Book Reviews (yes, new books…about dogs!)
There is a rumor that someone is still reading books
- Yes, whether printed on paper or distributed digitally books are still popular. So, for those who actually enjoy reading books, 2021 and 2022 have brought some exceptional additions to the literature of human-canine relationships. Here are a few worthy of your consideration.
- Like many previous books in this genre, Chloe Shaw’s What Is a Dog? (published by Macmillan) and Rick Bragg’s The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People (published by Penguin-Random House) attempt to comprehend the minds of the often inscrutable, tail-wagging fur balls with whom so many people spend their lives. And while only the hardest-hearted readers will remain dry-eyed while reading these books, Shaw and Bragg resist cheap sentimentality and instead provide still more arguments for appreciating and truly acknowledging lives other than our own.
What is a Dog?
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“A dog isn’t an answer,” Shaw writes in one of her book’s many gorgeous sentences, “but something bewitched and infinite and other that so willingly holds you while you wonder, while you look.”
- With artful prose and a philosophical touch, Shaw takes us on an emotional journey anyone who has ever loved and lost a dog will connect with—and discovers dogs do more than just make our lives better—they quietly (and sometimes loudly) pull us boldly toward the person we were always meant to be. [Link]
Speckled Beauty
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In Speckled Beauty, the impetuous Australian shepherd that Bragg rescued near his rural home in 2017, the Alabama writer dispenses with talk of magic and sees the animal
for what it is. In this case, that’s enough. - This Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author puts a fresh spin on a classic theme: A wounded man rescues a wounded pet that in turn rescues him.
- Written with Bragg’s inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrow, humor and grit, The Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinary, sustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal. [Link]
Conservation Canines; How Dogs Work For The Environment
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Isabelle Groc is an award-winning environmental writer, conservation photographer and documentary filmmaker.
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She shares stories of dog encounters in the field and examples of canines working to conserve wildlife. Meet brave Anatolian shepherd dogs protecting farmers’ livestock against cheetah attacks and Maremma dogs guarding penguins from foxes. Learn how rescue dogs sniff out orca poop in the ocean to help science discover the cause of unsuccessful orca pregnancies and how highly focused canines can detect rare frogs hiding in wetland tunnels.
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The story of these conservation canines celebrates the profound and ancestral human–animal bond and gives hope and inspiration for finding new ways for people to successfully co-exist with wildlife. Conservation Canines; How Dogs Work For The Environment is published by Orca Book Publishers (September 2021) [Link] [Interview with Isabelle Groc about the dogs]
Return of the Magnificent Five: Canine Special Forces
- Finally, from a totally different realm, Roy D. Perkins’ new book “Return of the Magnificent Five: Canine Special Forces” is the story of five talking dogs who pull shenanigans together even in their afterlives.
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This is the story of five talking dogs who were abused by humans when they were alive. Now that the dogs are deceased, the tides have changed, and the dogs are telling the humans what to do.
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Author Roy D. Perkins describes his work, writing, “This is the story of five dogs, all deceased, as to their exploits as crime fighters on earth. When they were roaming the earth, the highlight of their day was stealing food, chasing other critters, destroying stuff, and occasionally, skinny-dipping in a pool, lake, or ocean. Published by Page Publishing, Roy D. Perkins’s fascinating tale follows the dogs to heaven and hell. In hell, the dogs come face-to-face with the humans who abused them. It’s bad enough for the humans to be hell’s prisoners; it’s much worse with the dogs being the prison wardens. In heaven, the Almighty assigns the dogs tasks to carry out on earth. They accomplish their tasks without regard to pride, ego, vanity, anger, prejudice, or greed. The dogs can’t be bought or conned by any of the humans they meet during their assignments. They carry out their assignments with total objectivity. [Link]
Happy reading!
Addendum
There are other recent books that are noteworthy and well liked. Here is a link to a description and links to these additional seven. [Link]
More Happy Reading