A moving and courageous tribute to a beautiful and wounded piece of Italy, its human and nonhuman inhabitants, by a writer as strong and proud as her land. Close to Earth is Silvia Ballestra's new book that tells the stories of veterinarians and volunteers who in the last months of 2016 dedicated themselves to rescuing the last, the lost and needy animals after the earthquake that devastated the Apennine countryside of central Italy with its tremors. This novel-reportage unfolds through the rescue stories of the animals that inhabit it. In fact, since the tremors of August 2016, ENPA, the National Animal Protection Agency, has been in the field, rescuing and recovering the animals whose presence helps keep the Apennine countryside alive: dogs, cats, cows, horses, sheep, chickens... These pages forcefully remind us that a part of our economy is still, despite everything, inseparably linked to the countryside and animals. It is these animals and their breeders who preside over an Apennines now less and less populated. A book to open our eyes and not forget. All royalties from Silvia Ballestra will be donated in the form of educational materials to schools in the centers affected by the earthquake.