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Domadomadoma-Blumblumblum

Conversations with Other Animals

Luke Thompson author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Ortac Press

Published:5th Sep '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Domadomadoma-Blumblumblum cover

What do the longest-serving Canadian Prime Minister and a ketamine-injecting psychonaut have in common? What would a poltergeist mongoose say if you spoke to him on a Ouija board? Would talking spiders be more believable if they had lips? These are some of the important questions Luke Thompson seeks to answer in this exploration of human-animal conversation. Spanning the ancient and modern, the scientific and the strange, Thompson's journey takes him from the stories of King Solomon and Doctor Dolittle to medieval dragon-slayers and extraterrestrial aliens, via Harvard laboratories, pet psychics, and the discipline of anthrozoology. Always eccentric and always fascinating, Domadomadoma-Blumblumblum sees Thompson navigate these peculiar landscapes - whether lowering himself into a flotation tank or training as a pet psychic - with many questions on his mind: What exactly do we want from conversations with our fellow animals? What portrait of the world do we paint when we envisage these communications? And how far are we willing to go to realise this dream?


Compelling ... central to the book is the notion that, in trying to understand other creatures, we reveal most about ourselves. The Telegraph

An utter delight of a book - exuberant, witty and beautifully written. I look forward to discussing it with my cat. Wyl Menmuir, Booker Prize-listed author of The Many

A wry, intimate magpie of a narrator gathering eclectic histories, Thompson is a beguiling guide in a world enriched with the possibility of communicating with other species. Jen Hadfield, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize

Thompson's book is playful, provocative, at times surreal, at other times heartbreaking. He is a unique and compelling guide. Melanie Challenger, Vice President of the RSPCA and author of How to Be Animal

Sparkling, clever, kind, playful and profound: an urgently important meditation on the accessibility of other minds and worlds. Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast and Cry of the Wild

ISBN: 9781738466719

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

256 pages