RaveThe Boston Globe\"[De Waal\'s] best book ... Though science has long resisted the idea that non-human animals share aspects of human traits, de Waal brilliantly builds his case that emotions are \'bodily expressed,\' therefore somewhat measurable, and that not only can we see that other creatures have emotional lives, but that they can help us understand what underlies our own ... [De Waal] uses his own research, some familiar from his other books, lots of it fresh, and weaves in thoughts from literature, art criticism, and a pile of work from others ... [De Waal\'s] book too may help reframe how we see animals and our place among them. Ultimately, the conversational tone isn’t just a style, but a key to understanding — these are complex notions, he seems to say, but just use your common sense.
Suzy Fincham-Gray
PositiveThe New York Times\"She doesn’t always deliver on the personal introspection she’s reaching for in this memoir, but elements like her short profile of the pancreas, which, in part, describes the organ as \'pale and malevolent, hiding between the smooth, jolly pink intestines and the dense, bloody liver,\' are memorably vivid.\
Charles Foster
PositiveThe New York Times Book Review...a meditative romp that leaves you laughing out loud (and occasionally cursing in anger) even as you soak up the spray of science ... Steeped in scholarship, yet directed by his own quirky mysticism, Foster brilliantly takes on questions of animal consciousness, cognition, emotion and theory of mind.
Helen Macdonald
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewIn her breathtaking new book Helen Macdonald renders an indelible impression of a raptor’s fierce essence — and her own — with words that mimic feathers, so impossibly pretty we don’t notice their astonishing engineering.