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What makes us human, and why are we so sure we're different from other animals? Sean Wilson sits down with Melanie Challenger to discuss her acclaimed new book, How to Be Animal: A New History of What It Means to Be Human.

Using a combination of memoir, historical texts, interweaving interviews and cultural and environmental history, How to Be Animal is a book for anyone who has ever contemplated what humans are and what makes our species so simultaneously brilliant and awful. Even more so, it is a book that asks tantalizing philosophical questions, such as whether and how human life matters.

Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.

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