Audio review: Great narrator. Easy to listen to and added plenty of nuance.



Main review: This was a marvellous book. It was genuinely enjoyable to read and tackled some of the stickier issues around animal cognition without straying into preachiness. I've seen a couple of other reviews of this book which complain that the creativity of animals discussed is not really creativity because it exists without culture. I'm assuming those reviewers did not read the book in full since it a) establishes a working definition of creativity for this context which can broadly be applied to all animals (including humans) and b) examines the fact that animals do indeed have culture. I do get frustrated with people who think that just because something doesn't fit their narrow understanding, it therefore doesn't count. Between humans and animals that has its roots in 'the exceptionalism doctrine' as regards homo sapiens (thank you very much Abrahamic religions and Western mindset for that particular pile of crap). I find that mindset both damaging and dangerous because once you've decided that animals are meatbags that happen to move with no real comprehension, emotion or sentience, it's really easy to apply that mindset to other marginalised groups eg women, other ethnic groups etc (As a decent look at history will tell us!)



Anyway, while it would be false to assume that animals think exactly like us because we are not part of their umvelt and don't share their viewpoint, going in the opposite direction and assuming that they feel nothing, have no concept of abstraction or thought processes beyond bare survival is equally problematic. Human intelligence is not the only intelligence - it may well not even be the greatest intelligence! And there are other types of creativity too as this book illustrates. I also feel that Gigliotti made an excellent point in that as humans we expect animals to learn our language when the onus ought to be on us learning theirs if we wish to understand them. And animals do have their languages both vocal and non-vocal. (Again this echoes the attitudes of European settlers expecting people to speak English or French or Spanish 'like a civilised man'. There's some parallels with a very chilling section of history here.)

Overall, this is a beautifully written, interesting and thought provoking book that should be widely read. Highly recommend.

Absolutely loved this! So much good stuff about animal intelligence and the way they apply different concepts of intelligence in their day to day life. We consistently underestimate them because they aren't us. I will be buying a physical copy of this one!

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
This book discusses what creativity is and how animals display it in their lives. The author goes into great trouble to make sure that they stay very scientific throughout the book. I had expected more examples of creativity, however, the book was more science and fact-based with a short example or two per chapter and the rest of it giving scientific backup. This left the book being more dry than I anticipated.
This is a good book for anyone who is interested in the scientific, creative lives of animals.

As someone who loves and lives with animals, I didn't need convincing that animals are creative. Yet I find my opinion stronger after reading this well researched and detailed book.

Gigliotti breaks down creativity into different elements, which in themselves are creative. For exampleIt wouldn't have occurred to me before to consider an animals mating lives as creative, but now I see it is.

Overall, an interesting read I would recommend for anyone with an interest in animals and science.

This audiobook had some really amazing facts and science in it. We were listening to this on a road trip and even my 6 year old was commenting and discussing facts he was learning along the way.

The Creative Lives of Animals was written by Carol Gigliotti, and the audiobook was narrated by Sheri Saginor. Most of us view animals through a very narrow lens, seeing only bits and pieces of beings that seem mostly peripheral to our lives. However, whether animals are building a shelter, seducing a mate, or inventing a new game, animals' creative choices affect their social, cultural, and environmental worlds. Drawing on a growing body of scientific research, Carol Gigliotti unpacks examples of creativity demonstrated by animals through the lens of the creative process, an important component of creative behavior, and offers new thinking on animal intelligence, emotion, and self-awareness. With examples of the elaborate dams built by beavers or the lavishly decorated bowers of bowerbirds, Gigliotti provides a new perspective on animals as agents in their own lives, as valuable contributors to their world and ours, and as guides in understanding how creativity may contribute to conserving the natural world. Presenting a powerful argument for the importance of recognizing animals as individuals and as creators of a healthy, biodiverse world, this book offers insights into both the established and emerging questions about the creativity of animals.

The Creative Lives of Animals was a hard listen for me for a few reasons. First, I thing the research done to write this book and the information included is important and interesting. However, I have to admit that I almost Did not make it through the introduction. I was expecting the book to focus more on the example and actual experiments and examples of how animals demonstrate creativity. I felt like the book was more aimed at people in the field, or with a particular frame of mind rather than just regular folks that wanted to learn more about the creativity and intelligence of animals. There were times where the tone of the writing felt very pretentious to me, and that always make a nonfiction read harder for me to enjoy. I felt like the narrator tried to do a solid job, using inflections to avoid falling into a monotone, and I think they did the best they could with the material. However, While I was listening I felt like I was in a grad school lecture rather than listening to an audiobook. It might work much better for other readers/listeners, but it just did not work for me.

The Creative Lives of Animals covers and interesting subject matter, and is well researched. However, I felt like it was aimed more at other researchers and scholars rather than readers like me.

This is a delightful audiobook that is both accessible and refreshing.

I consume a lot of pop science writing on nature, in book and audiobook form, so these days I often find myself hearing/reading the same facts over and over. There are some things in 'The Creative Lives of Animals' that weren't new to me, but plenty of things that were.

Gigliotti arguably stretches the definition of "creativity" as far as it can possibly go, in order to cover pretty much every aspect of the inner and outer lives of other animals (e.g. "emotional creativity") but her case studies and examples are well-chosen and fascinating. I also appreciated the snippets of personal experience she throws in. This book is one of those "medley" ones that covers an enormous amount of ground in terms of topic and species, but she lingers long enough with enough animals to provide more than just a quick surface analysis.

I'd recommend this to anyone with an interest in the natural world.

(With thanks to Tantor Audio and NetGalley for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review)

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for the audio version of this book. Everything I write is of my own thoughs feelings and opinions. I am not compensated in any way for my review.
I really enjoyed listening to this book. I listened to it with my six year old daughter who would ask to have me put it on so she could learn more about the animals. It drew us both in and we learned alot.

From Dolphins giving their self names to cuddle fish being devious this book was surprising and I learn things I never would’ve thought about animals. I knew that animals played but I didn’t know they were manipulating devious and pranksters but it’s all in this book and it’s a book I found so interesting. I thought the narrator had such a pleasant voice but the best part of this book with all the crazy things that animals do. I can listen to stories about animals all day and so this audiobook was right up my alley and I loved it! If you think animals eat sleep fight and that’s it you need to listen to the sport it is so absolutely amazing! I receive this book from NetGalley and publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.