Rabbit Hunting & Adams' Watership Down

It's not often that I side with gun-toting psychopaths, but I'll make an exception for Mr. Rodney Wold of Kentucky. Here is yesterday's Daily Mail article about him, "Man threatens his neighbor with an AK-47 in a dispute over rabbits:"

A 64-year-old man brandishing an AK47 assault rifle allegedly threatened his neighbor after spotting him trying to scare rabbits away from his garden.

Rodney Wold, from Louisville, shouted from his porch: "If you want to hunt something, hunt men," according to police.

The dispute on Thursday started when Wold's neighbor was using an air rifle to scare rabbits away from his back garden. When Wold saw the neighbor, he allegedly fetched the AK47 from his house and appeared on his porch moments later, brandishing it.

"He loaded the magazine with, I believe it was, 19 rounds and went back outside and pointed it at his neighbor," police spokesman Carey Klain said.

Sounds like excellent material for the next Steven Seagal movie! Anyway, for a novel that will help you see the world from rabbits' perspective (and maybe even see Mr. Wold as a hero), try Richard Adams' Watership Down:

Richard Adams's bunny-centric epic...follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos.

Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a "lapine" glossary, a guide to rabbitese).  As much about freedom, ethics, and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates...