Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Five of the best animal books

Delia Ephron, author and screenwriter, has written many books for children and adults, including the recently released The Lion is In.

One of her five best books on animals, as told to the Wall Street Journal:
When Elephants Weep
by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy (1995)

In Tanzania, in Gombe National Park, two chimpanzees climb to the top of a ridge, greet each other, sit down together, clasp hands and watch the sun set. Young elephants, having seen their families slaughtered by poachers hunting for tusks, wake up screaming in the night. Jeffrey Masson and Susan McCarthy have assembled an encyclopedic collection of anecdotal evidence showing that animals feel what we do: love, fear, joy, friendship, rage, jealousy, kindness. Of course not all animals feel all those things, but most animals, it seems, feel some of them. This book should turn a feeling person into a vegetarian, although I must confess, it didn't do that to me.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue