The best books about dolphins

The author went on a journey to discover all she could about the pink dolphins (the botos) of Brazil, but she soon found herself immersed in the folklore and myth of this very real animal. She learns that people who live with the botos believe the dolphins are shapeshifters who live human-like lives in an amazing underwater world—the Encante—where everything in life is better. Even so, they come out of the water as human beings to visit our world and interact with the locals. They can only be recognized by the hats they wear to cover the blowholes in the tops of their heads. I love the feeling this book gives that we are constantly walking with the enchanted.  

When I read The Hungry Tide for the first time, it read to me like a fantasy novel set in a faraway world. Except it isn’t. The setting for The Hungry Tide is a real place, but it is as dangerous and as fantastic as something created by Tolkien. It takes place in the Sundarbans of India, a world where tigers hunt people and tidal floods come without warning and wipe out villages. Sometimes I read a book to get lost in a world that doesn’t exist. Other times I read a book to get lost in a world that does. I’ve never been to the Sundarbans, but I still periodically dream about them. 

It is a fiction based on facts about whales and about what Four Arrows believes they are trying to tell us regarding the pollution of the Oceans that threatens us all. A whale captures a marine biologist and his encounter, feeling almost biblical but very current, reveals their important message to humanity. In this very dramatic story, you’ll also find an ecological treatise, and a call to action so needed at this time.

The title doesn’t do justice to how stunning the information within it is, the very careful and thoughtful research, the documentation of our historical connection with cetaceans. Most impressive are the thorough descriptions of their brains, minds, communication skills well beyond our ability to even register and understand. Their echolocation, their ability to sense electrical signals from heartbeats, their multidimensional vocalization, and connected visual and aural brain areas allows them to send “sonic pictures” to each other, receiving “at least ten times more through the sense organs than we can,” is just for starters. Read this book and be amazed…and humbled!

Another blobfish book? Indeed! Although this book is also full of facts about other interesting animals, all of whom are pink! There are some land-dwelling animals in this book, but there are also lots of water-dwelling animals including pygmy seahorses, Amazon river dolphins, Hopkins’ rose nudibranchs, pink sea stars, and hairy squat lobsters. What I especially love about this book is that it presents the animal facts in a very clear and simple way without making the reader feel overwhelmed by too much text.

I love wordless picture books and this one is very special! The artwork is incredibly beautiful and was silk-screened using water-based inks resulting in the most luscious colour. Two kids plant a seed; a giant magical flower tree grows with a magical bear on top who takes them on an enchanted journey full of flying monkeys, bubbles, flowers, dolphins, seals, and more. Don’t miss out and join them in this dream of a book!  

(Admittedly a series, not one book.) These represented a memorable introduction for me to the notion of patron species “uplifting” (genetically engineering) client species to improved sentience. A key example is the uplifting of dolphins by humans. We are introduced to many variants of dolphin evolutionary efforts, and the struggles involved in uplifting. There are also many examples of aliens uplifting other aliens, so you won’t be disappointed by the variety offered by David Brin. Added to that, I contacted him after publishing my first book, and he was gracious and encouraging in his reply, so I’m biased.

In A Ring of Endless Light, sixteen-year-old Vicky Austin has to come to terms with death from all directions, starting with the funeral service of Commander Rodney presided over by her grandfather, who is dying of cancer. Watching her grandfather deteriorate over the summer on Seven Bay Island is hard as it is, but it’s complicated even more when Vicky has to juggle the romantic interest of three very different guys: Leo, an old friend and Commander Rodney’s son; Zachary, whose attempted suicide caused Commander Rodney’s death; and Adam, her older brother’s friend, who offers her an amazing chance to work with dolphins, something that gives her a break from the constant hard in her life. 

I love this emotionally heavy novel, largely due to Madeleine L’Engle’s beautiful, descriptive writing. A Ring of Endless Light finds beauty in struggle and sorrow, and even in death. Ms. L’Engle’s novels always… show more.

I became aware of Mind MGMT during the first draft of my book. Its success affirmed that an audience for psychic thrillers did exist. But I put off reading this 6-volume comic series until I finished my novel. It’s good to feel encouraged, it’s another to feel beaten to the punch.

