Here are 100 books that Elephant Company fans have personally recommended if you like
Elephant Company.
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I am a Jesus-loving coral nerd with a passion for helping people learn science accurately, represent Jesus fully, and engage in conversations respectfully. Having previously worked as a coral biologist for the US National Park Service, I have an MS in marine biology and ecology from James Cook University (Australia), a BS in ecology from Seattle Pacific University (USA), and a certification in biblical studies from Bodenseehof Bible School (Germany). When not diving or writing, you can find me reading C.S. Lewis, growing wildflowers, and hosting faith and science conversations on Instagram (@shorelinesoul) or at rachelgjordan.com.
If you ask a marine biologist for a book recommendation, more likely than not, they will hand you this book about octopuses. But far from a simple book about charismatic underwater aliens, this book delves into a beautiful, philosophic inquiry of the natural world and the role of humans within it.
Using journalism-based storytelling with hands-on experiences, this book emphasizes the profound intelligence, emotional depth, and individual personalities of octopuses. Although the book doesn’t directly address the intersection of faith and science, its key message carries important implications for those who desire to connect spirituality with nature.
This cathartic read will stimulate your fascination with marine life while interweaving philosophical reflections toward the ultimate goal of realizing our connection to these incredible creatures.
'Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald's H Is for Hawk did for raptors' New Statesman 'Charming and moving...with extraordinary scientific research' Guardian 'An engaging work of natural science... There is clearly something about the octopus's weird beauty that fires the imaginations of explorers, scientists, writers' Daily Mail
In 2011 Sy Montgomery wrote a feature for Orion magazine entitled 'Deep Intellect' about her friendship with a sensitive, sweet-natured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death. It went viral, indicating the widespread fascination with these mysterious, almost alien-like creatures. Since…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
My passion is writing about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, rather than famous people or people with some unusual skill, like being a math genius or something. This passion led me to Anna Merz’s story and my growing appreciation of the power of the animal/human connection and how much communication can take place without language.
Okay, I confess this is the same story as the recommendation above, The Elephants Come Home, but this is written by the actual guy, Lawrence Anthony, who undertook this effort.
Also, instead of a picture book, it is a 380-page tale told by the person who lived it. If you love The Elephants Come Home, you’ll want to read Elephant Whisperer as well.
I found myself exclaiming again and again over the stories that Anthony tells of life on the sanctuary.
When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them. In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom.…
As a child, let loose to wander the woods around my home, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by animals, not only the dogs and cats we kept at home, but the wild critters I encountered. As I grew, so did my admiration and respect for the creatures that live in the wild. When I volunteered at Oregon’s Washington Park Zoo, and met Senior Elephant Keeper Roger Henneous, a new level of interest opened up as I observed the relationships between the animals and those who care for them. It bothered me that I often read nasty things about keepers, when I knew that most are devoted to those in their care.
Part of my reason for writing my book was to understand what it means to be a conscientious zookeeper, and this book provides an intimate portrait of a woman deeply committed to the animals she loves. The first two questions the late award-winning animal management consultant Else Poulsen asked any creature she met were “Who are you?” and “What can I do for you?” She learned the answers by close observation and empathy. She nurtured bears in crisis, raised and comforted them, taught them, and learned from them.
A zookeeper's story of her extraordinary relationship with the bears she has rescued and her insights into their emotional lives. "An inspiring trip into the mind and reality of bears." --Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep Few people know bears as intimately as Else Poulsen. She has raised bears, comforted bears, taught bears, learned from bears, had bears communicate their needs to her, and nursed bears back to health. This remarkable book reveals the many insights about bears and their lives that she has gained through her work with them. In the eighties, Poulsen became a zookeeper in…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As a child, let loose to wander the woods around my home, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by animals, not only the dogs and cats we kept at home, but the wild critters I encountered. As I grew, so did my admiration and respect for the creatures that live in the wild. When I volunteered at Oregon’s Washington Park Zoo, and met Senior Elephant Keeper Roger Henneous, a new level of interest opened up as I observed the relationships between the animals and those who care for them. It bothered me that I often read nasty things about keepers, when I knew that most are devoted to those in their care.
