Animal Intelligence

Someone at AskMetafilter wonders:

I’m looking for books about how people relate to animals, about people trying to make friends with animals or cross over into the world of some other species. Or for books that try to give you a view into the particular world of some other animal. The better the writing, the better. The less cheesy the better. Nonfiction and fiction are okay. Any recommendations?

The question produced a list of great books, including:

• Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat — “Never Cry Wolf is one of the brilliant narratives on the myth and magical world of wild wolves and man’s true place among the creatures of nature.”
• Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs by Caroline Knapp
• The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs by Patricia McConnell
• Watership Down by Richard Adams — one of my favorite books
• In the Shadow of Man and My Life with the Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall
• Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey
• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
• The Beast God Forgot to Invent by Jim Harrison
• Koko’s Kitten by Dr. Francine Patterson — this epitome of interspecies communication makes me misty just thinking about it
• The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
• My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
• Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior by Temple Grandin — one of the inspirations for this site
• Clan Apis by Jay Hosler — a graphic novel about bees (for kids, I think)
• The works of Jack London
• All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
• Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson Seton — link is to free e-text at Project Gutenberg
• Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
• Man Meets Dog by Konrad Lorenz
• The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor
• Dog’s Best Friend: Annals of Dog-Human Relationshipby Mark Derr
• My Family and Other Animals and A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell
• Animals and Men: Their Relationship as Reflected in Western Art from Prehistory to the Present Day by Kenneth Clark
• Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg
• Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
• Cry of the Kalahari by Mark and Delia Owens
• Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs by Suzanne Clothier
• The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson
• The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson — this is on my must-read list now
• Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf Birds and Ravens in Winter by Bernd Henrich

That is quite a library. Some of these recommendations are of more interest to me than others. I’m fascinated by books that explore the intelligence and the emotional state of animals, but less so by novels about life with animals.