Who would have thought a discussion about the intelligence (or lack thereof) of humans and animals could be so fascinating and fun? Such is the case in If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity (7 hours), thanks to the conversational prowess and keen (I’ll go ahead and say it) intellect of behavioral scientist Justin Gregg.
Gregg excels as both author and narrator, laying out arguments for and against humankind’s intellectual advancements in concise, accessible language. With witty commentary and humorous anecdotes, he draws comparisons to our counterparts in the animal kingdom, who appear to be doing just fine without technology, political discourse or overriding ambitions for power, wealth or popularity.
Each of the seven chapters starts with a thought-provoking passage from German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, whose criticisms of the human condition laid the groundwork for modern thinkers. In whimsical fashion, Gregg breaks down Nietzsche’s arguments into easily digestible chunks of information. All in all, it’s a joy for listeners.
Behavioral scientist Justin Gregg excels as both author and narrator, laying out arguments for and against humankind’s intellectual advancements in concise, accessible language.
Adam Rutherford (A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, Humanimal) earned his undergraduate degree and Ph.D. from University College London, including several years studying in the university’s Galton Laboratory. This straightforward sentence hides a deep irony. As readers of his book How to Argue With a Racist know, Rutherford is passionately anti-eugenics—while Francis Galton, for whom the Galton Laboratory is named, was the 19th-century scientist who coined the term eugenics and pioneered its ideology.
Divided into two distinct parts, Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics first outlines the history of eugenics, then lays out the scientific, ethical and moral arguments against it. The history is messy indeed. Galton and his contemporaries were brilliant scientists, statisticians and polymaths—but also white supremacists with repugnant ideas. First hailed as a way to promote positive attributes in humanity, eugenics quickly devolved into a racist movement that used mass sterilization and even murder to remove people with “undesirable” traits such as alcoholism, Down syndrome and schizophrenia from the human gene pool. Eugenics laws in the United States inspired Nazi euthanasia laws, and the Nazi classification of races owes a lot to the American model. Most ironically, the pseudoscience of eugenics gave birth to the actual science of genetics.
Rutherford believes this history is not over. He fears the politicians, scientists and entrepreneurs who use eugenic ideas for their own advancement or profit, and this fear gives the second half of the book its power. Rutherford has faith in science. It is genetics, he argues, that provides the best proof that eugenics has never and will never work. Our genome is too complex and intertwined for scientists to cleanly pluck negative traits from or insert positive traits into our biological makeup.
Eugenics is not science, Rutherford explains, but the corruption of science for the purpose of controlling people who are weak, vulnerable and poor. And it is this very corruption, as Control clearly demonstrates, that makes eugenics’ followers unworthy to determine who is and isn’t worthy of life.
Adam Rutherford builds on his previous works in Control, a powerful book that outlines the history of eugenics and offers impassioned arguments against it.
Astrophysicist Moiya McTier gives a stellar performance of her book The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy (6.5 hours), a thoroughly entertaining and mind-expanding exploration of our galaxy as told in the first-person voice of the Milky Way itself. McTier’s unique portrayal is refreshing, engaging and funny as she imbues the galaxy with a sassy, grandiose tone—rightly so, given its galactic grandness.
McTier’s love affair with the universe began when she was a child, and this early appreciation of celestial aesthetics developed into a lifelong devotion to the logical data-driven science of astronomy. McTier’s down-to-earth style makes this science approachable, giving listeners the opportunity to experience a cognitive shift—to form their own romance with the galaxy.
The Milky Way is an out-of-this-world listening experience for anyone who has ever looked up at the sky with wonder.
In 2010, oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies provided a stunning history of cancer and medical scientists’ ongoing research into ways to overcome it. In 2016, he delivered a similarly breathtaking treatment of genetic biology in The Gene. Now, in The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, Mukherjee tells the compelling story of cell biology and the ways that cellular engineering can help us rethink what it means to be human.
