The Company of animals

the long version

"...a sophisticated, witty, and insightful collection by some of our finest modern writers - including Maxine Kumin, J.F. Powers, Leslie Marmon Silko, Italo Calvino, and Robley Wilson, Jr. - elegantly conceived and beautifully presented. "The stories...concern creatures that are, for the most part, "wild" - elephants, deer, or raccoons, for example - or only semidomesticated - guinea pigs, horses, or cows. They are animals we usually encounter only briefly or at a distance, and that we do not claim to "understand" as we do dogs and cats. Here we have a chance to view them close up, in human context, through the eyes of masterful contemporary storytellers, and in a variety of situations from the most mundane to the highly fantastical. "New Yorker cartoonist Michael Maslin's whimsical drawings provide exactly the right comic relief, while revealing photographs or primates by well-known animal photographer James Balog give us yet another view of the ways in which animals might reflect ourselves."