'Over the last few decades, it has fallen increasingly to novelists, like J.M. Coetzee, and poets, like David Brooks - artists whose language has slipped the leash of 'pure reason' - to awaken us to the possibility of moral encounter with non-human animals. Brooks's Turin meditations are truly a startling achievement. They startle us from an impoverished slumber, leaving us wondering how we could have been so blind to the gentle presence, the insistent voices, the sly wisdom, the subtle reproach, the offers of friendship held out by our non-human companions. The world cannot help but look different once Brooks rips away the veil of our all-too-human conceit.' - Scott Stephens 'the work of a fine writer and poet who knows how to craft sentences that live, affective vignettes that gesture not only towards the horrendous, inconceivable suffering experienced by animals, but towards alternative realities ... [A] book that can be dipped into anywhere and appreciated anytime for its stunning prose in which ethics, rhetoric and aesthetic expression merge' - Jennifer Ann McDonell, The Conversation For further info and news visit David's website at: www.davidbrooks.net.au