The Best-Selling Animal Rights Audiobooks of All Time

This volume provides a general overview of the basic ethical and philosophical issues of animal rights. It asks questions such as: Do animals have moral rights? If so, what does this mean? What sorts of mental lives do animals have, and how should we understand welfare? By presenting models for understanding animals' moral status and rights, and examining their mental lives and welfare, David DeGrazia explores the implications for how we should treat animals in connection with our diet, zoos, and research.

Animal Rights distinguishes itself by combining intellectual rigor with accessibility, offering a distinct moral voice with a non-polemical tone.

Animal rights. Those two words conjure diverse but powerful images and reactions. Some nod in agreement, while others roll their eyes in contempt. Most people fall somewhat uncomfortably in the middle, between endorsement and rejection, as they struggle with the profound moral, philosophical, and legal questions provoked by the debate. Today, thousands of organizations lobby, agitate, and educate the public on issues concerning the rights and treatment of nonhumans. For the Prevention of Cruelty is the first history of organized advocacy on behalf of animals in the United States to appear in nearly a half century.

Diane Beers demonstrates how the cause has shaped and reshaped itself as it has evolved within the broader social context of the shift from an industrial to a postindustrial society. Until now, the legacy of the movement in the United States has not been examined. Few Americans today perceive either the companionship or the consumption of animals in the same manner as did earlier generations. Moreover, powerful and lingering bonds connect the seemingly disparate American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of the nineteenth century and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals of today. For the Prevention of Cruelty tells an intriguing and important story that reveals society’s often changing relationship with animals through the lens of those who struggled to shepherd the public toward a greater compassion.

In Entangled Empathy, scholar and activist Lori Gruen argues that rather than focusing on animal “rights,” we ought to work to make our relationships with animals right by empathetically responding to their needs, interests, desires, vulnerabilities, hopes, and unique perspectives. Pointing out that we are already entangled in complex and life-altering relationships with other animals, Gruen guides readers through a new way of thinking about―and practicing―animal ethics. Gruen describes entangled empathy as a type of caring perception focused on attending to another’s experience of well-being.

It is an experiential process involving a blend of emotion and cognition in which we recognize we are in relationships with others and are called upon to be responsive and responsible in these relationships by attending to another. When we engage in entangled empathy we are transformed and in that transformation we can imagine less violent, more meaningful ways of being together.

A powerful and wide-ranging indictment of the treatment of animals by humans--and an eloquent plea for animal rights. Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog, or mouse experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do. In a compelling appeal to reason and human kindness, Matthieu Ricard here takes the arguments from his best-sellers Altruism and Happiness to their logical conclusion: that compassion toward all beings, including our fellow animals, is a moral obligation and the direction toward which any enlightened society must aspire. 

He chronicles the appalling sufferings of the animals we eat, wear, and use for adornment or “entertainment,” and submits every traditional justification for their exploitation to scientific evidence and moral scrutiny.  What arises is an unambiguous and  powerful ethical imperative for treating all of the animals with whom we share this planet with respect and compassion.

In this thought-provoking book, Tobias Leenaert leaves well-trodden animal advocacy paths and takes a fresh look at the strategies, objectives, and communication of the vegan and animal rights movement. He argues that, given our present situation, with entire societies dependent on using animals, we need a very pragmatic approach. How to Create a Vegan World contains many valuable ideas and insights for both budding advocates for animals and seasoned activists, organizational leaders, and even entrepreneurs.

THE UPDATED CLASSIC OF THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, NOW WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY YUVAL NOAH HARARI. “The indispensable foundational text for the movement, new and updated with the honesty and philosophical depth characteristic of all of Singer’s work.” —J.M. Coetzee, author of The Lives of Animals and Disgrace. “Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential.”—The New Yorker. Few books maintain their relevance – and have remained continuously in print – nearly 50 years after they were first published. 

Animal Liberation, one of TIME’s “All-TIME 100 Best Non-Fiction Books” is one such book. Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation Now, Singer exposes the chilling realities of today's "factory farms" and product-testing procedures, destroying the spurious justifications behind them and showing us just how woefully we have been misled. Now, for the first time since its original publication, Singer returns to the major arguments and examples and brings us to the current moment. This edition, revised from top to bottom, covers important reforms in the European Union, and now in various U.S. states, but on the flip side, Singer shows us the impact of the huge expansion of factory farming due to the exploding demand for animal products in China. Further, meat consumption is taking a toll on the environment, and factory farms pose a profound risk for spreading new viruses even worse than COVID-19. Animal Liberation Now includes alternatives to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. An important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency, and justice, it is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike.

