In these outrageously funny fables, featuring animals with unmistakably human failings, New Yorker contributor and public radio humorist David Sedaris holds up a bestial mirror to our own neuroses, illustrated with hilarious drawings by New Yorker cartoonist Ian Falconer. The title story features a pair of star-crossed lovers kept apart by prejudiced family members, while in "The Toad, the Turtle, and the Duck," three strangers in a complaint line commiserate about animal bureaucracy, and "The Grieving Owl" relates the humiliation of a once-proud owl after his family discovers who his new friends are.