Animals feature in literature for many reasons, to examine complex ideas in an approachable form, perhaps to depict different aspects of human nature, or to explore the world from a non-human perspective. Animals may play a small but significant role, as in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs, or a major one as in Flush, by Virginia Woolf. We expect to read both fiction and non-fiction. All members of the group will be involved in choosing the books to read.