Temple Grandin is autistic, and has applied her experiences as an autistic woman to her work with animals. This book is sprinkled with information from all aspects of her work, including anecdotes of working within the food industry and why animals that are photographed in the wild are almost all marked with a white patch (no joke). It's a bit of a hard slog at times, and if you are at all at odds with the slaughter industry, you may feel that she is acting as an apologist and might become angry. While I don't believe she is doing so, I do believe that she is presenting events in a positive light, especially given her efforts to make slaughter more humane. Definitely worth a read.

Mind blowing. Temple Grandin comes at everything from such a different place that you can't help but look at the world from a different perspective once you start reading it. There was something on nearly every single page (Except for the weird final part, where she summarized things in outline form. I could've done without that) she shared a story or an insight or a study that left my jaw hanging open. A parrot who actually taught himself to spell. Dogs who somehow detect seizures in people before they happen. Meat packing plants that leave live animals wiggling on hooks. A farmer that has to cater to a boar's perversions in order to retrieve breeding semen. Crows that memorize where thousands of different food hiding places. It goes on. And on. And at the same time, not only are you realizing that there's a lot more going on in animals' skulls than we generally think, but you're gaining insight into how people with autism and other perception disorders view the world. I'm treating my animals and the people in my life differently because of this book. Any work responsible for that kind of transformation is worth recommending to everyone.

Prvá kniha, ktorú som sa rozhodla prečítať v dohľadnej dobe znova. Autorka je autistka a zároveň vysokoškolsky vzdelaná v odbore zoológia a etológia, čo dokazuje množstvom vedecky podložených faktov, o ktoré sa vo svojej knihe opiera. Pritom sú jej vysvetlenia jednoduché a veľmi pútavé (klobúk dole pred prekladateľmi do češtiny). Cez "autistické" vnímanie sveta vysvetľuje správanie zvierat. Ako sama autorka hovorí: "Autizmus je akousi medzistanicou na ceste od zvierat k ľudským bytostiam, čo umožňuje autistom, ako som ja, ideálnu pozíciu, aby prekladali zvieraciu reč."
Ukazuje, že autistov ani zvierat sa netreba báť. Stačí pochopiť a akceptovať ich vnímanie sveta.

It is a very well written book with great points about how both animals and autistic people are specialists rather than generalists. It drags too much in the middle, however, when it gets into really dense psychology.

I liked this book and found many of the author's insights fascinating. It is interesting in reading reviews that many people gave it five stars but an almost equal number gave it a one star. I think there was one reviewer that said she'd have given it less than the one if that option was available. My main complaint with the book was that there were too many (though captivating) details and not enough generalizations. But, that is what makes this book interesting. Temple Grandin admits that this is what autism is about and I think makes clear with her writing. I'll definitely be thinking about this book and reviewing some of the notes I took. By the way I don't normally mark passages but I was afraid I couldn't find them again because they were scattered about so much (like the nuts that squirrels hide for themselves) I was afraid I couldn't find them again.
I found a wonderful interview with Temple at: http://conversations.psu.edu/episodes...
It was so interesting to hear her speak after reading the book.

This book is worth reading if you go into it with the right mindset: Do not expect a scientific book or a writer who has a good grasp of science. The limits of Grandin's understanding of scientific concepts, such as evolution and scientific reasoning, are very apparent, as she makes numerous factually incorrect statements about them. She doesn't even seem to be aware that humans are animals, saying they "once were." There are many times where she makes very bold assumptions about the nature of animals or humans and admits that she has no evidence whatsoever to support it. She's often saying things such as, "I feel like" and "I don't know this for a fact, but I think..." Much of her "evidence" consists of "I had this one friend who had X experience, so I believe X (insert a broad generalization).

That being said, Grandin's perspective is in itself fascinating, as we don't always have the opportunity to hear so many specifics about the experience of being autistic from people with autism themselves. Some of the comparisons to animal experiences seemed at least plausible, if not supported by much evidence, and the studies she does discuss made for interesting reads.

My mother gave me this book and I wanted to get it read before my next trip north. I am very glad I did; it was fascinating on many levels.

Temple Grandin uses her own life experience as a person with autism to explore animal behavior. She compares the way brains work: 'normal' human, autistic human, animal. She talks about her own work and research with animals, but also mentions many research projects and publications that also deal with the ideas of why we (animals and people) are the way we are. How similar are we? How different?

Chapters range from 'How Animals Perceive The World' to 'Animal Aggression' to 'How Animals Think'. She talks about selective breeding and how it is changing not only dog breeds but pigs and cattle as well, because when one specific trait is encouraged, a lot of others are lost, thus affecting the overall disposition of the animal and creating health or behavior issues that were not around before.

