The Inner Life of Animals

 Peter Wohlleben is the author of two similar books which I enjoyed. The first is the Hidden Life of Trees and the second is the inner life of animals. In the first he argues controversially the idea that plants have some sort of sentience and in this companion book he tries to demonstrate animal sentience but not only among the usual suspects like highly intelligent birds, and other mammals but among fish and insects as well. I think out of the two books, the first is probably better just for the sheer audacity of its arguments. The idea that animals have sentience should be clear to anyone who has ever thought about the subject for more than 5 minutes. Human beings are animals, and we have a range of abilities that other animals have, and we lack some abilities that some animals have, so it is only natural to assume that there are different forms of sentience and human sentience is merely one of many. So I think if you're going to read one book about the topic this is a perfectly acceptable book to read, but if you've read many it's probably not worth your time.

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