E.B. Bartels' 3 favorite reads in 2023

I live and breathe nonfiction about animals. Every now and then, I get smacked in the face by a book like this, a book that reminds me just how powerful fiction can be.

In these short stories, Kolluri takes on the perspective of animals from real-life news items, like when a zookeeper painted his donkey to look like a zebra, or when the zoo in Gaza was destroyed by Israeli bombs in 2014, and embodies their minds and spirits.

In nonfiction about animals, writers work hard to avoid anthropomorphizing the creatures they write about, but in fiction, Kolluri embraces it, and, I’d argue, because of it, she creates more space for empathy and understanding, connecting human readers to their non-human kin.

As I said above, I love reading nonfiction about animals, and I think of this book as the animal nonfiction book of the past year. In his typical brilliant fashion, Yong digs into the nitty gritty science of the different ways all kinds of species interpret the world around them with impeccable research and detailed interviews with experts, but at the same time, he also manages to be funny, personable, and conversational in his tone.

Yong explains the concept of “umwelt,” the way the world is experienced by a particular organism, and I can say without a doubt that it has changed the way I myself experience the world.

When I walk my dog, Seymour, now, I think about the layers of smells he must be taking in every time he stops to sniff the ground. When I feed my pet tortoises, Terrence and Twyla, a fresh strawberry, I think about the way the red color pops in their vision. Looking at hawks circling above my neighborhood, I know now about their incredible vision even from so far up. I even pause now before killing a bug in my house, scooping it up, and carrying it outside, marveling at the way it experiences the world. Thanks for that, Ed Yong.

It sounds like this book could be another one about non-human animals. Monsters, after all, by definition, are not human, but this book is actually radically different from the types of books I usually read and so perhaps that’s why it has stayed with me so long after reading it.

Instead of a book about nature, this book digs into human nature. She examines the ways that people feel about the art they love even after the artist, often male, always human, is revealed to be some kind of “monster.”

Looking at examples like Roman Polansky, Woody Allen, Pablo Picasso, JK Rowling, and Michael Jackson, she asks the really hard questions: Is it possible to still love a piece of art in the same way after it has been “stained” by the artist’s personal story or beliefs? Are we ourselves monsters if we continue to love this art? Do you have to be a monster to make art in the first place? How are mothers their own type of monster, especially if they dare to protect private time away from their families to make their own art? Will anyone still love me if I become a monster? 

These are all questions that I think anyone who has loved a movie, book, album, or painting by a problem person has had at least a passing thought about, or really any person who has loved someone else in any way.

I didn’t expect to laugh so much while listening to a book about such a heavy topic (Dederer herself narrates the audiobook and does a personable and hilarious job of it) but also to regularly feel moved to tears as well. The line I will never forget: “What do we do with terrible people in our lives? Nothing. We keep loving them.”