Immerse yourself in the world of animal rights protests, campaigns, demonstrations, outreach, rescue, and so much more. In today’s world, voices of the marginalized are in the spotlight and people across the globe are recognizing animal rights as a social justice movement. During a time of historic actions and victorious campaigns, Voices for Animal Liberation depicts the full spectrum of animal rights activism that is currently at work to create change.

This book offers the words of both new and highly influential voices in the movement today, with the intention of inspiring and educating those who are sparked by the vision of a more ethical world. Including a foreword by Ingrid Newkirk, founder and president of PETA and arguably one of the most prolific figures in the animal rights movement, other contributors include:   Jasmine Afshar, army veteranChase Avior, actor and filmmakerGene Baur, founder of Farm SanctuaryDotsie Bausch, Olympic medalist and founder of Switch4GoodAlex Bez, founder and director of Amazing Vegan OutreachMatthew Braun, former investigator of farms and slaughterhousesSaengduean Lek Chailert, founder of Save Elephant FoundationAmy Jean Davis, founder of Los Angeles Animal SaveKaren Davis, founder of United Poultry ConcernsSean Hill, award-winning multidisciplinary artist and humanitarianWayne Hsiung, cofounder of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE)Gwenna Hunter, event coordinator for Vegan Outreach and founder of Vegans of LAAnita Krajnc, founder of the Save MovementCory Mac a’Ghobhainn, organizer with Progress for ScienceJo-Anne McArthur, photographer and founder of We Animals MediaZafir Molina, truth seeker and movement artistShaun Monson, documentary filmmakerAlexandra Paul, actress and cohost of Switch4GoodBrittany Peet, Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement for PETAJill Robinson, founder and CEO of Animals AsiaZoe Rosenberg, founder of Happy Hen Animal SanctuaryDani Rukin, citizen journalist for JaneUnchained NewsJasmin Singer, cofounder of Our Hen House and Senior Features Editor for VegNewsKathy Stevens, founder of Catskill Animal SanctuaryNatasha & Luca, “That Vegan Couple,” social media influencersWill Tuttle, visionary author and speakerGillian Meghan Walters, creator of MummyMOO project  Connect with activists from different backgrounds as they reveal their perspectives on animal rights, their experiences taking action for animals, the challenges they've faced, and the meaning of activism in their lives.

A revolutionary new theory and call to action on animal rights, ethics, and law from the renowned philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum. Animals are in trouble all over the world. Whether through the cruelties of the factory meat industry, poaching and game hunting, habitat destruction, or neglect of the companion animals that people purport to love, animals suffer injustice and horrors at our hands every day. The world needs an ethical awakening, a consciousness-raising movement of international proportions. In Justice for Animals, one of the world’s most influential philosophers and humanists Martha C.

Nussbaum provides a revolutionary approach to animal rights, ethics, and law. From dolphins to crows, elephants to octopuses, Nussbaum examines the entire animal kingdom, showcasing the lives of animals with wonder, awe, and compassion to understand how we can create a world in which human beings are truly friends of animals, not exploiters or users. All animals should have a shot at flourishing in their own way. Humans have a collective duty to face and solve animal harm. An urgent call to action and a manual for change, Nussbaum’s groundbreaking theory directs politics and law to help us meet our ethical responsibilities as no book has done before.

A searing memoir of an animal rights campaigner’s effort to stop Canada’s seal hunt, while handling domestic abuse and her partner’s long-term illness. When two government agents asked Karen Levenson whether she knew any terrorists or was one herself, she couldn’t have been more astonished.

Passionately and professionally engaged in the struggle to end Canada’s seal hunt, she considered her efforts to persuade chefs to boycott Canadian seafood, her deep-dive investigation of hunt economics, and her campaign to end animal suffering not only as far from terrorism as possible, but the mission she’d been called upon to do since she was a child. But, as she relates in her vividly told and revelatory memoir, Levenson’s life has been marked by waves of unwarranted accusations and implicit or explicit violence: whether from government agencies, sealers, or even family members. Confessions of an Animal Rights Terrorist is at once an insider’s account of the decades-long attempt to end the seal hunt; an absorbing exploration of one woman’s growing awareness of animal cruelty and her emerging confidence, commitment, and knowledge; and a searingly honest memoir of domestic violence, caregiving, and the possibility of redemption. By turns infuriating, funny, and deeply moving, Confessions of an Animal Rights Terrorist reveals the extraordinary journey of an ordinary woman who comes face to face with breathtaking cruelty and does what she can to stop it.