I’m captivated by this book every time I read it (and I’ve read it a lot). It brings to light the uneasy relationship we have with wild creatures, especially when we unwittingly invite them into our own backyards. A thought-provoking (and often nerve-wracking) narrative about the clash between the citizens of Boulder, CO and the local population of mountain lions, and the distressing expansion of human beings into the few wild areas remaining to them (and, in fact, to all animals). When those pockets of wilderness are gone, where are they supposed to go? How can we alleviate human/animal conflict over resources?
When residents of Boulder, Colorado, suddenly began to see mountain lions in their backyards, it became clear that the cats had returned after decades of bounty hunting had driven them far from human settlement. In a riveting environmental tale that has received huge national attention, journalist David Baron traces the history of the mountain lion and chronicles one town's tragic effort to coexist with its new neighbors. As thought-provoking as it is harrowing, The Beast in the Garden is a tale of nature corrupted, the clash between civilization and wildness, and the artificiality of the modern American landscape. It is,…
My love since childhood for the natural world made me use my art to speak for those who don't have a voice to fight back: the animals who are losing their habitat daily, the old-growth forests getting cut down, and the waters that are polluted mindlessly. When my partner and I adopted our puppy, Reynard, we were so obsessed with him that we decided to write and illustrate a book about his adventures, and naturally, it ended up also touching on different environmental topics. Our art endeavors also inspired us to begin a movement to stop a toxic sulfide mine from being built next to Lake Superior and the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan.
This graphic novel was not only moving, but it also helped me to get a deeper understanding of the business of elephant riding for tourists.
I knew that this was a terrible practice, but learning all the details about how these magnificent creatures are treated made me feel that I want to help promote awareness about alternatives, like elephant-friendly tours.
This book captivated me from the beginning, and the illustrations are some of the most beautiful I have seen in graphic novels. I loved how so much fascinating information was woven into the story, making it entertaining and educational.
From the creators behind the Eisner-nominated Saving Sorya: Chang and the Sun Bear comes another gorgeously-illustrated graphic novel adventure based on a true story, in which young conservationist Chang overcomes the odds to save and return an elephant to its natural habitat.
While volunteering at a wildlife rescue center near Yok Don National Park in Vietnam, Chang helps rescue an injured and abused Asian elephant named H'Non. For decades, H'Non was forced to haul heavy timber logs and concrete poles at construction sites, and then to carry riders at tourist attractions all day long with no break. While nursing H'Non…
I am an author, poet, and visual artist. These interests converge in my approach to literature. I think that visual and psychological descriptions of environments and circumstances are essential to enlivening the narrative and setting its tone. Often in modern literature this is diluted in favor of straightforward accounts. I believe that a story is never told with any complete objectivity but has a psychological context that must be highlighted. In addition, vivid visual descriptions greatly assist the reader in inhabiting the world of the story as seen from the characters’ points of view.
In the forests of France near the Belgian border during World War II, a French soldier is stationed in a bunker with his squad members.
They are ordered not to leave their posts and to be on the lookout for German tanks. Nothing happens for months except a long, snowy winter. The protagonist experiences a sense of liberation in this rural isolation that he relishes. His environment appears timeless, forever suspended in a gray, benevolent limbo filled with snow, mist, and conifers. He wishes his post would never end.
I love this book because it describes an introvert’s ideal environment: ensconcement, privacy, silence, freedom from larger society, and nature. It contains some of the most unique descriptions of splendid aloneness in the woods I have ever read.
In the Ardennes Forest on the Begian border the French guns point north-east, awaiting the German onslaught. One reinforced concrete blockhouse in the heart of the forest is manned, this winter of 1939/40, by Lieutenant Grange with three men, who live in a chalet built over it. cut off from the rest of the world, their senses heightened to capture the sounds and smells of the forest, the men create their own security as autumn turns to winter. Later, though, when winter turns to spring, when the sap rises and the panzer divisions attack, Lieutenant Grange meets the fate he…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Like the widows in The Widows’ Wine Club, I’m getting on. Unlike them, I’ve been a writer for forty years, often hunched over a keyboard, ignoring people. Amazingly, though, I managed to have a happy marriage and make some great friends. Phew! Because I’ve needed friends, especially since my husband died. Looking back, I’m interested to see that I didn’t instantly take to some of my closest buddies. Circumstances threw us together, and we got to know and like and love each other. I explore this in my book.
Again, this has everything I like in a book, characters I care about, a great page-turning plot, a fight for what’s right, and a beautiful romantic thread.
