The Exultant Ark: A Pictorial Tour of Animal Pleasure

Product Description

Nature documentaries often depict animal life as a grim struggle for survival, but this visually stunning book opens our eyes to a different, more scientifically up-to-date way of looking at the animal kingdom. In more than one hundred thirty striking images,
The Exultant Ark celebrates the full range of animal experience with dramatic portraits of animal pleasure ranging from the charismatic and familiar to the obscure and bizarre. These photographs, windows onto the inner lives of pleasure seekers, show two polar bears engaged in a bout of wrestling, hoary marmots taking time for a friendly chase, Japanese macaques enjoying a soak in a hot spring, a young bull elk sticking out his tongue to catch snowflakes, and many other rewarding moments. Biologist and best-selling author Jonathan Balcombe is our guide, interpreting the images within the scientific context of what is known about animal behavior. In the end, old attitudes fall away as we gain a heightened sense of animal individuality and of the pleasures that make life worth living for all sentient beings.

Review

“An exuberant look at animal pleasure.”
— Katherine Bouton,
New York Times Published On: 2011-07-18

“An irresistible new photo book.”
— Maureen Callahan,
New York Post Published On: 2011-07-24

“Intersperses glorious images of animals preening, grooming and gallivanting with snippets of studies suggesting such behaviours belie an overly utilitarian interpretation.”
— Tiffany O’Callaghan,
New Scientist Published On: 2011-05-07

“Here is a book to put a spring into anyone’s step. The Exultant Ark is a celebration of animal behaviour at its most uplifting.”
— Stuart Blackman,
Bbc Wildlife Magazine Published On: 2011-06-01

“All readers of this column must immediately purchase Jonathan Balcombe’s fabulous book.”
— Leigh Dayton,
The Australian Published On: 2011-10-22

“Both the stunning photography and Balcombe’s masterful prose are welcome additions to the growing literary and scientific evidence that debunk long-assumed myths while continuing to eliminate the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them.’”
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Veg News Mag Published On: 2011-09-01

“One of those rare volumes that will look good on your coffee table but might also change the way you think.”
— Harold Herzog,
American Journal Of Play Published On: 2012-02-20

“The studies he [Balcombe] invokes are hard to explain away. . . . Likewise, the photographs that make up the bulk of The Exultant Ark remind us that we are not as different from other animals on our planet as we like to think; the photos are anecdotal in nature, but they are utterly compelling.”
— Scott F. Parker,
Rain Taxi Review Of Books Published On: 2011-07-01

“This is one of those rare volumes that will look good on your coffee table but might also change the way you think.”
— Hal Herzog,
Psychology Today Published On: 2011-11-25

“This visually stunning book opens our eyes to a different, more scientifically up-to-date way of looking at the animal kingdom. . . . Old attitudes fall away as we gain a heightened sense of animal individuality and of the pleasures that make life worth living for all sentient beings.”
— Ian Paulsen,
The Guardian / Birdbooker Report Blog Published On: 2011-06-19

From the Inside Flap

“It is rare to find a scientist writing with such delight about, of all things, joy in the animal world! I have rarely experienced such pleasure in reading a book. I recommend it to all animal lovers, and even challenge a few skeptics, whose minds may be changed by this extraordinary work.”—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of
When Elephants Weep

“The Exultant Ark brilliantly and definitively demonstrates what pet owners have always known but what certain scientists still question, that animals think, feel, and have emotions, often pleasurable ones. It’s a must-read for anyone with even the slightest interest in the truths of the natural world. I couldn’t put it down!”—Elizabeth M