100 books like Éléphasme, Rhinolophon, Caméluche et autres merveilles de la nature

Serious writing about animals going extinct and how we are all to blame doesn’t necessarily resonate with everyone. Different communication approaches are needed.

In this book, writer Douglas Adams, and Zoologist Mark Cawardine document their travels to see very rare and endangered species like the Kakapo and the blind river dolphin. Never shying away from the realities faced by these species, this book has a wonderful, engaging lightness of touch that rides above the richness and wisdom underpinning the stories being told.

I love this book, not least because it makes me realize that, despite being very much a nature lover’s book, we need more narratives about nature that can appeal to people who don’t necessarily love nature but do enjoy entertaining, amusing, witty writing.

This was the book that set me off on a decade-long journey of reading (and re-reading) Murakami. Along with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, another favorite, I've re-read it at least twice.

So why is it about thinking differently? Because the book is written so differently! If you've read any recent speculative fiction, the author likely owes a debt to Murakami and his wondrous approach to narrative storytelling. You'll get lost in a bizarre, beautiful quest that takes on all sorts of twists and turns.

Why should fluffy, cute and beautiful animals get all the attention? What about the fleshy, bulbous, beady-eyed monstrosities whose bodies favour function over form?

If you’re a weird animal enthusiast like me, this illustrated compendium features the usual suspects, such as the naked mole-rat and southern elephant seal. But it’s also got some obscure surprises, including the (honestly quite attractive) maleo, and the monkey slug caterpillar, also known as the hag moth (both of which are suitable monikers for this shaggy mess of a thing).

It just goes to show that no matter how extensive your knowledge about animals is, there will always be a new species to discover and perhaps even fall in love with. If that happens to be the blobfish, well, each to their own, I guess.

From a wild sheep chase to a grand old treasure hunt that gripped a nation, the Quest for the Golden Hare tells the real-life story of one of the most famous book-related escapades in recent memory. 

In 1979, British artist Kit Williams published Masquerade – a cryptic storybook containing clues to the whereabouts of an 18-carat gold hare trinket that Williams buried somewhere in the English countryside. Author Bamber Gascoigne was the only other person present at the burial, and was tasked with documenting the frankly bonkers lengths the crazed fans would go to uncover it.

I’m loath to mention the pandemic again, but in these times, when most of us are going stir crazy and are itching for an adventure, this book might just be the next best thing. (Bonus points if you can source a copy of Masquerade while you’re at it, which I believe has been… show more.

Illuminating text describes 43 endangered species from around the world. The book is organized by habitat—ocean, forest, mountains, grasslands, arctic tundra—and relates the stories of a wide range of animals, from recycling beetles, to desert fish, to the odd axolotl and wide-ranging wandering albatross. You’ll also find a map detailing where each species lives, and ideas on how you might aid in their conservation.

There’s this rumor that poets look longer and harder at the ornaments of the world than do anyone else.  They keep looking, and looking, and looking, after most everyone else has long ago looked away, moved on. Here, in the wonderful world of poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s first book of nonfiction, whimsy and reverence twine like the DNA helices of the flora and fauna she examines. In her essay on the firefly, I adore the part when the insects “…lose their light rhythm for a few minutes after a single car’s headlights pass. Sometimes it takes hours for them to recalibrate their blinking patterns.”

Imagine a medieval bestiary of whimsical creatures, but with a twist. Instead of being imaginary, the animals here really exist. The book moves alphabetically from axolotl to zebrafish, with a new delight on every page. It’s a perfect reminder of what biologist J.B.S. Haldane once said: that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine.

First published in 1934, this extraordinary novel begins with a chance meeting between the Hungarian narrator, János Bátsky, and reclusive Welsh aristocrat the Earl of Gwynedd, who invites Bátsky to visit him in his castle in Wales. Our hero accepts the invitation, in spite of various warnings (his friend Fred describes the Earl as "Mad as a hatter!" and an anonymous phone call advises Bátsky that everyone who becomes involved with him "comes to a sticky end"). From this point on, the story becomes increasingly bizarre, involving ancient grudges, the Rosicrucians and a laboratory full of giant axolotls.

If someone were to ask me what I thought of this book, I would honestly have to say: "I don't know." The effect of reading it was rather like stuffing yourself with Christmas cake: too rich to manage all at one go. But what I did enjoy very much were the impressions… show more.

This book is a great summer read. The relationship between young eventer Rio and her project horse is really special and the author does a good job of introducing us to this fun, quirky family, their many pets, and their dilapidated country house. The descriptions of the French countryside and the differences in how horses are cared for in France were really interesting. It is a fun, captivating read.

There are numerous reasons why this text should be read. Personally, Benjamin's reflections on progress and history are crucial to a critique of capitalist modernity.

From a methodological perspective, this text allows the reader to enter Benjamin's laboratory and grasp the essential aspects of his groundbreaking methodology that merged cultural analysis, historical research, and philosophical reflection. Benjamin's unique approach combined elements of sociology, anthropology, and literary critique, creating a multidisciplinary work that defied conventional boundaries.