What I Don't Know About Animals

“Will make any pet owner, zoogoer or meat-eater wonder whether we really know anything about . . .other species . . .[this] book raises all the right questions.” —Washington Post

What Jenny Diski know about animals? She wasn't really sure as she began to write this memoir. But of this she is certain: our relationships with, and attitudes toward, animals are really worth thinking about.

Diski sets out on her wide-ranging investigation by remembering the stuffed cuddly creatures from her childhood, the animal books she read, the cartoons she watched, the strays she found. She considers the animals who have lived and still live with her, animals she has encountered close up, and those she has feared. She examines human beings, too, and how they have looked at, studied, treated, and written about the non-human creatures of our shared planet. Ranging still further, Diski interviews scientists, discusses Derrida and his cat, and observes elephants in Kenya, always seeking the key to the complex relationship we in the modern West have with animals.

Subtle, intelligent, and always engaging, this book is a brilliant exploration of what it means to be human and what it means to be animal, and the uncertainty of what we can know about either.

“Diski writes with clarity and insight, weaving together an impressive range of philosophic, scientific and literary material.” —The Financial Times

“This book will really make you think about the complexity of issues regarding the use of animals.” —Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make us Human

“Terrific and thought-provoking.” —The Times

“[A] love story and homage to the integrity and the otherness of our fellow animals . . . tender [and] engaging.” —Frederic Tuten, Bomb Magazine