More than Human
with Kendra Coulter, Thomas Wharton and Sibylle Grimbert
Hosted by Emelia Quinn
The Last of Its Kind is beyond beautiful, it’s essential. What joy, what blessed relief to revel in the love at its core, to see through difference and look a fellow creature in the eye.
Three remarkable novels examine the int erconnection between human and animal, between the cultures we have built and our impact on the species around us. Join us for a conversation that maps the borders between the human world and the more than human world we inhabit.
Kendra Coulter’s debut novel, The Tortoise’s Tale, is a whimsical yet profound exploration of humanity’s entangled journey, a call to recognize the interconnectedness of all life, and the potential for healing. Snatched from her ancestral lands, a giant tortoise finds herself in an exclusive estate in southern California where she becomes an astute observer of societal change. Her journey is one of discovery, as she learns to embrace the music of jazz and the warmth of human connection.
Dancing across genres and cultures, space and time, Wolf, Moon, Dog by Thomas Wharton is as insightful about human nature as it is about canine behaviour. The novel follows Wolf as he reincarnates through the ages, from Ancient Egypt to Alexandrian Greece to the Space Race and all the way to a dark future beset by climate change.
The Last of Its Kind, by award-winning French writer Sibylle Grimbert (translated into English by Aleshia Jensen) is a moving story of friendship, trust, and the desire to survive. In 1835, Gus, a young zoologist, is sent to Iceland where he witnesses the bloody massacre of a colony of great auks. The curious researcher pulls a single wounded bird from the water, unaware that he has recovered what will eventually be the last of its kind. Gus’s burgeoning understanding, wonder, and obsession around the disappearance of a species and humankind’s role in its erasure mirror some of our questions today about the future of the natural world and our place within it.
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.
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