Drawing on case studies, interviews, visits with patients, scientific papers and historical archives, Mukherjee tries to understand life in terms of its smallest unit: the cell. As he puts it, he’s listening to a cell’s “music” when he observes its anatomy and the way it interacts with surrounding cells. For example, the genes, proteins and pathways used by healthy cells are “appropriated” or “commandeered” by cancer cells. “Cancer, in short, is cell biology visualized in a pathological mirror,” Mukherjee writes.
Such knowledge allows medical researchers and doctors to imagine how cellular therapy could modify a patient’s cellular structure to treat their disease or medical disorder. In one case, a girl named Emily Whitehead, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, received CAR T-cell therapy: Her own T-cells were extracted, modified to target her disease and infused back into her body. Although there was an initial setback because of an infection, the cellular therapy succeeded. Mukherjee includes other stories like Whitehead’s, as well as those of heroes such as Rudolf Virchow, who discovered that “it isn’t sufficient to locate a disease in an organ; it’s necessary to understand which cells of the organ are responsible”; John Snow, the founder of germ theory; and Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who discovered insulin.
According to Mukherjee, the cell sings of a new human who is “rebuilt anew with modified cells [and] who looks and feels (mostly) like you and me.” Using cellular engineering, he writes, “we’ve altered these humans to alleviate suffering, using a science that had to be handcrafted and carved with unfathomable labor and love, and technologies so ingenious that they stretch credulity: such as fusing a cancer cell with an immune cell to produce an immortal cell to cure cancer.” Captivating and provocative, The Song of the Cell encourages us to rethink historical approaches to medical science and imagine how cellular biology can reshape medicine and public health.
This captivating, provocative book from Pulitzer Prize winner Siddhartha Mukherjee encourages us to imagine how cellular engineering can reshape medicine.
Listening to music is a uniquely personal experience. It can evoke strong feelings and memories. It can unite us or be a source of debate. In This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You, Susan Rogers (cognitive neuroscientist and Berklee College of Music professor) and Ogi Ogas (mathematical neuroscientist and co-author of Journey of the Mind) explain why we connect with certain aspects of a record. As a producer for artists as distinct as Prince and Barenaked Ladies, Rogers calls on decades of expertise regarding the musical preferences of herself and others. This real-world experience is intertwined with both authors’ scientific explanations of how the mind processes music. It’s like two books in one: stories of some of our most beloved musicians, singers and songwriters, coupled with insights about how and why our brains decipher musical notes, melodies and lyrics in particular ways.
Rogers refers time and again to an activity called a “record pull,” a music-sharing experience where friends discover things about one another by listening to their favorite records together. “Good record pulls feature as much storytelling as music,” she writes. Each chapter features a record pull suggestion to help us understand how we connect with music. It’s a fun, informative exercise that will undoubtedly open many readers’ minds and increase their musical knowledge.
In a tone that is both logical and approachable, the two authors explain that because each brain is wired to experience rewards from different facets of music, “it is misguided to suggest that anyone’s taste in music is superior to anyone else’s.” After reading This Is What It Sounds Like, lovers of all music genres will never listen to their favorite records the same way again.
This Is What It Sounds Like is like two books in one: stories of some of our most beloved musicians coupled with insights about how our brains decipher music.
New York Times bestselling author Alexandra Horowitz (Our Dogs, Ourselves) has done it again. She’s created a heartwarming and personal story about dogs that seamlessly incorporates captivating science about our beloved canine companions. In The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves, Horowitz, a specialist in canine cognition and head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard University, follows the first year of a puppy’s life—her own family’s new puppy, as it happens.
In part one, Horowitz describes the birth and early development of their puppy, Quiddity (Quid). Many owners never experience the early weeks—or even years, with many rescues—of their dogs’ lives, and this section makes fascinating reading as Horowitz meets not just her puppy but the puppy’s mom: Maize, a young dog surrendered to a shelter in Georgia when her owners realized she was pregnant. Maize was transported to New York, where she was fostered by an experienced woman named Amy who took on responsibility for the new mom and her pups—11 in all, it turns out.
