Great Books About Animals
Discover the best books about animals in this curated reading list, from Richard Adams' timeless classics like Watership Down and The Plague Dogs to the heartwarming nature of Born Free. Explore top animal fiction and nature writing.
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Born Free
by Joy Adamson
There have been many accounts of the return to the wild of tame animals, but since its original publication in 1960, when The New York Times hailed it as a “fascinating and remarkable book,” Born Free has stood alone in its power to move us. Joy Adamson's story of a lion cub in transition between the captivity in which she is raised and the fearsome wild to which she is returned captures the abilities of both humans and animals to cross the seemingly unbridgeable gap between their radically different worlds. Especially now, at a time when the sanctity of the wild and its inhabitants is increasingly threatened by human development and natural disaster, Adamson's remarkable tale is an idyll, and a model, to return to again and again. Illustrated with the same beautiful, evocative photographs that first enchanted the world forty years ago and updated with a new introduction by George Page, former host and executive editor of the PBS series Nature and author of Inside the Animal Mind, this anniversary edition introduces to a new generation one of the most heartwarming associations between man and animal.
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Watership Down
by Richard Adams
WINNER of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program Now a Netflix animated miniseries starring James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, and Oscar and Grammy award-winner Sir Ben Kingsley. A worldwide bestseller for more than forty years, Watership Down is the compelling tale of a band of wild rabbits struggling to hold onto their place in the world—“a classic yarn of discovery and struggle” (The New York Times). Richard Adams’s Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in the Hampshire Downs in Southern England, an idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of “suspense, hot pursuit, and derring-do” (Chicago Tribune) follows a band of rabbits in flight from the incursion of man and the destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they travel forth from their native Sandleford warren through harrowing trials to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society. “A marvelous story of rebellion, exile, and survival” (Sunday Telegraph) this is an unforgettable literary classic for all ages.
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Shardik
by Richard Adams
Richard Adams's Watership Down was a number one bestseller, a stunning work of the imagination, and an acknowledged modern classic. In Shardik Adams sets a different yet equally compelling tale in a far-off fantasy world. Shardik is a fantasy of tragic character, centered on the long-awaited reincarnation of the gigantic bear Shardik and his appearance among the half-barbaric Ortelgan people. Mighty, ferocious, and unpredictable, Shardik changes the life of every person in the story. His advent commences a momentous chain of events. Kelderek the hunter, who loves and trusts the great bear, is swept up by destiny to become first devotee and then prophet, then victorious soldier, then ruler of an empire and priest-king of Lord Shardik--Messenger of God--only to discover ever-deeper layers of meaning implicit in his passionate belief in the bear's divinity.
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The Plague Dogs
by Richard Adams
A journey into the hearts and minds of two canine heroes, Snitter and Rowf, fugitives from the horrors of an animal research center who escape into the isolation--and terror--of the wilderness.
