“Desert Solitaire” by Ed Abbey and “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn. Both are wildly different but explore the question of how different the other forms of life on this planet are from ours. “Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are?” By Franz de Waal et al explores this from a scientific perspective.
Abbeys about more, of course. He had that rare ability to turn his book into something that felt like a direct conversation with me, the reader. I read him in my 20s and his viewpoint definitely connects with someone wanting to examine and express his/herself first before society’s overwhelming influence. He discusses trying to free himself from the conceptual confines of the human individual and societal experience while isolated in a national park. Quinn uses a hypothetical conversation between a gorilla and a person to highlight the fundamental us versus them approach humans take with the rest of earth. Then Franz de Waal really drives home that animals are likely to be much more mentally capable than we give them credit. They’re good books if you want to know something more about the universe than what your human experience is.
If you liked Ishmael, I recommend reading The Story of B. Its subject is very similar to Ishmael but I feel that it does a better job of portraying how the us vs them is woven into the very fabric of civilization. It's also a very entertaining read.
I read Story of B as well. But I don’t have quite a clear enough memory of it to even try to summarize it as anything past a sequel. I’ll go back to revisit them some day.
Abbeys about more, of course. He had that rare ability to turn his book into something that felt like a direct conversation with me, the reader. I read him in my 20s and his viewpoint definitely connects with someone wanting to examine and express his/herself first before society’s overwhelming influence. He discusses trying to free himself from the conceptual confines of the human individual and societal experience while isolated in a national park. Quinn uses a hypothetical conversation between a gorilla and a person to highlight the fundamental us versus them approach humans take with the rest of earth. Then Franz de Waal really drives home that animals are likely to be much more mentally capable than we give them credit. They’re good books if you want to know something more about the universe than what your human experience is.
Edit-corrected book title.