In part two, Horowitz and her family choose Quid as their own, and she traces the puppy’s weekly development and integration into their family, where every experience is new: new people, new big dogs, new cat, new house. Training at the outset consists of taking Quid out to pee every two hours and rewarding her for positive behaviors—though the puppy often moves through 12 behaviors in 10 seconds. Fortunately, there are also naps.
Horowitz writes with a gentle humor that any pet owner will appreciate. “After bringing a puppy home, that potential dog vanishes and is replaced by an actual biting, running, peeing, whining dog in our home every hour of every day,” she writes. “She bites the cat in the face and bothers the dogs, who have taken, rightfully, to just turning away in disdain.”
The book is more than an entertaining personal narrative, however. Along the way, Horowitz draws on her extensive knowledge to offer insights into canine behavior. She goes beyond training-focused instructional manuals to show that often what humans label as “misbehavior” is actually normal puppy behavior. We expect dogs to live in our world. But, as Horowitz chronicles one year in Quid’s life, she gently urges us to become more aware of the incredibly rich and complex world dogs inhabit. The better we understand our pooches, the more likely we are to succeed at providing a wonderful home for everyone.
It’s a given that for dog lovers, The Year of the Puppy is a must-read. But even cat lovers will find much to enjoy in this endearing scientific memoir.
Alexandra Horowitz has created another heartwarming and personal story that seamlessly incorporates captivating science about our canine companions.
By and large, our enterprising American ancestors hated swamps, which they saw as obstacles to travel and agriculture. In the timeless war between swamp folk and swamp drainers, most were firmly in the latter camp—supported with vigor by the government.
Count Annie Proulx as one of the swamp folk at heart. The acclaimed author of The Shipping News, Barkskins and “Brokeback Mountain” turns her perceptive eye to the calamitous destruction of the world’s peatlands in Fen, Bog & Swamp, an information-packed short history that argues for their preservation and restoration.
As a nonscientist, Proulx explains in accessible language how fens, bogs and swamps differ by water level and vegetation, and how crucial each of these ecosystems is to a balanced environment. The very short version is that they store carbon dioxide and methane, so when peatlands are disrupted, those gases are released and contribute to the climate change crisis, which is itself one of the things causing those disruptions. Peatlands are also home to a staggering number of plant and animal species integral to a healthy ecological community.
One of Proulx’s chapters is called “Discursive Thoughts on Wetlands,” which sums up her approach. She ranges widely, both thematically and geographically, from the small Limberlost Swamp in Indiana to the huge Vasyugan Swamp in Siberia. She considers plenty of archaeology (the Shigir Idol), history (the Battle of Teutoburg Forest) and literature (A Girl of the Limberlost) along the way, sprinkling in reminiscences of her own wetland encounters as well. Among the most interesting discussions are her explorations of the interactions between human and peatland, as in the ritual sacrifices later turned up as “bog bodies” by terrified peat cutters.
In truth, Proulx argues, humans are able to coexist very well with peatlands if they harvest their bounty with respect. When the drainers win, they’re usually sorry in the long run. She notes that luckily, there are a number of promising restoration projects around the world, but they’re small. It turns out it’s a lot harder to re-create a swamp than to preserve one.
Acclaimed author Annie Proulx is one of the swamp folk at heart, and in Fen, Bog & Swamp, she argues for the preservation and restoration of peatlands the world over.
Mary Roach investigates the uneasy relationship that exists between humans and wildlife in Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. Traveling to India, Vatican City and other locales, she meets with a wide cast of characters that includes predator attack investigators, a bear manager and a human-elephant conflict specialist, all in an effort to understand how humankind is striving to coexist with the animal kingdom. Roach mixes expert reporting with moving insights into the natural world while unearthing pertinent questions about wildlife and habitat preservation.
In Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives, Mark Miodownik examines the prominence of liquids (drinking water, bottled soap, the list goes on) and the critical roles they play in the modern world. The narrative is framed by a transatlantic flight during which Miodownik notes the ubiquity of liquid matter, from the fuel that powers the plane to the offerings on the airline’s refreshment cart. Illustrations and photos add an appealing visual dimension to the book, and topics like climate change and conservation will inspire lively dialogue among readers.
