On Animals
About this book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Magnificent." ā The New York Times * "Beguiling, observant, and howlingly funny." ā San Francisco Chronicle * "Spectacular." ā Star Tribune (Minneapolis) * "Full of astonishments." ā The Boston Globe Susan Orleanāthe beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as "a national treasure" by The Washington Post and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Library Book āgathers a lifetime of musings, meditations, and in-depth profiles about animals. "How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages, " writes Susan Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, she's been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us. Now, in On Animals, she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career.These stories consider a range of creaturesāthe household pets we dote on, the animals we raise to end up as meat on our plates, the creatures who could eat us for dinner, the various tamed and untamed animals we share our planet with who are central to human life. In her own backyard, Orlean discovers the delights of keeping chickens. In a different backyard, in New Jersey, she meets a woman who has twenty-three pet tigersāsomething none of her neighbors knew about until one of the tigers escapes. In Iceland, the world's most famous whale resists the efforts to set him free; in Morocco, the world's hardest-working donkeys find respite at a special clinic. We meet a show dog and a lost dog and a pigeon who knows exactly how to get home. Equal parts delightful and profound, enriched by Orlean's stylish prose and precise research, these stories celebrate the meaningful cross-species connections that grace our collective existence.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Introduction: Animalish
- Chapter 1. The It Bird
- Chapter 2. Show Dog
- Chapter 3. The Lady and the Tigers
- Chapter 4. Riding High
- Chapter 5. Little Wing
- Chapter 6. Animal Action
- Chapter 7. Whereās Willy?
- Chapter 8. Carbonaro and Primavera
- Chapter 9. Lifelike
- Chapter 10. Lion Whisperer
- Chapter 11. The Rabbit Outbreak
- Chapter 12. The Perfect Beast
- Chapter 13. Lost Dog
- Chapter 14. Where Donkeys Deliver
- Chapter 15. Farmville
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Essay Credits
- Illustration Credits
- Copyright
