“Animals in Translation” is premised on two concepts: autistic people are like animals insofar as both have less dominant frontal lobes than normal humans; and that while most of the book consists of Grandin's educated guesses, her autism makes her guesses different because she often “happens to be right.” That is, her insights are corroborated if not proven by observable results. Her emphasis on the adaptive abilities of animals, their capacity to learn and teach cultures, their different-but-not-better/worse ways of perceiving and understanding the world makes a strong argument against the rapidly eroding chauvinism that puts humans above, rather than among, our closest relatives.

The book is structured in short vignettes told in a uniquely straightforward style. Each contains an insight informed either by an anecdote from Grandin's experience or a summary of an ethology or psychology or neuroscience experiment. The research is compelling and interesting, and while the book meanders gently without an arc or an agenda, it never seemed boring, repetitive, or pointless. The format simply reinforces the values in Grandin's mind, along with a few key take-away concepts about neuroscience and psychology.

The way the book is sold is a bit unfortunate – using the “mysteries of autism” to “decode” animal behavior, etc. The book often seemed self-conscious of the fact that people would read it looking for specific advice about animal decisions and behaviors in their lives. However, that never felt like the authors were distracting from what they wanted to say in order to give readers the dumbed-down take-home advice. Rather, it felt like Grandin was simply expressing something deeply pragmatic in her personality, which is exemplified in her work, which one would think she'd find emotionally traumatic: she abets the efficient slaughter of her favorite animal, cows, simply to ease their suffering.

There are quite a few memorable tidbits in the book. For instance, the fact that elephants communicate in sub-audible frequencies at distances up to 25 miles. Or that tigers have to be taught to restrain themselves from killing as many prey animals as they feel like (I'd always assumed predation was limited by availability of prey/energy budget of predator). Or that dogs are believed to have diverged genetically from wolves over 130,000 years ago, indicating that most of the lifespan of our species has been spent alongside domesticated dogs. Apparently some people think that many of the traits that make us relatively unique among primates – same-sex, non-kin friendships; complex social structures; hunting in groups; etc. Dogs may have enabled many of the differences that enabled our rapid evolution away from the lifestyles and biologies of other hominids. That's a pretty neat idea.