Kevira has picked 'When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals' by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson as our first book of 2024.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This
national bestseller exploring the complex emotional lives of animals
was hailed as "a masterpiece" by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and as
"marvelous" by Jane Goodall.
The popularity of When Elephants Weep has swept the nation, as author Jeffrey Masson appeared on Dateline NBC, Good Morning America, and was profiled in People for his ground-breaking and fascinating study. Not since Darwin's The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals has a book so thoroughly and effectively explored the full range of emotions that exist throughout the animal kingdom.
From
dancing squirrels to bashful gorillas to spiteful killer whales, Masson
and coauthor Susan McCarthy bring forth fascinating anecdotes and
illuminating insights that offer powerful proof of the existence of
animal emotion. Chapters on love, joy, anger, fear, shame, compassion,
and loneliness are framed by a provocative re-evaluation of how we treat
animals, from hunting and eating them to scientific experimentation.
Forming a complete and compelling picture of the inner lives of animals,
When Elephants Weep assures that we will never look at animals in the same way again. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Masson has had at least four lives: first as a boy raised to become a
"spiritual leader" (see his denunciation of such a life in My Father's
Guru). While in the middle of his disillusion, he became a professor of
Sanskrit at the University of Toronto. At the same time he trained to
become a Freudian analyst. Upon graduation he became Projects Director
of the Freud Archives, and was scheduled to move into Freud's house in
London when fate intervened: Masson found documents which seemed to show
that Freud was right in believing that many women had been sexually
abused as children, and that he was wrong to give up this belief,
perhaps impelled by societal displeasure at his discoveries. Saying this
publicly turned Masson into a psychoanalytic pariah, and he gave up
both his professorship and his analytic career to delve into the far
more fascinating world of animal emotions. Two of his books, WHEN
ELEPHANTS WEEP and DOGS NEVER LIE ABOUT LOVE, were New York Times
best-sellers. He became vegetarian as a result of his research, and
later, when he looked into the feelings of farm animals, he became even
stricter, and no longer eats or uses any animal product (vegan).
Harpercollins published his book: THE DOG WHO COULDN'T STOP LOVING: HOW
DOGS HAVE CAPTURED OUR HEARTS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. He subsequently
published a book about becoming vegan: THE FACE ON YOUR PLATE: THE TRUTH
ABOUT FOOD. His book BEASTS: WHAT ANIMALS CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE
ORIGINS OF GOOD AND EVIL is about the us/them divide. He lived on a
beach in New Zealand with his two sons, Ilan and Manu, and his German
wife, Leila, a pediatrician who works with children on the autistic
spectrum (using the bio-medical approach), Benjy, a golden lab, and
three cats for 14 years. They moved to Europe (Malaga and Berlin) and
are now living in Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. They often travel to
the States to see their grandchild, and Europe to see Leila's family.
Jeff has just signed a contract with St. Martin's to write about the
death of dogs (and other animals we consider family).
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