Jenny Diski has always been fascinated by how we watch ourselves: from the point of view of psychology, sociology and surveillance. She has watched animals and written about them, visiting places where animals are studied (university departments and field studies here and abroad) and spending time with the researchers and the animals. She's also watched in an unofficial way - birds outside her study window, ants on the patio, zoos, safari parks, her cats ...She has used these travels and observations to encounter not only the watchers and the watched but also more general human behaviour and of course herself. WHAT I DON'T KNOW ABOUT ANIMALS is about Jenny Diski's own experience as both a watcher (a teacher in state schools and a 'free school' that she set up in the 70's) and as watched (childhood, school, psychiatric hospital, writer, as well).