And we walked three valleys beyond, and the third valley, there was something quite mysterious and ominous, a discomfort I felt. And then I knew that had to be the setting of my book.

Among the many places that she lived, Chopra has fond memories as a child of playing in the valleys of Leh, in the cold northwestern Indian desert region of Jammu and Kashmir.

Because, if you don't know yet, everything that we use to define what human nature is comes from these storms, comes from these storms that roll over the hills and valleys of our brains and define our memories, our beliefs, our feelings, our plans for the future.

And to do that meant creating the flattest gradients that had ever yet been made, which meant building long viaducts across river valleys this is actually the viaduct across the Thames at Maidenhead and long tunnels such as the one at Box, in Wiltshire.

The work of researchers like Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey, Birute Galdikas, Frans de Waal, and many others amply demonstrates that the great apes are intelligent beings with strong emotions that in many ways resemble our own.