#AcademicRunPlaylist - 1/19/25

We had lovely weather in Boston today before the cold snap, and while looking at mink tracks (probably) in the snow I also listened to a book for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

Today I listened to "Why Animals Talk" by Arik Kershenbaum. This book reviews the audible communication approaches of a variety of different species, interrogating the evolutionary advantages of different signals and how they relate to cognition and socialization. The audiobook version is particularly good because they play recordings of the different vocalizations Kershenbaum discusses. I would have liked this book to go beyond audio communication only, as most communication is multimodal, and if you've read "Alex and Me" the chapter on parrots is almost entirely superfluous. Still, this book stands as an interesting entry in the animal communication canon https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/726952/why-animals-talk-by-arik-kershenbaum/