“One of the biggest challenges is the dearth of information about Topsy,” writes Mary Holmes and Patricia Denys in “Topsy’s Voice: The Quest of Kim Stallwood” published in Animal Culture, the… Read More

In an excellent essay in Zooicide: Seeing Cruelty, Demanding Abolition (AK Press; 2018), Stephen Eisenman describes zooicide as a history of cruelty to animals in zoos. “Animals were thus robbed of their souls and their social being;” he writes, “they symbolized nothing but their biological selves-their genus and species-and were exhibited as entertainments or trophies in zoos all over the world.”… Read More

It seems to me that there are two approaches to take when writing fiction in which nonhuman animals are the characters and the world imagined is theirs. First, to write about animals and their world in such a way that there is some familiarity or resemblance to ourselves and the world as experienced by ourselves. Examples in this category may include Black Beauty by Anna Sewell and Watership Down by Richard Adams. Second, to write fiction that imagines the world that’s inhabited by the animals who are the principal characters and describe them and their world through their own unique set of imaginations and experiences.… Read More

Would you say that you’re an ‘animal lover’? It isn’t difficult to find people who say that they are. Many of us have cats or dogs, or both – in the United Kingdom, for example, almost half of households have pets. Very often these animals are thought of as family members. And a lot of us enjoy watching television programmes, like David Attenborough’s, that bring the wonders of the natural world into our homes. Yet most of those who call themselves ‘animal lovers’ knowingly participate in animal cruelty – by eating meat, for example. Children easily appreciate the inconsistency here, but most adults still make excuses for their behaviour.… Read More

I first read Topsy by Michael Daly when it was published in 2013 but failed to write a review for reasons I now don’t recall. A second reading just completed gives me the opportunity to now do so. The reason for the rereading is because Topsy’s tragic life fascinates me.… Read More

Mark Hawthorne wrote Bleating Hearts because he wanted to ‘examine animal exploitation that does not get enough (or any) attention.’ (4) As you might expect, this is a book that is a catalog of our inhumanity to animals. It’s not an easy read but each chapter concludes with a ‘What You Can Do’ section. … Read More