Vendor
	Liepman Literary Agency Marc Koralnik
Original language
English
Weblink
http://us.macmillan.com/books/97 …

BEYOND WORDS: What Animals Think and Feel

Carl Safina

Hailed conservationist Carl Safina examines animal personhood as told through the inspired narrative portraits of elephants, wolves, and dolphins.

Long before his work as an ocean conservationist, Carl Safina's childhood by the long island shore launched a life-long passion for animals. Since then, his collected work has sought to inspire respect and improved understanding for wildlife. In his wise and passionate new book, Safina delves deeply into the lives of animals, witnessing their profound capacity for perception, thought, and emotion. Weaving observation with new understanding of brain functioning, his narrative erases many previously held distinctions between humans and other animals. Who we are as individuals depends on who we are to others, and on who others are to us. Relationships define us. Certain non-humans, too, live lives focused around rich social relationships. If tragedy befalls key individuals, survivors confront lasting repercussions. Like us, these animals know who they are. In Beyond Words, readers travel from Kenya to visit the Sheldrake elephant orphanage, to Yellowstone National Park to observe free-living wolves sorting out the aftermath of their personal tragedy, to the whales of Haro Strait off of Vancouver. Safina delivers a graceful examination of how animals truly think and feel, which calls to question what really doesand shouldmake us human. Carl Safina is author of six books, including Song for the Blue Ocean, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Eye of the Albatross, Voyage of the Turtle, and The View From Lazy Point. Safina is founding president of Blue Ocean Institute at Stony Brook University, where he also co-chairs the University's Center for Communicating Science. His work has also been featured in The New York Times, and National Geographic and a new Foreword to Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us.

Available products
Book Published 2015-06-01 by Henry Holt

Comments

Captivating...A profound, scientifically based appeal for recognition of the kinship of all living things. Kirkus, starred review

This well-researched book is a fascinating and thought-provoking investigation of different ways of viewing non-human creatures and their inner lives.

Galaxia Gutenberg

Once in a long while, a book is published that felicitously combines lambent writing with dazzling facts, while also illuminating our knowledge of significant and engaging subjects. Beyond Words by Carl Safina, a scientist who has won a MacArthur Fellowship and a Lannan Literary Award, is one of these exemplary books. Susan Sheehan, The Washington Post

"You could call Safina a Thoreau for the twenty-first century."

Adelphi

offer pending

Dolbegae Publishers

In this mind-bending book, Safina takes the reader along with him on his adventures, enlightening and educating at each of his stops. Publishers Weekly

Brilliant... an unprecedented exploration of animals and...makes intimate these wild animals in vivid family portraits...each of Safina's beautifully limned animal portraits is the weight of human influence, and a challenge to exercise the power of empathy... [Safina] is a font of research, his wonder contagious. Elle

"A book of beautifully modulated patterns and gracefully stated imperatives Carl Safina's books evince two traits not commonly associated with science writing: exquisite language and freely expressed empathy for animals."

"Excellent storytelling. A superb work."

"Safina's book soars...What a pleasure it is to find such an enlightening, provocative companion for walking and talkingand reading. We can ask no more from those who warn about dark days ahead than that they also awaken us to the miracle of everyday life. Dominique Browning, The New York Times Book Review

Souvenir Press

"A call to arms in the cause of hope...Mr. Safina's writing moves easily from revelatory observation sparked by a flash of bird or splash of fish to passionate, lyrical philosophy."

Dr. Safina is a terrific writer, majestic and puckish in equal measure, with a contagious enthusiasm...Dr. Safina draws out haunting resonances between animal lives and our own... [Beyond Words] carries pleasing echoes of the poet Gary Snyder...Captivating. Gregory Cowles, The New York Times (Science)