear in the Mail as 'And Finally'. Punctuated by some of Bel's favourite uplifting quotations, this collection also includes 'what happened next' with some of those who received Bel's wisdom – be it about love, loss, break-ups or breakdowns.

A heartfelt and inspirational collection, full of valuable insights and prefixed by a wide-ranging and candid introduction reflecting on what being an advice columnist has taught her, Bel Mooney's Lifelines is a book readers will return to again and again, each time discovering something new in the process.

Published by The Robson Press ISBN: 978-1849549325

A Small Dog Saved My Life

A story of survival, transformation and love.

In a beautiful and powerful memoir which mixes honest, personal revelation with literature, history, and inspirational self-help, Bel Mooney tells the story of her rescue dog, Bonnie, who in turn rescued Bel when her world fell apart with the all-too public break-up of her 35-year marriage. SMALL DOGS CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE really is a story of survival, and also one of love.

Truly inspiring and utterly engaging, Small Dogs Can Save Your Life is a story about loss, survival, understanding and finding love again.

Also available for Kindle.

Reviews

'Small Dogs Can Save Your Life is a candid exploration of the emotions and passions surrounding those events, and how she [Bel] survived thanks to the faithful love of her little dog, Bonnie.'
Sarah Vine, The Times Summer Reading

Published by Harper Colins ISBN: 978-0-00-742721-5

Bel Mooney's Somerset

This book is designed to be read as a narrative, and covers the whole of the old county of Somerset, dismissing the boundry changes of 1974, and including, therefore, the elegant spa town of Bath.
Bel Mooney’s enticing observations, her thoughts, idiosyncracies and passions, will be shared and enjoyed by anyone who plans even to pass through one of Britain’s most beautiful counties.

Bel begins with Exmoor, with Lorna Doone, prize sheep at the county show, St. Bueno, the smallest parish church in England, moving on to the Quantock Hills, dotted with Bronze Age barrows and cairns. She describes the vale of Taunton Deane with it's rich red soil, and Cadbury Hill and the Somerset lore of King Arthur. We learn of the flat sodden world of the Wetlands, the dramatic beauty of the Mendips - wild, windblown trees and the 'gruffy ground' of abandoned mines. We can envisage the mud of Stert Flats, visit Burnham-on-Sea and Weston-super-Mare - a little melancholy out of season - and the accommodating, quiet, green fields and watery sky of the Eastern edge of the county. Somerset writers such as Parson Woodeforde, Coleridge and T.S.Eliot are introduced; so are characters from history - Judge Jeffries and the doomed Duke of Monmouth.

Currently out of print, but available digitally.

Available For Kindle and eBook
ISBN: 978-1-44-820981-1

The Year of the Child

Bel Mooney took six boys and six girls from different parts of the British Isles and observed them over a year. She saw Denise being born, watched Gemma, the daughter of a company executive, at her nursery school and heard the fears of the parents of Donald, a West Indian child from Birmingham. She saw David in preparatory school and Melanie in her comprehensive; talked to a fourteen-year-old Asian boy about his experience of race, and to a ten-year-old Welsh boy about family violence.

The twelve chapters in The Year of the Child mirror the stages in a child's development from total dependence to independence and self-awareness and the beginnings of a critical attitude to the world around. The Year of the Child makes a valuable contribution to social history, it goes beyond journalism and social comment to become a re-enactment of what the author calls "that cyclical loss of innocence which is at the root of human experience".

Currently out of print, but available digitally.

Available For Kindle and eBook
ISBN: 978-00-913832-13

Devout Sceptics

Subtitled, "Conversations on Faith and Doubt", this is the book from Bel's long-running series on Radio 4. Out of 35 interviews, 25 are here - and you will be fascinated and uplifted by Ben Okri, Jeanette Wintersen, Denis Healey, Melvyn Bragg, Philip Pullman and many more. Currently out of print.

ISBN: 0-340-86202-5

Perspectives for Living

Based on 2 series for BBC Radio 4, about the way death affects lives. Currently out of print.

ISBN: 0-340-86202-5