Recommended Reading

In English

Wild Diplomacy by Baptiste Morizot Professor of Philosophy at the University of Aix-Marseille in France.  Catherine Porter is Visiting Scholar at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University.

Starting from a specific case, the spontaneous return of wolves to France and the intense conflicts that event has triggered, the French philosopher Baptiste Morizot invites us to think about what he calls "diplomacy with living beings." How can we conceive of cohabitation with the most recalcitrant wildlife, large predators in particular, and what concrete solutions need to be invented to make this happen? Drawing on knowledge gleaned from history and philosophy as well as from ethology, scientific ecology, and biology, Wild Diplomacy prompts us to ask what relations we want to reinvent with living beings today and how we might fundamentally reimagine our status as living beings among other life forms. This prize-winning book has broken new ground in contemporary French environmental philosophy.


BEASTLY by Keggie Carew tracks the 40,000-year story of our paradoxical relationship with the animal world. From a flute carved from the radius of a griffon vulture’s wing to tardigrades in space to now. From our intimate connections to our distant disturbances.

Article in the Guardian about this book
Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds by Tessa Boase (2018)
A heroine for our times, Etta Lemon campaigned for fifty years against the worldwide slaughter of birds for extravagantly feathered hats. Her legacy is the RSPB, grown from an all-female pressure group of 1889 with the splendidly simple pledge: Wear No Feathers.
Fowl Faces (also in english and in french as an e-book) by Marit de Haan 
For the birds From exploitation to liberation by Karen Davis 
Rebirding, rewilding Britain and its birds by Benedict Macdonald
Our Wild Calling by Richard Louv 
A Message from Martha by Mark Avery 

September 1st, 2014 sees the centenary of one of the best-documented extinctions in history—the demise of the Passenger Pigeon. From being the commonest bird on the planet 50 years earlier, the species became extinct when Martha, the last of her kind, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. ...
Ignoring Nature no More edited by Marc Beckoff 

For far too long humans have been ignoring nature. As the most dominant, overproducing, overconsuming, big-brained, big-footed, arrogant, and invasive species ever known, we are wrecking the planet at an unprecedented rate. And while science is important to our understanding of the impact we have on our environment, it alone does not hold the answers to the current crisis, nor does it get people to act. In Ignoring Nature No More, Marc Bekoff and a host of renowned contributors argue that we need a new mind-set about nature, one that centers on empathy, compassion, and being proactive.

Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were  

by Philip Lymbery 

Climate change and poaching are not the only culprits behind so many animals facing extinction. The impact of consumer demand for cheap meat is equally devastating and it is vital that we confront this problem if we are to stand a chance of reducing its effect on the world around us.

Ethical and Political Approaches to Nonhuman Animal Issues, edited by Andrew Woodhall and Gabriel Garmendia da Trindade, published by Spinger/Palgrave Macmillan. 

You can download the chapter, “Are We Smart Enough to Know When to Take the Political Turn for Animals?”, on  Kim Stallwoods site here


Zoopolis A Political Theory of Animal Rights
by Sue Donaldson

Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It by Garth Davis 

An acclaimed surgeon specializing in weight loss delivers a paradigm-shifting examination of the diet and health industry’s focus on protein, explaining why it is detrimental to our health, and can prevent us from losing weight.


Meathooked by Marta Zaraska
The Genius of Dogs is nothing less than the definitive dog book of our time by the researcher who started a revolution.
by Brian Hare


The Political Turn in Animal Ethics 
by Rob Garner and Siobhan O’Sullivan
Eating Animals
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Animal Liberation 
by Peter Singer
In French
Antispéciste by Aymeric Caron
Viande (Thriller fantastique) par Noëlle Michel 

La Tyrannie spéciste par Michel Tarrier 19 novembre 2023

In Dutch 
Mensen en andere dieren eindredactie Geertrui Cazaux 2011
Dieren kunnen de pest krijgen door Esther Ouwehand
Ooit aten we dieren door Roanne van Voorst
Tussen glimlach en grimas door Mariska Kret (2022)
Mensen zijn in staat elkaars emoties van het gezicht te lezen, maar hoe doen andere dieren dat? Mariska Kret laat zien welke verschillen én overeenkomsten er zijn tussen mens en dier.
In German
Wilde Tiere in der Stadt by Florian Möllers (2010)
Florian Moellers shows us, why animals find the city more and more a comfortable place to live and how humans deal with it.