All You Voracious Readers

[kidsmoke]

Like a lot of this wild and rambunctious crowd , I read books like breathing, constantly running out of material! God but I love a good story! I was noticing the other day that several of the books that have really moved me have been stories about animals....I guess I just really like getting out of the human perspective sometimes. With so many other creatures sharing the planet, it's fascinating to consider how things look to other species, and how they spend their lives.

 

I'd love to hear some animal-centric books that have been powerful, absorbing reads for the rest of you. Here are three that I totally loved:

 

"The Parrot Who Owns Me" - by Joanna Burger

"Marley and Me" - by John Grogan

"The Astonishing Elephant" - By Shana Alexander

 

I can't recommend these highly enough. Great reads all! The last is particularly special, and makes me intensely saddened that elephants are as endangered as they've become.

 

One story in the book tells of a circus elephant that was here in my hometown of Riverside, CA, when an orange grove fire's smoke made some of the circus elephants panic and stampede. (This was, I think without digging the book out, about 1940) One of the big males charged down Third St. for several miles, and came across a woman pedestrian. Completely panicked and enraged, the animal chased the woman. Terrified of course, the woman ran through the neighborhood she was in, and ran up onto the porch of a friend. The friends weren't home, and the elephant pursued the woman and killed her.

 

Third Street is a fairly large street across town. I still think of that poor woman, and that poor elephant, when I drive on Third. Poignant stuff.

 

Anyway, that perhaps wasn't the best story to tell to rally for elephant conservation..... But it illustrates how fascinating the book is. Alexander is a great writer.

 

So anyway, would you all please share your favorite animal books with me? Thanks!

[jenbobblehead]

William S. Burroughs has a great out of print book called The Cat Inside, which are essays (in typical Burroughs fashion) about his relationships with cats through his life. It is one of my favorite little works.

[Sir Stewart]

Paul Auster's "Timbuktu" is an urban journey told from a dog's perspective - short, sweet, odd.

[Lammycat]

Steinbeck's Travels With Charley is an excellent read.

 

Moreso about Steinbeck's self-discovering of America and his understanding of it/take on it (he was supposedly pretty ill at the time he traveled the US with his poodle, Charley) the story is pretty fascinating (to me, at least). I'm a big Steinbeck fan, regardless, but the book is rich in detail and I've always dug the simplistic nature of his writing (very accessible).

 

There are some tender moments described concerning his relationship with Charley and it's importance to him, as well. Charley is his traveling companion and has more of a bit part in the true tale, but it's still a hot read.

[viatroy]

Gerald Malcom Durrell -- a naturalist and humorist. As a young boy his English family moved to Corfu, and he became a budding naturalist and keen observer of the human animal as well. Very funny books about family life, cultural clash and mesh, and the critters too. I was very happy to catch a BBC rerun of a program that was made from one of his books, not sure which. I reread several of them recently.

 

Birds, Beasts and Relatives

My Family and Other Animals

The Aye-Aye and I

 

to name a few. I think he may be out of print now.

 

 

I'm planning to reread Misty of Chincoteague sometime soon.

[OOO]

Everyone probably already read it, but Life of Pi.

[kidsmoke]

Everyone probably already read it, but Life of Pi.

 

Love that book.

 

Great recommendations, everybody! Keep them coming.

[la*]

Donna, would you prefer to stick with fiction? I have a couple nonfiction recommendations if you want them.

 

As for fiction picks, I haven't read this, but I have heard really good things:

 

[kidsmoke]

Laura! Wonderful to see you!

 

As a reader, I tend toward fiction most of the time....but a well-written nonfiction is just as absorbing. By the way, that "The Blood of Strangers" you recommended awhile back was incredible!

 

Go ahead and recommend whatever you have enjoyed. You have terrific taste in books. I'll find myself a copy of "Water for Elephants". I've heard something about that one, too. I think my book club carries it.

[Reni]

Donna, would you prefer to stick with fiction? I have a couple nonfiction recommendations if you want them.

 

As for fiction picks, I haven't read this, but I have heard really good things:

 

 

I keep picking that up at the bookstore - but have yet to commit.

[jahilia]

Julian Barnes' "History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters" has the story of the Ark told by an insect stowaway on the ship - this character also shows up in a couple other chapters too. Very funny and very well written.

[kidsmoke]

Julian Barnes' "History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters" has the story of the Ark told by an insect stowaway on the ship - this character also shows up in a couple other chapters too. Very funny and very well written.

 

That sounds like a book I'd love!

[la*]

Laura! Wonderful to see you!

 

As a reader, I tend toward fiction most of the time....but a well-written nonfiction is just as absorbing. By the way, that "The Blood of Strangers" you recommended awhile back was incredible!

 

Go ahead and recommend whatever you have enjoyed. You have terrific taste in books. I'll find myself a copy of "Water for Elephants". I've heard something about that one, too. I think my book club carries it.

 

 

You had to know that the call for voracious readers would catch my attention.

 

Glad you loved "Blood of Strangers"! I know you liked Gawande's "Complications"-- perhaps you already heard that he has a new book called "Better: A Surgeon's Notes On Performance".

 

As for nonfiction books about animals, I loved "A Book of Bees" by Sue Hubbell, and "Beauty of the Beastly: New Views on the Nature of Life" by Natalie Angier.

[Dreamin']

Speaking of elephants, Barbara Gowdy's "The White Bone" is wonderful.

 

If, as many recent nonfiction bestsellers have revealed, animals possess emotions and awareness, they must also have stories. In The White Bone, a novel imagined entirely from the perspective of African elephants, Barbara Gowdy creates a world whole and separate that yet illuminates our own.

 

For years, young Mud and her family have roamed the high grasses, swamps, and deserts of the sub-Sahara. Now the earth is scorched by drought, and the mutilated bodies of family and friends lie scattered on the ground, shot down by ivory hunters. Nothing-not the once familiar terrain, or the age-old rhythms of life, or even memory itself-seems reliable anymore. Yet a slim prophecy of hope is passed on from water hole to water hole: the sacred white bone of legend will point the elephants toward the Safe Place. And so begins a quest through Africa's vast and perilous plains-until at last the survivors face a decisive trial of loyalty and courage.

 

In The White Bone, Barbara Gowdy performs a feat of imagination virtually unparalleled in modern fiction. Plunged into an alien landscape, we orient ourselves in elephant time, elephant space, elephant consciousness and begin to feel, as Gowdy puts it, "what it would be like to be that big and gentle, to be that imperiled, and to have that prodigious memory."

[davidtobin100]

A stranger recommendation:

 

Have you tried WE3 by Grant Morrison? It's a comic about three escaped lap test animals and is very moving. Might be one to look out for if you want a change of pace.

[kidsmoke]

A stranger recommendation:

 

Have you tried WE3 by Grant Morrison? It's a comic about three escaped lap test animals and is very moving. Might be one to look out for if you want a change of pace.

 

That sounds intriguing! Thanks for the recommendation, and welcome to Via Chicago.

[Aeglos]

Tailchaser's Song, by Tad Williams is about all i can think of.

 

Gary Larson's cartoons give me all the animal perspective i need.