Bill Bryson’s The Body: A Guide for Occupants is an engaging survey of the human physique. Bryson delves into the history of anatomy, examines the nature of disease and pain, and generally explores the ways in which our bodies function. He blends scientific fact and input from experts with humanizing anecdotes, and his trademark wit is on display throughout the proceedings. An illuminating look at the systems, organs and processes that define the human organism, The Body is filled with fascinating facts. From start to finish, it’s vintage Bryson.
Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski is a reader-friendly overview of the ways in which physics shapes our lives. Making connections between commonplace activities (popping popcorn, for instance) and larger phenomena, from weather patterns to medical technology, Czerski demonstrates that scientific processes large and small take place all around us. Over the course of nine chapters, she covers a range of fundamental physics concepts, writing in an accessible, offbeat style. With a gift for intriguing anecdotes, Czerski makes physics fun.
You don't need scientific training to enjoy these entertaining, offbeat books.
Yes, you read the title correctly. This is indeed an autobiography of our galaxy, and yes, it is nonfiction. The Milky Way’s debut book—a creative, humorous and enormously entertaining one at that—comes to us earthlings via Dr. Moiya McTier, who studied both mythology and astronomy at Harvard before earning her Ph.D. in astrophysics at Columbia University.
The galaxy begins its life story this way: “Take a look around you, human. What do you see? Actually, don’t answer that. Why would I bother listening to you when I know you’ll get it wrong?” The Milky Way, it seems, is rather a stuck-up know-it-all. (Superior, omniscient, haughty—perhaps a bit like your cat. As Dr. McTier explains in the acknowledgements, whenever she needed to get into the Milky Way’s voice, she would look at her cat, Kosmo.) Although, once you stop to think about things from our galaxy’s perspective, it’s easy to see why. After all, the Milky Way is more than 13 billion Earth years old and home to more than 100 billion stars. Impressive, to say the least.
And that’s just the beginning. In chapters covering its early years, growing pains, constellations and modern myths, the Milky Way details a page-turning life story, full of drama (massive black holes!), major changes (the death of stars!) and tumultuous relationships with neighboring galaxies, such as Andromeda. It is quite adept at explaining complex scientific concepts to us (vastly more ignorant) humans, but the most surprising aspect of this book is that the Milky Way has a buoyant sense of humor, as well as a passion for “inspiring others.”
As with any translation from another tongue, readers may marvel at the role of the translator in creating a book that is both informative and truly inspirational. Here, it’s clear Dr. McTier has harnessed the sense of marvel she felt as a child, when she imagined the sun and moon as celestial parents who watched over her and talked to her on a regular basis. That childlike wonder, combined with her expertise in mythology and astronomy, makes her the perfect human to assist in telling this story.
At any rate, since the Milky Way took the time to help us all understand more about our universe, it would be only polite to put this highly recommended title at the top of your reading list.
As told to Dr. Moiya McTier, the Milky Way details its page-turning life story, full of drama and humor.
Documentary filmmaker Tom Mustill has seen all manner of wondrous things. But those awe-inspiring experiences, including collaborations with David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg, still could not prepare him for the astounding close encounter that fundamentally changed his life.
As the British debut author details in How to Speak Whale: A Voyage Into the Future of Animal Communication, the year was 2015; the location, the waters off Monterey Bay, California; and the context, a kayak tour with his friend and co-paddler, Charlotte, wherein they witnessed 120 humpback whales, each “the size of an airport shuttle bus,” enjoying a massive group buffet. Suddenly, one of the whales breached and landed atop the duo with “a release of energy equivalent to about forty hand grenades.”
A YouTube video of the event went viral, and Mustill found himself the subject of news reports and memes, as well as “a lightning conductor for whale fanatics.” He became a bit of a fanatic, too, when his whale specialist friend Dr. Joy Reidenberg said it seemed as if he and Charlotte had survived because the whale decided to veer to one side in midair. Of course, Mustill mused, there was no way to really know if the whale attempted to spare them. It’s not like he could ask—or could he?
