My experience listening to Red this week has reminded me of why I wrote Talking to Animals: How We Can Understand Them And They Can Understand Us.  The book, being published next May  in hardcover by Simon & Schuster, is an exploration of the things I have learned about communicating with animals over the past 15 years, when animals have become a central focus of my creative life and work and personal life.

Because I listened to Red, he taught me how to walk with angina, something I feared would be lost to me. He sensed things I could not sense.

We can learn so much from animals if we can only find a new and wiser way of understanding them. We can’t simply emotionalize and rescue them, we have to be able to understand them if we can keep them in our world.

I think I’m on the right track. If we want to keep animals in this world, we don’t have too much time. We have to get busy.

If you pre-order this book through Battenkill Books, my independent local bookstore, I will sign and personalize it. You will also receive a Tote-bag supporting independent book stores and have a chance to win a potholder or Tote-Bag made by Maria. They ship anywhere in the world, and they are courteous and knowledgeable to deal with.

Battenkill takes Paypal and credit cards. They can also be phoned at 518 677 2515. Battenkill reminds me and many others why independent bookstores are so important and must survive. I could say the same about writers. If people don’t buy their books, we will vanish as well. I don’t intend to vanish.

You can support me, my work with animals, my blog and independent bookstores by pre-ordering Talking To Animals. Thanks so much for considering it. It is, in a number of ways, one of my most important books, a culmination of many years of work and experience. I am happy to share what I have learned with you, I believe this work  is a step towards the wiser and more mystical understanding of animals that is so desperately needed right now.