I was tickled by the idea of prairie dog language, and the reason offered for why these little rodents seem to have developed the ability to use calls that correspond to nouns, verbs, entire sentences. While Man usually congratulates himself for being the only creature intelligent enough to develop language, what if that ability actually came from being a prey animal? If you are a prey animal and have no way at all to communicate to your fellows, you will all be eaten eventually. Prairie dogs are every predators favorite snack. Not hard to imagine how tantalizing early man would have been to all the hungry predators around those days. Language in man would have made it easier to survive. Apparently language in prairie dogs is doing the same thing. I thought that was cool, and would love to read more of the original papers written by Con Slobodchikoff about his research and findings.

I don't usually take as many notes for a print book as I do when I am reading online, so I don't have specific examples handy to share. But I have worked with animals: dogs and cats at two veterinary clinics, and even more closely later with horses. I found myself constantly thinking 'yes, of course', or 'Oh, that makes so much sense'. I think anyone who observes, loves, and understands animals will appreciate this book. And if a reader wants to develop better relationships with animals but would like some guidance, this an excellent place to begin, in my opinion.

During my four years living and working on a horse breeding farm, I often felt like one of the herd, as odd as that may sound. But I had developed a connection to the horses that allowed me to wander around with them as if, in their eyes, I was just another horse. This was a huge benefit when I was working with the babies. Once I was able to figure out why one youngster freaked out whenever we walked past a certain pick-up truck: he was seeing his reflection in the shiny bumper and thought it was a horse-eating monster. I coaxed him up to the truck and had him touch noses with himself. Whether he understood exactly what he was seeing at that point, I don't know, but he immediately relaxed, his entire body language revealing that he seemed very proud of himself right then, and he never was scared of that shiny truck bumper again.

My experiences over the years on the farm is why I agree so strongly with Ms. Grandin's final thoughts:

"I don't know if people will ever be able to talk to animals the way Doctor Doolittle could, or whether animals will be able to talk back. Maybe science will have something to say about that.

But I do know people can learn to "talk" to animals, and to hear what animals have to say, better than they do now. I also know that a lot of times people who can talk to animals are happier than people who can't. People were animals, too, once, and when we turned into human beings we gave something up. Being close to animals brings some of it back."

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I liked this book more than I expected. For a long time, I'd been reluctant to pick it up because I thought the premise was more or less, "I'm autistic so I'm halfway between 'normal' people and animals (every other species)." I'm sure I don't need to explain why that's offensive.

Instead, Dr. Grandin uses brain research, coupled with her experience as an autistic person, to try to explain how members of other species may experience the world.

If you can disregard the sweeping generalizations about "animals" (which range from clams to humans), Dr. Grandin has a lot to say. For starters, she points out that we don't treat other animals very well -- and she goes on to explain how treating members of other species as if they were human won't really rectify the situation. And some of the research she discusses is fascinating. I, for one, never knew that prairie dogs' language is so rich that it can be characterized in terms of nouns, verbs, and even adverbs.

Where I do take offense is that this book starts from the major premise that animal liberation is a pipe dream and that humans will continue to keep other species in captivity to serve our most trivial whims for time immemorial. The world Dr. Grandin envisions is one that's infinitely more humane than the one that exists now -- but I have hope that we can achieve even more.

Review to come.

I can't rate this since I had just couldn't force myself to finish it. I had difficulty with the authors'/editors' voice and it felt like, in the part I read anyway, the same point was being made over and over, and expanded upon, and remade. It turned into a Reading Chore … life is too short for reading as a chore. Probably a fine book for someone more disciplined than I.

I quit reading this after about three chapters. First, Ms. Grandin makes sweeping statements about the nature of people with autism based on her own experience, but those statements don't apply to all people "on the spectrum". Second, the book is full of anecdotal evidence and statements like "I think that ..." or "It seems to me that...". She provides a bibliography, presumably to support her arguments, but many of the entries are of things she has written herself. The feeling is of a set of opinions not backed up by much in the way of actual scientific studies.

I love psychology, so I was really pleased that this book is jam-packed with psychological data and experiments, in regards to both humans and animals. However, I feel like Temple Grandin may be a victim of her generation. She (or her coauthor, it's hard to tell) consistently refers to neurotypical people as "normal" which is generally something I don't feel should be in a professional book. The other thing about her that made me hesitate was her implication that rottweilers and pit bulls are inherently Dangerous Dogs.