Winners of “A Dog About Town” by J.F. Englert

We have THREE WINNERS of “A Dog About Town”:

Tina (tbranco)
Jenners
Julie H.

I will be emailing you for your mailing addresses to send on to the dog Randolph.

Veterans Day Tribute to Dogs

On this Veterans Day let us take a moment to appreciate The Dogs of War.

Therapy Dogs in Iraq, USA Today, 12/12/07

1776: Newfoundland dogs served as messengers during the Revolutionary War

1865: During the Civil War, dogs were used as messengers, guards, and mascots

1884: The German Army established the first organized Military School for training war dogs at Lechernich, near Berlin

1898: Dogs served as scouts in the jungles of Cuba in the Spanish-American War

1914: Dogs served as messengers between trenches in World War I

1965: Some 3-4,000 scout and sentry dogs served in Vietnam

1991: During the Gulf War, the U.S. used 88 teams of dogs to guard and protect their troops, supplies and aircraft.

2009: Some 2,000 dogs serve GIs in the Middle East, mostly sniffing for explosives.

U.S. Air Force dog atop an M2A3 Bradley in Iraq, 2007

Sources:

K-9 History: The Dogs of War

The United States War Dogs Association

U.S. Army Quartermaster Foundation

Military Working Dog Adoptions (find out how to adopt a retired military dog, known for being “brave, heroic, loyal and noble.”)

Review of “A Morbid Taste for Bones” by Ellis Peters

Fifty-seven year old Welshman Brother Cadfael is a “squat, barrel-chested, bandy-legged” Benedictine monk in the 12th Century at the Abbey of Shrewsbury. He came to the monastery late in life after an action-packed youth that included a stint in the Crusades. The Abbey is a sort of retirement for him, and he works in the herbarium. There he is assisted by “the youngsters” Brother John and Brother Columbanus, only two years tonsured.

The Abbey Administrator, Prior Robert, ambitious and vain, is seeking some saintly relics (at that time they were considered as good as penicillin for what ailed you) to add to the glory of himself as well as the Abbey. Thus, he looks toward Wales, “where it was well known that holy men and women had been common as mushrooms in autumn…”

After a vision by Brother Columbanus, they settle on Winifred of Gwytherin in Wales, and the Abbot sends out a delegation to get her bones. Brother Cadfael goes along as an interpreter. In Gwytherin, the primary opponent of moving the saint, Rhisiart, is murdered, and Brother Cadfael helps solve the crime with the assistance of Sioned, the beautiful daughter of the murdered man.

When Brother Cadfael isn’t solving mysteries, he’s playing matchmaker, helping various young people find love and happiness. This process is assisted by his sense of humor, a wry religious realism, and a generosity of spirit. In addition, he alludes to memories of happiness with women as a young man, so you get a strong image of Anna in “The King and I,” looking out at the starry night and singing:

Hello young lovers, whoever you are,
I hope your troubles are few.
All my good wishes go with you tonight,
I’ve been in love like you.

Be brave, young lovers, and follow your star,
Be brave and faithful and true,
Cling very close to each other tonight.
I’ve been in love like you.

I know how it feels to have wings on your heels,
And to fly down the street in a trance.
You fly down a street on the chance that you meet,
And you meet — not really by chance.

Don’t cry young lovers, whatever you do,
Don’t cry because I’m alone;
All of my memories are happy tonight,
I’ve had a love of my own.
I’ve had a love of my own, like yours-
I’ve had a love of my own.”

Evaluation: This is a book one might call cozy-historical. It’s pleasant enough, although it’s a bit like drinking lite beer. The mystery is fairly obvious, and the characters aren’t fully fleshed out: what we learn about them is pretty much on a need-to-know basis. Still, you get some interesting insights into 12th Century England and Wales, especially into the religious life, and the story is not without its charms. It provides an enjoyable way to pass some time, although to be honest, the next book in the series is better. I would say this first book is one in which Peters sets out the premises of the series, lays some background, and tests her stride. You don’t need to read it to keep going in the series, but you won’t regret reading it, either.

Rating: 3/5

Review of “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I can’t tell you how long I resisted reading this “book with the funny title.” Wrong yet again! All that time I missed out on this heartwarming valentine to books and reading, and wonderful paean to hope and love.

The fictional literary society of the title was formed of necessity to outwit the Germans during their World War II occupation of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, strategically located between Britain and France. A group of friends got caught socializing after curfew and one of their more enterprising number came up with the Society as an excuse. The Germans appeared interested, and so the friends kept it up just in case the enemy should drop in for “meetings,” which indeed they did.

Subsequently, the lives of all members were transformed by the books they read. Their correspondence with one author in particular, Juliet Ashton (whose letters, notes, and telegrams form the core of the book), changes them all yet again, after Juliet can’t resist coming to Guernsey to meet the people who have been writing to her and learning more about them.

