Susan Orlean in Conversation With Meg Wolitzer

Susan Orlean — the beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post and author of The Library Book and The Orchid Thief — gathers a lifetime of musings, meditations, and in-depth profiles about animals. “How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages,” writes Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, she’s been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us. Now, in On Animals (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster), she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career. These stories consider a range of creatures — the household pets we dote on, the animals we raise to end up as meat on our plates, the creatures who could eat us for dinner, the various tamed and untamed animals we share our planet with who are central to human life. Equal parts delightful and profound, enriched by Orlean’s stylish prose and precise research, these stories celebrate the meaningful cross-species connections that grace our collective existence. Orlean will be joined in conversation by Meg Wolitzer, author of The Interestings and The Female Persuasion.

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