Welcome to Litsy!

Compelling but stressful. Unique set of POVs, but in order to build tension (one of the book's central aims?) the time spent is not divided equally between each perspective. I would much rather have spent more time with the elephant or seen more of the wildlife reserve people (corrupt or not they should have had their own POV) than the filmmakers or the poacher family, but that wasn't the focus the author provided. 1/?

"Terrible gift." ?

The idea of bird-specific emotions: delineated by bird-only experiences.
A fresh perspective - I love it!

I didn‘t like this. I didn‘t care about the humans and those chapters bored me. I liked the elephant chapters at first, but they went downhill because they weren‘t all from the elephant‘s point of view, but some of those chapters followed the “handlers” more and there was a bit of elephant mythology. The book did pick up in the last 1/3 or so.

For such a short little book, it really packs a punch. It's not one to say I "enjoyed," because the subject matter is so difficult.

Gravedigger is an elephant known for killing people for reasons that are rooted in a past of painful interactions with men. Manu is a young man whose life is deeply and irrevocably changed by him. Emma is a journalist examining human/elephant interactions. This is a story with no resolution, but reflects reality.

This is not easy to read. I'm barely 50 pages in, and my heart is already being wrenched to pieces. A fictional story that examines the very real problem of human-animal conflict. I can already tell that the author is purposely painting a picture in which the lines of right vs wrong and good guy vs bad guy are blurred. #currentlyreading #emotionalread #elephant #india 🐘

This week I‘m #currentlyreading The Tusk That Did the Damage. I‘ve been trying to read different genres back to back so I don‘t end up in another slump.

#amreading #fiction #animals #contemporary #india

This is on my TBR and haven't read it yet but I believe that one of the narrators is an elephant, which is definitely an #unusualnarrator! #anditsaugust @RealLifeReading

This is on my TBR. Told from multiple viewpoints, one of which is a bull elephant. #AndItsAugust #unusualnarrators

Clearly I need a chaperone when I go to the library. This is a ridiculous amount of books to add to the 12 I already had checked out. I. Cannot. Resist. #libraryhaul #bookaddict

Though a small, fast read, I found myself having difficulty getting through this touching, tragic story. The complicated relationship between the elephants, the civilians, the poachers, and the government reveals the raw emotions and desperation of each group.

Went on an 8 mile hike today with friends. Now it's time to put my feet up. Spending the rest of the evening curled up with a cup of hot tea and a good book.

We played with SO many elephants today at the elephant sanctuary 🎉. They are just delightful animals - sweet and playful and protective and very enthusiastic about water and bananas. We fed them, bathed them, and splashed around in the river with them. An amazing experience. They truly are huge and powerful; you never for a moment forget that you are in the presence of the most revered animal in Thailand.

Conservation, corruption, and the horrors of the ivory trade. Told from three perspectives: a poacher, a documentary filmmaker, and an elephant. I was surprised to find I enjoyed the poacher's sections the best.

"It is difficult to place faith in a man who tells you during a ten-minute phone call from prison not to worry."

I really need to return my public library books so I'm trying to make some headway with these. Not positive I'll read the middle one, does anyone have thoughts? It's simply the last book nominated for the Dylan Thomas Prize this year that I hadn't read.

I loved this book and taught it in my Animals in Literature course. The different narrators give you various angles on the elephants and the issues involving conservation, economics, art, and animal emotion.

The kind of book that stays with you long after you finish

"He remembered the first bewildering time he hiccuped in his mothers womb. He remembered the watery glug of his mother‘s heart, a slow bass to his frantic ticking, and the metallic scent that met him when he emerged into the world."

-- The Gravedigger, an elephant who narrates part of the novel