BOOKS: Animalkind

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

Animalkind by Jean Kazez
Wiley-Blackwell (111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030), 2010.
216 pages, paperback. $24.95.

Immanuel Kant theorized in the Metaphysic of Morals that
practicing cruelty toward animals produces cruelty toward humans.
That was in 1785, and the same is still true, argues Jean Kazez in
Animalkind.
Animalkind blends philosophy, history, spirituality and
conjecture about our history with animals. Some of that history is
utterly cruel and appalling, but some appears to be misrepresented.

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Books by Harold Sims

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

Cats without Cages:
The Story of Catman2
114 pages, paperback. $19.95.

Kevin, the Helpful Vampire Cat
Illustrated by Linda A. Richardson
29 pages, paperback. $12.95.

both by Harold Sims
Published by Catman2
(P.O. Box 2344, Cullowhee,
NC 28723), 2008.

“We don’t adopt out many cats here,” a North Carolina
shelter manager told Harold Sims nearly 20 years ago. “This is dog
country.”
The shelter manager recommended to prospective cat adopters
that they should look around dumpsters.

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BOOKS: Arachnids

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

Arachnids by Jan Beccaloni
Univ. of Calif. Press (2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley,
CA 94704), 2009. 320 pages, hardcover. $39.95.

The spider on the cover of Arachnids scared me. I didn’t
think I could get through a book containing 176 color photos and 24
drawings of creepy creatures. I turned the pages, however, and
learned something.

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BOOKS: Kinship & Killing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

Kinship & Killing:
The Animal in World Religions
by Katherine Wills Perlo
Columbia University Press (61 West 62nd St., New York,
NY 10023), 2009. 256 pages, paperback. $27.50.

Kinship & Killing: The Animal in World Religions is
unfortunately more learned than readable, cutting back and forth
among the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism,
and scholarly commentaries with what might be dizzying speed if the
connecting passages were not plodding academic jargon. Hinduism is
mentioned in passing, but not discussed in depth, for reasons not
very clear.

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BOOKS: Ape

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

Ape by John Sorensen
Reaktion Books Ltd.
(33 Great Sutton St., London EC1M 3JU, U.K.), 2009.
224 pages, illust. $19.95 paperback.

Ape, by Brock University sociologist and professor of
critical animal studies John Sorenson, is the 25th in a projected
series of 40 titles edited for Reaktion Books Ltd. by Jonathan Burt.
Burt himself produced the series template in Rat (2006). Each volume
is succinctly titled for the species or order of animals that it
covers. Each summarizes the state of knowledge about how the animals
behave, where they live, and how they evolved, but the focal topic
is the influence of the animals on human culture.

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BOOKS: Planet Ape

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

Planet Ape
by Desmond Morris with Steve Parker
Octopus Publishing Group (2-4 Heron Quays, London E14 4JP, U.K.), 2009.
288 pages, hardcover. $ 49.95.

The DNA of the great apes and humans differs by only a hair.
Desmond Morris and Steve Parker in Planet Ape show us the
similarities between humans and the other great apes, especially in
behavior such as tool-making, using politics to gain community
influence, and killing other species for food. We differ most
prominently in that humans are bipedal, walking upright while other
great apes walk upright only for short distances. Also, humans lost
the heavy coat of fur characterizing other apes, and now wear
clothes. Well, most of us do.

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BOOKS: Mark Twain’s Book of Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

Mark Twain’s Book of Animals
Edited with Introduction, Afterword, & Notes
by Shelley Fisher Fishkin
University of Calif. Press (2120 Berkeley Way,
Berkeley, CA 94704), 2009. 325 pages,
hardcover. $27.50.

“Animals were integral to Mark Twain’s
work as a writer from the first story that earned
him national renown to pieces he wrote during his
final years that remained unpublished at his
death,” notes Shelley Fisher Fishkin. “Twain is
famous for having crafted amusing and mordant
quips about animalsÅ He is less known for being
the most prominent American of his day to throw
his weight firmly behind the movement for animal
welfare.”

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BOOKS: The Poet-Physician & The Healer-Killer

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

The Poet-Physician & The Healer-Killer:
Vivisection & the Emergence of a Medical Technocracy
by Roberta Kalechovsky, Ph.D.
Micah Publications (225 Humphrey St.,
Marblehead, MA 01945), 2009. 230 pages,
paperback. $22.00.

From childhood Roberta Kalech-ovsky was
at heart an animal advocate. Yet, discouraged
by her family and other elders, she long pushed
that part of herself aside while pursuing her
“serious” career as author and publisher.
Literary, feminist, and religious studies
nonetheless led Kalechovsky back time and again
to the topics that became five previous
non-fiction books about the intersections of
animal rights, human rights, vegetarianism,
and Judaism.

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BOOKS: The Animal Manifesto

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:

The Animal Manifesto:
Six Reasons for Expanding Our Compassion Footprint
by Marc Bekoff
New World Library (14 Pameron Way, Novato, CA 94949), 2010.
192 pages, paperback. $14.95.

“Animals are constantly asking us in
their own ways to treat them better or leave them
alone,” opens Marc Bekoff in The Animal
Manifesto. The six chapters illuminate, through
both anecdote and scientific citation, that “All
animals share the Earth and we must coexist.
Animals can think and feel. Animals have and
deserve compassion. Connection breeds caring,
alienation breeds disrespect. Our world is not
compassionate to animals. Acting compassionately
helps all beings and our world.”

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