'David Brooks is a consummate poet, or as we like to say in America, a poet's poet. So I feel a bit out of place in this volume of tributes, as I am not a poet. I am, however, a writer, and many of my books are about animals: what they feel, and what we feel when we think about them, or why we sometimes don't feel for them or even think about them. This is actually a rather poetic theme, and one, I now believe, best addressed by a poet, and not an animal scientist, or even an animal-scientist wannabe (me).' (Publication summary)