Super-hero tropes dominate the American comic medium. The story elements of weekly world salvation, good guys vs bad guys, stagnate character development, and the artistic choices; idealized anatomy, fine lines, and bright colors appeal to a younger male gaze.

By all these standards, Mind MGMT stands apart. In this morally ambiguous story of psychic spies, Matt Kindt’s illustrations are raw and sketchy, complimented by his choice to color the pages with watercolor rather than digital inks.

The subhead of this wonderful book is Dolphins, Whales, and Human Destiny. It covers the extensive history of respect for dolphin wisdom from 30,000 years ago in Australia, through ancient Greece, to their seeming withdrawal from our awareness 1,000 years ago. Dolphins have reappeared now, when we need their wisdom most. Taylor writes of their being the other self-aware, intelligent life we have been searching the Universe for, and about “dolphin embassies,” where we can meet as equals, already begun at their behest.

The Ophiuchi Hotline is the first of four novels set in Varley’s Eight Worlds universe, where bodies are malleable things, and appearance, gender, and even your basic form can be changed on a whim. Its protagonist, Lilo, begins by escaping her execution by allowing an illegally produced replicant to die for her. Her situation deteriorates steadily from there, as she is repeatedly killed and resurrected while passing through the belly of the solar system’s underworld.

This book hits all my sweet spots—a morally ambiguous protagonist, an imaginative plot that provides a running commentary on the many ways we’re making a mess of the present world, and, as a bonus, someone getting chucked into a black hole for making a new kind of food called “bananameat” out of human DNA. What more could you ask?

Another winner by Karen Pryor! In this book, Karen talks about the methodology of clicker training and why it is such an important teaching tool. With the sound of an audible signal (the click), we can teach the animal that what he/she did, at that moment in time, is the reason why they are receiving reinforcement. As Bob Bailey once said, “The clicker is used as a scalpel to carve out behavior.” 

Scattered throughout the text are video URLs to demonstrate some of the concepts. For example, a reader can go to the URL and watch a cat do agility!

Whatever canine sport you are in, the clicker can be a valuable tool in your toolbox.

I love this book because, as a dog trainer, I want to use tools that communicate effectively to the dog. This book talks about clicker training and why it can be used to pinpoint… show more.

Full disclosure: Anne is a dear friend and was an MFA workshop-mate of mine.

But even if she wasn’t, I’m confident this would still be one of my favorite collections. There is so much magic in Valente’s writing, in the gorgeous prose but also in the content of the stories: ghosts, pink dolphins, tiny librarians, Northern Lights.

Much of the magic is not supernatural, but just the magic of the natural world, and Valente is a master of place; I’ve always admired her use of setting. Many of the stories deal with loss, grief, and pain, but the magic acts as a way to transcend these things, which is what I aim to do in my stories as well.

Dolphin Rescue is a story for 7-9-year-olds about siblings, Maddie & Atticus, who live in a coastal town in Maine.

They love nature and are very ecologically aware. While trying to solve the mystery of household trash scattered on lawns in their neighborhood, they help a pod of dolphins in trouble because of a tangle of fishing line. 

I enjoyed the interesting facts and lovely photos about the area and the nearby waters.

This superb picture book for children aged 6 to 9 begins by asking children to wonder why dolphins and sharks look superficially similar, yet are less closely related than dolphins and hippos. It covers the emergence of life, evolution in the seas, the appearance of land animals, and the “return to the blue” by dolphins and whales. The illustrations are terrific: bright, simple, and kid-friendly while retaining scientific details.  

Easy Travel to Other Planets by Ted Mooney, is a fictionalised story of an attempt at another Moon shot idea; the building of an interspecies communication bridge between humans and dolphins. This was a real experiment attempted in the 1960s, by neuroscientist John Lilly – which I made a film about, for the BBC, called The Girl who talked to Dolphins. Like God’s Debris, Mooney’s book challenges our perceptions of reality, and like Varieties of Scientific Experience, it tries to shed light on what it is to be human. Not only does it cover these grand ideas, but it also touches on some very prescient themes – such as our current epidemic of information overload and our existential environmental crisis.