Hen Press, a division of Our Hen House, is here to bring you the animal rights-related books and essays that you have dreamed of reading, but that mainstream publishers have missed out on. Thought-provoking, eye-opening, and inspiring, the works released by Hen Press have the power to truly transform human conceptions of non-human others — and to therefore change the world for animals! Hen Press works can be purchased through Amazon, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble.
The Lines We Draw, a short e-book written by civil engineer Sangamithra Iyer, is a story about boundaries — physical, biological, and ethical. It evolved out of a conversation with the late Dr. Alfred Prince, a hepatitis researcher, about the use of chimpanzees in medical research, and expanded into a larger discussion about ethics. Prince left New York University’s Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) in the 1970s to establish New York Blood Center’s chimpanzee research colony in Liberia. The story weaves various threads and makes connections among logging, the Liberian Civil War, and vivisection. Tragically, now that the New York Blood Center has ceased testing in Liberia, and chimpanzees have, by and large, been phased out of research in the US, the story told here gained new resonance after publication when these chimps were simply abandoned.
Maureen was written by Dr. Anat Pick, author and senior lecturer in film studies at Queen Mary, University of London in the UK. In this semi-fictional piece, the author tells the story of her chance meeting with Maureen, a resident at a nursing home in a Tel Aviv suburb and one of countless elderly patients in their final months and weeks of life. The author reflects on the shared vulnerability of institutionalized humans and animals in a society intent on keeping both out of sight and out of mind.
Thought-provoking and inspiring, this short but powerful book has the power to transform our conceptions of those who are vulnerable in our society.
You can purchase and download The Lines We Draw and Maureen on Amazon, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble. If you like what you read, please consider leaving a friendly review on any or all of the websites where they are available.