Winner of the 2017 Ursa Major Award for Best Non-Fiction Work! Furry fandom is a recent phenomenon, but anthropomorphism is an instinct hard-wired into the human mind: the desire to see animals on a more equal footing with people. It’s existed since the beginning of time in prehistoric cave paintings, ancient gods and tribal rituals. It lives on today—not just in the sports mascots and cartoon characters we see everywhere, but in stage plays, art galleries, serious literature, performance art—and among furry fans who bring their make-believe characters to life digitally, on paper, or in the carefully crafted fursuits they wear to become the animals of their imagination. In Furry Nation, author Joe Strike shares the very human story of the people who created furry fandom, the many forms it takes—from the joyfully public to the deeply personal— and how Furry transformed his own life.

From New York Times bestseller and Hugo Award-winner John Scalzi, an extraordinary retelling of the SF classic Little Fuzzy ZaraCorp holds the right to extract unlimited resources from the verdant planet Zarathustra—as long as the planet is certifiably free of native sentients. So when an outback prospector discovers a species of small, appealing bipeds who might well turn out to be intelligent, language-using beings, it's a race to stop the corporation from "eliminating the problem," which is to say, eliminating the Fuzzies—wide-eyed and ridiculously cute small, and furry—who are as much people as we are. Other Tor Books The Android’s Dream Agent to the Stars Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded Fuzzy Nation Redshirts 1. Lock In 2. Head On The Interdepency Sequence 1. The Collapsing Empire 2. The Consuming Fire Old Man's War Series 1. Old Man’s War 2. The Ghost Brigades 3. The Last Colony 4. Zoe’s Tale 5. The Human Division 6. The End of All Things At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Furry fandom—an adult social group interested in anthropomorphic animals in art, literature and culture—has grown since the 1980s to include an estimated 50,000 “furries.” Their largest annual convention drew more than 6,000 attendees in 2015, including 1,000 dressed in “fur suits” or mascot-type animal costumes. Conventions typically include awards, organizations, art, literature and movies, encompassing a wide range of creative pursuits beyond animal costuming. This study of the furry subculture presents a history of the oft-misunderstood group and lists all conventions around the world from 1989 through 2015, including organizers, guests of honor and donations to charity.

Kosher? That means the rabbi blessed it, right? Not exactly. In this captivating account of a Bible-based practice that has grown into a multibillions-dollar industry, journalist Sue Fishkoff travels throughout America and to Shanghai, China, to find out who eats kosher food, who produces it, who is responsible for its certification, and how this fascinating world continues to evolve. She explains why 86 percent of the 11.2 million Americans who regularly buy kosher food are not observant Jews—they are Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, vegetarians, people with food allergies, and consumers who pay top dollar for food they believe “answers to a higher authority.” Fishkoff interviews food manufacturers, rabbinic supervisors, and ritual slaughterers; meets with eco-kosher adherents who go beyond traditional requirements to produce organic chicken and pasture-raised beef; sips boutique kosher wine in Napa Valley; talks to shoppers at an upscale kosher supermarket in Brooklyn; and marches with unemployed workers at the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant. She talks to Reform Jews who are rediscovering the spiritual benefits of kashrut, and to Conservative and Orthodox Jews who are demanding that kosher food production adhere to ethical and environmental values. And she chronicles the corruption, price-fixing, and strong arm tactics of early-twentieth-century kosher meat production, against which contemporary kashrut standards pale by comparison. A revelatory look at the current state of kosher in America, this book will appeal to anyone interested in food, religion, Jewish identity, or big business.

A miner on the planet Zarathustra crosses paths with an adorable fuzzy creature -- and soon realizes that the little guy may possess human-like intelligence. This realization may throw the social and political balance of the planet into question, and several different groups are soon engaged in a heated race to gauge the smarts of the small fuzzy fellows.

Now in paperback and with an update about pets during COVID. In the last 20 years pets have gone from the backyard to sleeping on our beds, then showing up in every corner of America. Pet Nation tells the story of this seismic shift and the economic, media, legal, political, and social dramas springing from this cultural transformation. Since 1998 the pet population in the U.S. has almost doubled -- about two-thirds of the country now owns a pet. No longer left to wander the neighborhood, dogs and cats eat special food, get individualized medical attention, and even fly in the cabin. As founder of the Animal Policy Group, Mark Cushing provides an inside look at the rise of Pet Nation, tracking the myriad ways pets are acquired (a "Canine Freedom Train" runs south to north), reporting on pet rights legislation (and the unseen problems that come with elevating their status), pet healthcare (revealing the truth and myths about large scale breeders), and discovering that despite what many organizations would have us believe, there is a shortage of dogs. Insightful, surprising, and full of great stories, Pet Nation opens our eyes to the big changes happening in front of us right now. It shows us not only what our love of animals says about pets, it shows us what it says about ourselves.

In simple text a set of animals, each one linked to the previous one by some trait of shape, color, or pattern, greet and interact with one another.