Crossings
“To us, roads signify connection and escape; to other life-forms, they spell death and division.” Ben Goldfarb’s Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet is an engaging study of “road ecology,”...
Please see the below book and film reviews from past editions of the AWI Quarterly.
Beastly
Keggie Carew’s background is not in science (her career started in contemporary art), and it shows. Her book, Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us, is not the first book to consider the combined...
Around the Ocean in 80 Fish & Other Sea Life
Around the Ocean in 80 Fish & Other Sea Life is a beautifully illustrated journey that introduces readers to various inhabitants of the five oceans. Each turn of the page reveals a new animal—with short...
Many Things Under a Rock
“Devilfish,” “old skin covering,” “many things under a rock”—octopus names are as varied and creative as the creatures themselves. As Many Things Under a Rock: The Mysteries of Octopuses reveals, these inquisitive, intelligent animals are...
Flight Paths
When Rebecca Heisman worked for the American Ornithological Society, her job involved reading “cutting-edge migration research” and publicizing it in a digestible way for the public. She sought to provide readers with the answer to...
Treated Like Animals
Alick Simmons, former deputy chief veterinary officer for the United Kingdom, acknowledges that he has “actively facilitated exploitative interactions with animals.” But so have the rest of us, he writes in his intriguing book, Treated...
Animal Liberation Now
Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed is the latest update to Peter Singer’s seminal 1975 book, Animal Liberation. While the facts and figures have been updated, the ultimate message has not changed significantly. Now...
Secrets of the Elephants
National Geographic’s newly released four-part docuseries, Secrets of the Elephants, streaming on Disney+, takes an in-depth look at the complex behaviors of elephants living in southern Asia and in savannas, rainforests, and the Namib Desert...
Beaverland
Part narrative, part reference source, Leila Philip’s Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America provides incredible information about beavers—from their physiology and behaviors to their entwined history with humankind in the United States and the...
Wild New World
Dan Flores’ Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America presents the story of extirpation in the United States—or more precisely, of humanity’s insatiable thirst for animals (and animal habitat).