Dogs are getting lawyers. Cats are getting kidney transplants. Could they one day be fellow citizens? Cats and dogs were once wild animals. Today, they are family members and surrogate children. A little over a century ago, pets didn't warrant the meager legal status of property. Now, they have more rights and protections than any other animal in the country. Some say they're even on the verge of becoming legal persons. How did we get here, and what...

Rats represent the worst of us or at least, that's what we tell ourselves. They are rapacious, over-sexed, pestilent and, on occasion, cannibalistic. But, as with all 'vermin', rats are in fact a mirror species, reflecting back to us our worst excesses. They are also a creature to which we owe a lot. Arguably no other animal has done more for the advance of human medicine than the rat. In Stowaway, Joe Shute unpicks this complex relationship between...