In How to Speak Whale, a mix of thoughtfully explained hard science and colorfully described hands-on adventures (a beachside whale dissection is particularly memorable), Mustill chronicles his incredible journey into the fascinating and profound world of animal communication. He interviews and observes people who are specialists in everything from whale song to bat chirps to interspecies sign language, as well as psychologists, computer scientists, historians, cryptographers, artificial intelligence experts and more.
Thanks to Mustill’s gift for storytelling, it’s as interesting to learn about these experts as the creatures they study. Reidenberg is a particular delight, as is Dr. Roger Payne, whose album of whale song recordings went multiplatinum in 1970. Through it all, there runs an undercurrent of appreciation and wonderment as Mustill gulps down knowledge and determinedly questions whether “decoding animal communications [is] no longer a fantasy but a technical problem.”
Wild (and thrilling!) as that may seem, Mustill’s findings offer hope that someday a book called How to Speak Whale might be more dictionary than discussion, more conversation than exploration.
In How to Speak Whale, Tom Mustill chronicles his incredible journey into the fascinating and profound world of animal communication.
I knew you’d want more of me after you heard my story! How could you not once you learned that you live in a galaxy as utterly charming as myself? But I’ll admit that I didn’t expect you to crave more of my wit so soon. I am still getting used to human time scales, operating in months and years instead of millennia. Moiya, on the other hand, has been chomping at the bit to share my book, The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy, with the world. Her mortality makes her impatient, her youth even more so.
Anyway, I have been asked to give you a peek into my process for creating my autobiography. Apparently you still have questions about how a galaxy could “land a book deal,” as you say.
The truth is that navigating your human publishing system is nowhere near as difficult as some of your writers make it seem—at least, not if you’re a celebrity. And if you’ve read the book, you know that, historically speaking, I’m humanity’s biggest superstar. For a VIG (very important galaxy) like me, publishing a book was just a matter of finding the right human to do all the stuff I didn’t want to do. You know, all the tedious typing and fact-checking, the fretting over money and legal deals across your ephemeral borders . . . the disgusting human busywork. That’s where Moiya came in. I was much more excited to solve the puzzle of how to sculpt my story into a shape that your fleshy brains could comprehend.
Talking about myself was the easy part. I’ve been regaling my peers with tales of my fabulous achievements and galactarian good deeds for longer than your puny planet has existed. (How do you think Draco, the Leos and all my other dwarf galaxy neighbors learned to make stars? They don’t have the gas to spare on trial and error, so I taught them what I knew.) But I didn’t expect it to be so difficult to limit myself to your human level of knowledge and understanding of the universe. Every time I got into the groove of telling my story, I ran bulge-first into a dead end of human ignorance. I promised myself I wouldn’t tell you anything your scientists didn’t already know, but that rules out all of the most exciting stuff! Instead, I was confined to the simplest concepts, like one of your preschool teachers trying to explain the color purple to a creature who only knows about red and blue. I had to use small words and speak slowly.
It was especially onerous to hold back on the parts about dark matter and particle physics, but in the end, I kept my promise. And I still managed to deliver a work that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. Larry never should have doubted me, but that just means I’ll get to brag more when the time comes.
Speaking of Larry, whom you might know by its formal galaxy name, Large Magellanic Cloud—one tough decision I faced while penning my autobiography was how much to tell you about galactic society. I wanted to tell you enough that you’d understand my place in the large-scale structure, but I didn’t want to betray my fellow galaxies’ trust by giving away too much of our business—especially Andromeda, who is too proud to forgive such revealing offenses. And so you are left with scrappy tidbits about galactic gossipmongering, eons-old grievances and vague social norms. The book contains next to none of our language! Not that I’d possibly be able to convey it in a writing system you’d recognize. Oh well, the story was supposed to be about me anyway, and I gave you plenty of that.
Astrophotography of the Milky Way galaxy. Silhouette of mountains. Stars, nebula and stardust at night.
I also gave you plenty of you in the book, via anecdotes plucked from your short human history. It was Moiya’s idea to let you be a part of the story. She said you had earned it with your scientific victories, but I think it’s also because your fleeting human attention spans perk up whenever you hear about yourself. Vanity has always been something we have in common, your kind and I.
