On Animals

Name: On Animals
Price: 1.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.4 (974 reviews)
Author: Susan Orlean

by Susan Orlean

Nonfiction Memoir

4.4 (974)

4.4 stars from 974 reviews. Top 90% of Nonfiction books we track.

256 pages~4.3 hr readPublished by Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone PublishingPublished 2021-01-01

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Last checked: Jun 22, 2026

Price history: $0.99 – $15.99

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Perfect for you if...

You love character-driven narrative nonfiction that makes you see everyday things differently, like The Library Book or Salt by Mark Kurlansky.
You're fascinated by the hidden lives of animals and how humans project meaning onto them, whether that's a woman with twenty-three secret tigers or a famous whale refusing freedom.
You appreciate essayists who combine humour, tenderness, and genuine research without getting preachy about animal welfare.

Maybe not for you if...

You're looking for a practical guide to pet ownership or animal behaviour. This is literary meditation, not how-to.
You want a unified argument or thesis throughout. These are linked essays, each its own story, so the reading experience is more like visiting a gallery than following a thread.
You prefer faster-paced narrative. Orlean dwells in moments and details, which is the whole point but not everyone's speed.

About this book

Susan Orlean, a New Yorker staff writer and author of The Library Book, collects essays and profiles about animals drawn from her career. Since childhood, when she wrote and illustrated a book about Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, Orlean has been interested in how humans and animals live together. On Animals examines animal-human relationships through stories spanning various creatures: household pets, animals raised for food, predators, and wild and domesticated species that share our world. Orlean describes keeping chickens in her own yard, meeting a woman in New Jersey with twenty-three pet tigers, visiting a famous whale in Iceland, and observing working donkeys at a clinic in Morocco. The collection also features accounts of show dogs, lost dogs, and a pigeon with homing abilities. These essays explore the connections between humans and animals through Orlean's detailed research and prose.

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Price History

Kindle price over time. Green zones = periods when the book was free.

$0.99 – $15.99

Currently on sale at $1.99 — 88% off peak. Price has dropped 7 times over the last 5 years. Goes on sale roughly every 269 days.

Sales Rank

Amazon sales rank: lower number = better selling book. #1 is the bestseller.

Currently #4,432 in the Kindle store — a top-10K bestseller.

Rating & Reviews

Purple line = star rating over time. Blue area = total review count growth.

Currently 4.4★ from 974 reviews

Gaining approximately 10 new reviews per month. Rating has remained stable at 4.4 over the tracking period.

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Actual Predicted

This book is currently discounted at $1.99. It typically returns to around $15.99.

Prices shown in USD from Amazon US. We continuously pull new data to improve tracking. If dates look old, it usually means there has been no significant change since the last data point.