By amazing coincidence, it’s also about inspiring librarians, two very different women who join forces to bring books to people who need them. Clara Button, recently widowed and under pressure to be respectable, is very different from racy unmarried Ruby Munroe, but the two form a strong bond grounded in mutual respect.
Based on historical fact, it tells the story of the underground library, built in the disused Bethnal Green tube station in 1944 when the Blitz was wreaking havoc in wartime London. Feel-good fiction at its best. Brill!
Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here a secret community thrives: with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a cafe and a theatre offering shelter, solace and escape from the bombs that fall above.
Along with her glamorous best friend and library assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on,…
I’ve always been fascinated by history, by the way that the past informs the present, how it makes us who we are. And I’ve found myself drawn, as a reader and as a writer, towards those stories that incorporate some element of magic into the past. I’ve written two magical historical novels. And my third book, which I hope to be finished with soon, is a fabulist tale set in the future, which I like to say is history that hasn’t happened yet.
As someone writing a post-apocalyptic retelling of the biblical Book of Esther, I was immediately drawn to this counterfactual history set amidst an isolated Eastern European nation of Turkic warrior Jews. Called the “Jewish Game of Thrones” the book goes deep into a magical alternative universe that will have you hungering for a sequel.
What if an empire of Jewish warriors that really existed in the Middle Ages had never fallen—and was the only thing standing between Hitler and his conquest of Russia?
Eastern Europe, August 1942. The Khazar kaganate, an isolated nation of Turkic warrior Jews, lies between the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea) and the Khazar Sea (the Caspian). It also happens to lie between a belligerent nation to the west that the Khazars call Germania—and a city the rest of the world calls Stalingrad.
After years of Jewish refugees streaming across the border from Europa, fleeing the war, Germania launches its…
I became very interested in this topic when I moved to Italy and met and married Andrea Meloni. I had never been particularly interested in wars and battles but, when he began to tell me about his very personal experience growing up in Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, I was captivated and felt that his unique story was important. I, therefore, encouraged him to write his memoirs. My book is based on them, and so it is more his book than mine. However, I did extensive research to set his story in a coherent historical context.
Steinbeck wrote this novel about a country occupied by the Nazis during World War II.
Although the name of this country is never mentioned, it was generally acknowledged that it was Norway. The focus is on one particular town and shows what life is like when you are not free and live in constant fear.
This book found its way to Europe and was translated into European languages and widely distributed clandestinely. It served to encourage occupied countries to rebel against their oppressor.
Occupied by enemy troops, a small, peaceable town comes face-to-face with evil imposed from the outside—and betrayal born within the close-knit community
A Penguin Classic
In this masterful tale set in Norway during World War II, Steinbeck explores the effects of invasion on both the conquered and the conquerors. As he delves into the emotions of the German commander and the Norwegian traitor, and depicts the spirited patriotism of the Norwegian underground, Steinbeck uncovers profound, often unsettling truths about war—and about human nature.
Nobel Prize winner JohnSteinbeck’s self-described “celebration of the durability of democracy” had an extraordinary impact as Allied…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
After teaching high school English for thirty-one years, I retired and began my second career in writing. I have published five novels and one collection of poetry. When I met Jane Tucker in 1974, she became a good friend, fellow church member, and my dental hygienist. I had no idea she had worked as a welder on Liberty Ships during World War II when she was only sixteen years old. After I learned this in 2012, I began my journey into learning all about the Rosies during World War II and writing my fourth novel Becoming Jestina. Jane’s story is an amazing one, and I still talk to her regularly.
No list of books about women’s work during World War II would be complete without Penny Coleman’s book. If you just want an overall picture of how eighteen million women, many of whom had never before held a job, entered the workforce in 1942-45 to help the US fight World War II, then this is the book for you! The book is illustrated with black and white photographs. It is an ALA Best Book for Young Adults.
Illustrated with black-and-white photographs. When America's men went off to war in 1942, millions of women were recruited, through posters and other propaganda, to work at non-traditional jobs. In defense plants, factories, offices, and everywhere else workers were needed, they were--for the first time--well paid and financially independent. But eventually the war ended, and the government and industries that had once persuaded them to work for the war effort now instructed them to return home and take care of their husbands and children. Based on interviews and original research by noted historian Penny Colman, Rosie the Riveter shows young readers…
