Best books… Kathryn Hughes

The historian and author picks her favourite books about the relationship between humans and animals. Her new book, Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World (4th Estate £22), is out this week

My Family and Other

Animals by Gerald Durrell, 1956 (Penguin £8.99). I can still remember the ecstatic moment when I first read this book as an animal-mad nineyear-old. While Durrell was consorting with geckos in prewar Corfu, I was mixing it up with ducklings in 1970s Sussex, but still the sense of connection was immediate.

H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald, 2014 (Vintage £10.99). MacDonald’s 2014 account of how she combined a year of grieving for her beloved father with training her goshawk Mabel was a huge hit. A decade on, and it reads as searingly as ever. In lyrical prose MacDonald describes how she learns to anticipate Mabel’s every feathered move.

The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, 1889 (Dover £3.95). In the 1880s, Andrew Lang repackaged spooky European folk tales for the British middle classes. In this, he includes the stories of Dick Whittington and Puss in Boots. Dick’s nameless feline is a faithful servant, while Puss is a flamboyant trickster. They both bag their masters fame and fortune in the end, though.

My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerley, 1956 (NYRB Classics £8.99). Ackerley’s German shepherd Tulip was skittish and wild, but he adored her anyway. She loved him back, to the point of distraction. In this funny, tender classic we are presented with a profound meditation on the strangeness that lies at the heart of all relationships, whether they involve wet noses and waggy tails or not.

I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki, 1906 (Tuttle £16.99). This Japanese novel is narrated by a nameless cat who is secretly appalled at his ridiculous owner, the bumbling “Mr Sneeze”, who attempts to appear Westernised by singing opera in the lavatory. If you’re one of those people who worries that your cat is secretly judging you, the sad truth is that it almost certainly is.