Moiya was more helpful in this whole process than I expected of a human. She added a valuable . . . empathetic perspective, let’s say, and softened some of the sharper edges of my judgment of humanity by explaining your more frustrating quirks. (What do you mean you have to shut your body down for a third of each day?) So I was lucky to find a human like Moiya who met all of my transcriber criteria.
Whoever channeled my story had to be one of those precious few astronomers who had dedicated their lives to studying me, someone who already knew the basics so I could skip to the good parts. But they also had to be open to the possibility of accepting my narrative without making too many changes. And then I found her! Your Dr. Moiya McTier, who knew me by way of both math and myth, is an insatiably curious scientist who had been waiting most of her life for the sky to talk back. And she just happened to be well positioned—honing her communication skills in that Big Sleepless Apple of yours—to break into the publishing industry.
“Vanity has always been something we have in common, your kind and I.”
A literary agent found her after one of her public talks. He seemed to both of us like a nice and smart enough fellow, and together they crafted a proposal to write the Milky Way’s autobiography. Editors, of course, couldn’t resist such a juicy project, and we had our choice of publishing companies. I told Moiya to pick her favorite since she would be the one dealing with them. And the rest, as you humans say, is history.
The book is static like history can be, too. The stories we galaxies share across the cosmic web are remolded whenever there’s something to change or add. Your human books are crude physical objects, stuck in the time that they were written. That’s normally fine, but your science progresses so quickly that there have already been breakthroughs announced since Moiya turned in the final draft of the book.
For example, you finally snapped a picture with your Earth-size telescope of the event horizon of Sarge, my supermassive black hole, a full five years after the data were collected. Typical stubborn Sarge. Besides that, your astronomers recently discovered their 5,000th exoplanet, saw the first eye-opening images from the James Webb Space Telescope, found a new type of star with odd pulsing patterns and learned a whole lot about the planets in your stellar backyard. Keep up the pace, humans. I don’t want to get bored again.
You know, the Fornax galaxy thought humans were too simple to relate to my story. It thought you would shun what I said because you couldn’t understand it. That’s an insult to you and to my storytelling abilities! Thank you, dear readers, for the (small) part you played in helping me prove it wrong.
Author photo of Moiya McTier by Mindy Tucker
How did an ancient galaxy pen its own autobiography? The Milky Way explains in this Behind the Book essay, as dictated to Dr. McTier.
I get excited by stupid animals. That is to say, animals that most people consider “stupid,” such as insects or chickens. Once, during a safari trip in South Africa, I shouted for the driver to stop the vehicle so I could get out to chase after a dung beetle. While the other tourists looked on with pity and confusion, I snapped a million pictures of the beetle with tears of joy in my eyes.
I’m simply fascinated by the lives of dung beetles. Or hermit crabs. Or chickens. I am fascinated with how they behave and what this means about the way they think. I am a cognitive scientist by trade, and my main study animal is the dolphin, perhaps one of the most intelligent nonhuman animals on the planet. And yet it’s the unintelligent ones that have truly captured my heart.
Usually when a scientist studying animals writes a book meant to get the public excited about animal cognition, they focus on all the ways in which animals think and act like humans. I could have written about, for example, how New Caledonian crows are able to create complex tools out of twigs to help them fish insects out of a log. Then I could have framed this fact as “crows are able to make tools just like humans.” This idea of an animal doing something humanlike is inherently appealing. So the obvious approach would have been for me to write a book regaling readers with examples of complex humanlike (or crowlike) behavior in simple animals—such as how dung beetles use the Milky Way to navigate the African plains.
But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted people to get excited about dung beetles for their unintelligence, not their intelligence.
It wasn’t until I had a conversation with my editor, Pronoy Sarkar, that I finally figured out how to do this, and the idea for If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal took shape. It isn’t a book about animal intelligence, per se—or even about animal unintelligence. It’s really more about human stupidity. In it, I call into question the base assumption that human intelligence—our capacity for science and engineering that stems from cognition that is particularly sophisticated and unique to our species—is a good thing. Instead of trying to elevate “stupid” animals by showing how they can think intelligently, I show that thinking intelligently in a humanlike way might actually be a crappy biological solution. Evolutionarily speaking, human intelligence might actually be stupid.
