The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion―Surprising Observations of a Hidden World (The Mysteries of Nature, 2) Hardcover – November 7, 2017

The novelty of the Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben's last book, was the author's ability to combine scientific discoveries with personal insight and anecdote to describe how truly animate trees actually are. For example, Wohlleben shows how trees communicate, aid their offspring and even display acts of altruism.In the Youtube era, the fear is that a book on the inner Life of animals would be something akin to the cute cat videos that deluge our Facebook newsfeeds. But Mr. Wohlleben does not disappoint. He again writes prose that is one of the best examples of popular science in the twenty-first century. While always hewing to a necessary humility about the limits of our scientific knowledge of animals, Wohlleben weaves the best of scientific findings with personal anecdotes of the animals in his forest which illustrate and develop what otherwise could be cold and esoteric research.We are story-telling creatures after all and Wohlleben has discovered a formula for writing scientific books that are both popular and informative. Briefly, that formula is to write with sincerity about a subject one obviously deeply cares about and mix personal encounters with up to date scientific findings. Mr. Wohlleben says he could have written several more books with all the ideas he has about nature. I only hope this proves to be true.The one point which some readers may disagree with is the overall philosophical worldview of the author. Both in the Hidden Life of Trees and the Inner Life of Animals, Wohllenben vigorously attacks both the modern notion of flora and fauna as natural resources for the use of humanity as well as the Biblical notion of humankind as the pinnacle of creation.Instead, he argues for a view in which mankind is one species among many-- a species which is increasingly wreaking havoc on the world's diverse ecosystems. There is no romanticization of nature--animals starve and do vicious things to one another-- but there is a stability and order which human beings are increasingly threatening. This perspective is by no means unique to Mr. Wohlleben, but he is certainly one of its most articulate advocates.Regardless of whether you share that outlook, readers will delight in the stories and science with which Wohlleben shows how animals live lives that are active, emotional and meaningful even with little or no human interaction.

The first thing the dear reader will note of Wohlleben's book is the masterful way he weaves between personal anecdotes and scientific research. It seems effortless and results in a most enjoyable and readable text. Sure to be a best seller, his first book written about trees sold 320,000 copies before being translated into English, The Inner LIfe of Animals leaves the reader with a clear understanding that animals share many psychological and social characteristics with people.Wohlleben writes of grief, fear, hierarchy, thievery, altruism, aging, and love. But with all of this two parts of the book really caught my attention. Wohlleben has a special feeling for pigs and he notes in several places their intelligence. His feeling is that if people really knew more about pigs, they would be eaten by humans about as regularly as are apes. The second part of the book that I found fascinating seems really little more than an afterthought. Wohlleben discusses "heaven." Don't worry, no spoiler alert, but that short section is worth the price of the book.Buy the book and enjoy a heckeva good read.

This book discusses the emotions and behavior of animals. It is well written and the stories will make you think about how you relate to the animals that share the planet with us. It is worth reading.However, the author uses a lot of space arguing that animals have emotions. Here is the weakness of the book. But, to be fair, it is the same weakness I have seen in many books lately, and that is a failure to define terms that are commonly used, but not used the same by everyone. Lately I have read many books about consciousness, free will, and now emotions. Where books differ is not in their ability to make logical arguments, those are typically solid. They differ in their definitions of "consciousness," "free will," and "emotions," the very core subjects of the books. They use the terms freely, with no definition, assuming everyone understands what they mean, and that all books are obviously using the same definition. But, in fact, what is obvious is the authors don't mean the same thing as each other.Here is a trivial example. I was traveling in northern Chile and there was a lake that was claimed to be the "highest lake in the world." It seemed like a reasonable claim. But, I am sure there must be some small body of water in the Himalayas that is higher than the one in Chile, but the folks in Chile defined "lake" such that theirs would win (maybe based on area or depth or some other metric). On the other hand the lower Lake Titicaca is often listed as the "highest navigable lake in the world." But, define "navigable." If I had one, I could have put a canoe in the higher lake in Chile and navigated across it. The Chilean lake seemed navigable to me. But, "navigable" can also be defined more narrowly, so that Lake Titicaca will win (perhaps based on the depth of the lake or maybe its area or length or the fact that it crosses an international boarder).The same is true of emotions. It is possible to define emotions narrowly enough that only humans have them (because of brain structure or size or our particular world view). And, in the book "How Emotions are Made," by Lisa Barrett, I believe the author has done just that. That book is basically about how we humans make our emotions, and it is a very good book on that subject. But, in "The Inner Life of Animals" the author is using a broader definition, that can include what animals are feeling. I don't think there is any contradiction in the conclusions of the two books, just a contradiction of definition of "emotion" that each one is using as a starting point.And, why does it really matter. The author seems to be trying to prove that animals have emotions like us in an effort to increase their value in our eyes. But, why? Why are animals' lives regarded as more valuable the more we perceive them to be like us? That is just human arrogance. Even if the world view of animals is totally different than ours, their life still has value. Even if animals had no brain at all, their life still has value.But, animals do have brains. And, this book is about figuring out what is going on in there, whether you define it as an emotion or otherwise. And, I believe that is a worthwhile quest.

Great book