Tuesday, August 4, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Skylight Books, Los Angeles
A dazzling journey into the hidden lives of synanthropes, the wild animals who’ve found ingenious ways to survive and thrive in human communities—from award-winning writer and scientist Dan Werb Synanthropes have always been an immutable part of the tapestry of our lives. They are the reason we hear birdsong in the morning and skittering throughout the day, and why we take such pains to fix lids to our garbage cans. But they are so much more than that, too: epidemic vectors, churners of soil, ecosystem evolvers, spiritual lodestars, and, sometimes, sharp-toothed marauders making their way through our most intimate spaces with cruel intent. But beyond their quotidian impact on our lives, synanthropes have a critical part to play in how our communities are shaped and how sustainably they function. These creatures are ambassadors from nature, arbiters of our planet’s future, and a key influence on our species’ ongoing evolution; and recently, something essential has shifted with them. We are in a fraught era of environmental disruption, habitat destruction, and human population expansion that is ravaging formerly wild and untouched habitats. That’s caused us to become ever more inundated with synanthropes, which are bringing delight, chaos and danger to our doorstep. These species, so long dismissed, are forcing us to reckon with them—from the hundreds of thousands of raccoons in urban spaces that spread our refuse no matter how many "raccoon-proof" bags and bins we invent, to the invasive kudzu plants that grow a foot a day, enveloping houses, telephone poles, trees, and any other structures into their green abyss. Now, as urban spaces increasingly become wild spaces, we have a choice: continue to resist them by any means necessary, or take the opportunity to promote a more harmonious coexistence. Through vivid storytelling, Our Wild Familiars brings to spectacular life the world’s most successful synanthropes, from bats, raccoons, and crows, to some of its weirdest, including the Giant Pacific Octopus. Acting as a guide to the curious, Werb reveals how the cracks in our millennia-long efforts to shield ourselves against the outside world might just lead us to a new and necessary balance with nature—or to an ever more savage future. Dan Werb, PhD is an award-winning writer and social epidemiologist whose work—which primarily investigates the link between big events and human society—has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Believer Magazine, and many other outlets. He is an associate professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California San Diego and in the School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Werb is the author of two previous books, City of Omens and the award-winning The Invisible Siege. Miguel Ordeñana is an environmental educator and wildlife biologist. He works at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County as a Senior Manager in the Community Science office. As a community science senior manager, Miguel promotes and creates community science projects, and recruits and trains participants. Miguel utilizes his mammal research background by conducting urban mammal research in L.A. and leads NHMLAC’s Southern California Squirrel Survey and Backyard Bat Survey. Miguel serves as an advisor on a jaguar project in southwestern Nicaragua that he initiated in 2012 as well as a Board Member for the Friends of Griffith Park and the National Wildlife Federation. Miguel is dedicated towards making science and access to nature more equitable with a goal of increasing the representation and retention of underrepresented communities within the environmental field. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California, and an M.S. in Ecology from the University of California Davis. Gerry Hans has been active with park issues for over twenty years and was a diligent member of the Griffith Park Master Plan Working Group which convened in 2005. He served as president of Oaks Homeowners for three years (2005-2007) and fought for the City’s toughest anti-mansionization code to protect the community’s unique character and its role as good neighbor to the adjacent Park with plenty of open space. Gerry also played a very early role in establishing invaluable baseline scientific survey work for the park beginning in late 2006 through the Griffith Park Natural History Survey. He served on the Parks, River and Open Space Committee of the local neighborhood council until 2010, and has been currently active with the county-wide helicopter noise reduction movement.