On Animals

I absolutely love animals, but for a variety of reasons, we have been pet-less for a number of years at this point. Books like this one are heartwarming and fill a bit of the emptiness. Each of the essays it contains are expertly crafted and as smooth as butter. Enjoy!

I didn't realize when I bought this book that all of the essays had been previously published sometime since 1995, often in The New Yorker. I thought it was going to be about Orlean's experience with animals; mostly, it isn't. Each chapter is a different essay about a different animal: Camels, Donkeys, Orcas, Rabbits etc. There does not seem to be any connection from one chapter to the other except that they are all about different animals. All are interesting, but not what I expected. She does finally get into that at the end, but even then some information is left out. For example, she says that her husband drove two cats to L.A., but even though we've been introduced to three cats, she never says which two. Then later she mentions him driving one dog, one puppy, and one cat to L.A., but, again, she doesn't mention the cat by name. Having said all that, I did enjoy the book, and I would have given it five stars if there had been more continuity in the final section.

In the words of author Susan Orlean, On Animals is about “the subject of animals — living with them, loving them, hoarding them, using them, and how our relationship to animals says something about who and what we are.” I like animals, but with a few exceptions (cats, for sure, and well-behaved dogs), I’m not a fan of them as pets. However, I am a huge fan of Susan Orlean, whatever her topic, and she is enamored of animals, both domesticated and wild, so I had no doubt I would be drawn to her book of essays. I was not disappointed. Among my favorites are “Show Dog,” about Biff the boxer, who is nothing like the stereotypical pampered prize winner depicted in most media; “Riding High,” about the centuries-long dependability of mules for agricultural and military transport; and “The Lion Whisperer,” about a man with an uncanny ability to co-exist peacefully with the king of (vicious) beasts. I also enjoyed learning about the place-loyalty of homing pigeons, animal actors’s rights, re-wilding captive whales, and matching teams of oxen. In short, all animals and their encounters with humans are fair game for this curious and entertaining author. The last set of essays are as much about Orlean the “farmer” as about the animals who live with her in rural upstate New York: fowl (chickens, turkeys, ducks, guinea fowl), cattle, cats, and a dog. Orlean’s relationships with her domestics is affectionate but respectful; she doesn’t baby or anthropomorphize them. She is particularly fond of her chickens. When she and her husband temporarily relocate to L.A., and she must leave the chickens behind, Orlean laments, “Our backyard in California is small. Moreover, there are zillions of coyotes and bobcats hanging out in the neighborhood, and they are not the scrawny East Coast models: like everyone in Los Angeles, the coyotes I’ve seen there look like they work out a lot with personal trainers.” Eventually forced to permanently move from NY to CA, a tearful Orlean observes, “I had reveled in the animals’ friendship and their strangeness; the way they are so obvious and still so mysterious.” We might apply the same paradox to people, if we attended to them with the same dedication Orlean devotes to her menagerie. As a fiction writer (see my Amazon author page https://www.amazon.com/author/asewovenwords), I can make that claim about the (un)knowability of the characters I create. I read On Animals soon after completing my novel Elephant Angel (out January 2028), during which I too collected interesting information about human-animal relationships. Orlean’s book was a fascinating complement to what I’d learned and spurs me to discover more about the animal kingdom as experienced by us and, as we can best infer, what they in turn make of us and themselves.

one of the best books i've ever read....i previously read orchid thief, made into great movie, and now am hooked on susan orlean! i'm on mission to read everything she has written. her not-sugary-sweet animal stories have inspired me to put pen to paper and share my own crazy adventures and misadventures in my own wild kingdom. and this christmas dI have gifted 4 of these books to friends

I’m not sure what I expected, but at the beginning, I struggled with connecting to Orlean’s stories…however, I continued to plod along and found myself looking up the people, places and animals she mentioned; becoming more and more invested in her animals as the book continued. Interesting stories, different than many written by animal lovers and encompassing animals not usually thought about as being sentimentally endearing; chickens, donkeys, oxen, turkeys, etc. I enjoyed it!

Susan Orlean is a very good writer but I was very disappointed with this book. I was looking forward to reading about various animals (the book got brilliant reviews), but there's just too much about Susan herself. I get the feeling, in fact, that she's more than a little self-centered--even when it comes to her interactions with the animals. Not the great book I was expecting.

This is a beautiful book, my third purchased, I gave two to animal-loving friends to read and keep—it is that good! But then I love all the books that this author writes. It is a unique way to learn more about many animals not found in traditional pet stores.

Susan Orleans is just a Very Good Writer: anything she writes will engage a curious reader. After thoroughly enjoying “the Library Book” (and learning loads), I ordered “the Orchid Thief” and ”On Animals” as my airplane books for a recent trip from Arizona stateside to Barcelona Spain. With chapters on chickens, homing pigeons, panda bears, and other critters, “On Animals” is mostly a compilation of shorter articles written mostly for the New Yorker magazine—-which made it easy enough to set aside for meals, a nap, or a film during a flight. The book was perfect and thoroughly enjoyable; in fact, I left it in Spain with my 13 year old grandson who is now enjoying it just as much as I did.

Book came on time and was what I expected.

This is a delightful, charming read by a very engaging author. Like her other books as The Library and Saturday Nights, she always has interesting observations and insights.