“Evolutionarily speaking, human intelligence might actually be stupid.”
Looking at everything happening in the world today—the conflict in Ukraine and the threat of nuclear war, or the climate emergency, or the deepening political division in many Western democracies—I am honestly concerned about the future of our species. Plenty of pundits are predicting with alarming certainty that the human species is teetering on the brink of extinction—not because of any external forces, such as comets or plagues, but because we are extincting ourselves through carbon emissions and advanced forms of holocaust-inducing warfare. Through things that are, in other words, products of our complex, intelligent way of thinking.
This is precisely why I am asking people to reevaluate the goodness of human intelligence and consider that dung beetles and chickens might in fact be better designed for life on this planet than we are.
I didn’t write this book because I think humans are idiots. We are not. We are exceptional in many beautiful ways and a wonder of evolution when viewed from some angles. But from other angles, the human mind is dangerous—capable of both worrying about and bringing about its own extinction. I wrote If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal not to bash humans but to inspire people to widen their love of the animal kingdom. I want people to walk into their garden and marvel at the creatures in it precisely because they aren’t as smart as us.
“Dung beetles and chickens might in fact be better designed for life on this planet than we are.”
And yes, I also want people to understand that even the traditionally “stupid” animals aren’t actually stupid. Bees and wasps, for example, are far more cognitively complex than most people realize. They have consciousness, emotions and basic math skills. They can problem solve and use tools. They have individual personalities and can recognize faces. They have a lot of the cognitive skills that we used to believe belonged solely to Homo sapiens. But so what? It’s not necessarily a good thing to think like a human. In fact, the simplicity of how insects think makes them far more wondrous.
I really hope people take that lesson to heart and are kinder to the creatures around them. All creatures just want to live a pleasure-filled life for the brief moments that we exist on this planet. Fortunately, you don’t need intelligence to experience joy. And if there’s anything we need more of on this planet right now, it’s joy.
Cognitive scientist Justin Gregg extols the virtues of not-so-bright animals.
Winner of the 2021 National Book Award for fiction, Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book is a searing portrayal of the Black authorial experience. At the center of the novel is an unnamed Black author on his first book tour struggling to navigate the publishing industry and make sense of the modern world. His narrative is offset by chapters recounting the story of Soot, a young Black boy in the South. Poignant and often funny, Mott’s novel draws readers in as it scrutinizes race in American society and the power of storytelling.
Marlon James’ epic fantasy Black Leopard, Red Wolf is narrated by Tracker, a hunter with an acute sense of smell. Accompanied by a shape-shifter named Leopard and a band of misfit mercenaries, Tracker travels through a landscape inspired by African mythology and ancient history on a dangerous quest to find a lost boy. Hallucinatory and violent yet marvelously poetic, this first entry in James’ Dark Star trilogy won the 2019 L.A. Times Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction. There are an abundance of potential topics for discussion, such as James’ folkloric inspirations and Tracker’s unreliable narration.
Following the death of her aunt from an uncommon ailment called Chagas, or the kissing bug disease, Daisy Hernández decided to research the illness. She shares her findings in The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease. Hernández talked to physicians and disease experts throughout the United States, and her interviews with patients reveal the human cost of the American healthcare system’s inadequacies. Hernández displays impressive storytelling skills in this masterfully researched volume, which won the 2022 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.
In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado’s powerful chronicle of a toxic love affair, won the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ nonfiction. In the book, Machado reveals that she fell hard for a magnetic, emotionally unpredictable woman who became abusive. In structuring her memoir, she draws upon various narrative devices and traditions (coming-of-age, choose your own adventure and more), and the result is a multifaceted, daring and creative portrayal of a deeply dysfunctional relationship.
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Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
Sean Adams has dialed down the dystopian quotient from his first satirical novel, The Heap, but that element is still very much present in The Thing in the Snow.
