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A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, Susan Orlean has written with wit and endless curiosity about subjects ranging from umbrella inventors to origami artists, from the figure skater Tonya Harding to treadmill desks, gospel choirs, and taxidermy. She is the author of Rin Tin Tin, The Orchid Thief, and The Library Book, in which Orlean reopens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history. Her new book, On Animals, is a collection of Orlean’s lifetime of explorations of the creatures she finds most fascinating. They range from stories about lions to tigers to panda bears and beyond; profiles of dogs and donkeys; meditations on what it’s like to raise chickens and care for whales; stories about animals that star in movies, animals that go to war, and animals that are celebrated for being beautiful.