How to Love Animals by Henry Mance review – the case against modern farming

Turning vegan ... a series of investigations, presented with humour and humility, into our contradictory relationships with pets, livestock and wildlife

While researching this book, Henry Mance worked briefly in an abattoir, or a disassembly line", as he aptly terms it. As he watched sheep being stunned, their throats slit and then hung up, still twitching, from metal hooks on a motorised track, Mance asked himself: How did humans come to this?"

His book is an attempt to answer that question, as well as an exploration of how our attitudes to pets, livestock and wild animals have changed through history: I wanted to know whether my love for animals was reflected in how I behaved, or whether - like my love for arthouse films - it was mainly theoretical."