Some of the books discussed and the characters who read them include:

Dawsey Adams – Selected Essays of Elia; Biography of Charles Lamb
Isola Pribby – Wuthering Heights; Pride and Prejudice
Amelia Maugery – The Pickwick Papers
Eben Ramsey – Selections from Shakespeare
Clovis Fossey – Poems by Catullus
John Booker – The Letters of Seneca
Will Thisbee – Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present
Jonas Skeeter – The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Augustus Sarre – The Canterbury Tales
Kit Hellman – Elspeth the Lisping Bunny

Evaluation: Don’t let the quirky title of this lovely book, told in epistolary form, dissuade you from picking it up. You will enter an charming and inspirational world of bravery, hope, survival, literature, and above all, love.

Rating: 4.8/5

Note to readers: This review is part of my ongoing series, “Probable Last Person in the Universe to Have Read This Book.”

Review of “Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire is the “sequel” to The Hunger Games, although it’s really more of a continuation. I wouldn’t have wanted to read the second book without having read the first. But having read the first, I had to read the second, and having finished that one now too, I share the same anticipation of most of the YA world for the third one, yet to be published.

This supposed trilogy [can the author really stop at three after all the hoopla (read: income) surrounding these books?] centers on Katniss Everdeen, a young girl now age 17 in book two, who lives in constant fear that the evil government of Panem will hurt the ones she loves to punish her for inciting resistance throughout the country.

Panem is a dystopic descendant of the United States, divided into twelve districts and ruled with an iron glove. The government tries to inflame internecine conflict among the districts in the age-old strategy of keeping subjects divided in order to maintain control over them. But Katniss, unbeknownst even to herself, changes everything, and threatens to bring the hegemony of the Capitol to an end.

Katniss is idealistic, naïve, loving, brave, loyal, and apparently quite attractive, although to the author’s credit, she dwells on the character of Katniss much more than on her appearance. There are two young men in love with her, and each seems too good to be true, but let’s face it, who cares?

There’s lots of kissing in this book, but nothing more physically, and not even any bad language! Okay, there are brutal murders, but no one curses while committing them!

Evaluation: This is a must read for those who have read The Hunger Games, but it might be a bit confusing if you haven’t. I would agree with the reviews asserting that this book is not quite as good as the first, but it isn’t relevant: after you finish the first book, you are too sucked in not to want to read the second book!

Rating: 4/5

FTC Disclaimer: I won this book along with a pin and a t-shirt but the t-shirt is too small for me so it doesn’t count!

Note to readers: This review is part of my ongoing series, “Probable Last Person in the Universe to Have Read This Book.”

Review of “Living Dead in Dallas” by Charlaine Harris

I’m telling you, these books are just so clever and funny, you forget that you, a grown person who likes to think of herself in a literarily snobby manner, are really having a great time with a book series about vampires. Plus, the author adds redeeming value by her continuous thread highlighting and satirizing prejudice against groups which have not gained total acceptance.

Book 2 of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire romance-mystery series does not disappoint. More “supes” (supernatural beings) are added, but once you accept the premise of vampires, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. (…yet one more affirmation of the efficacy of Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith.”)

Sookie Stackhouse is a saucy and sassy 25-year-old barmaid in Bon Temps, Louisiana, working at Merlotte’s bar by day and dating Bill the Vampire by night. She also is telepathic, and once the vampires in the area catch on to this, they encourage Bill and Sookie to start up a “detective agency” of sorts so they can find out which humans are betraying them.

Because the Japanese perfected synthetic blood drinks, vampires have been able to come out of the closet and live in the “mainstream” of society (at least, during the evening hours) since they no longer need to feed on humans to survive. But there is still a lot of prejudice against vampires, and hate crimes are becoming a problem. In fact, “the fastest growing cult in America” is the Fellowship of the Sun. Its members are convinced that vampires are an abomination to God, and aim to kill all they can, along with any sympathetic humans. The vampires don’t want to exacerbate the situation by killing enemies indiscriminately. Thus, the need for Sookie’s telepathic skills.

Living Dead in Dallas is action-packed and has not a few moments of sex, but like the first book, the sex is rather tastefully depicted.

I particularly like this one passage that would be so poignant if there were such a thing as vampires. After both vampires and humans have a brush with death, the air is electric with erotic energy. Sookie observes:

…let’s face it, brushes with death have that effect. You want to reaffirm the fact that you’re alive. Though vampires actually aren’t, it seems they are no more immune to that syndrome than humans…”

Evaluation: Ack, I know I should feel shame: a bodice-ripper with vampires and shape-shifters and throbbing body parts… but I loved it anyway! Please don’t tell anyone….

Rating: 4/5

No One Was Exaggerating: Review of “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins

I can’t believe this book for young adults is as good as everyone said! Not that I don’t trust my fellow bloggers, but the premise seemed so grim that I couldn’t imagine making silk out of such a sow’s ear. I’m happy to declare I was so wrong.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen lost her father when she was 11. She lives in the poor coal-mining District 12 of Panem, a country that once was the United States, and residents of her district often die of starvation. When her father died, Katniss took to the woods to hunt food for her mother and little sister Prim.

Every year Panem holds a lottery to select two candidates from each of the twelve districts to fight to the death in “The Hunger Games.” (This is punishment that the twelve districts must endure for an uprising in which the thirteenth district was obliterated. The twelve must never be allowed to forget.) When Prim is selected, Katniss volunteers to take her place. Her male counterpart is Peeta, a boy who apparently has been in love with her all his life. But according to the rules of The Hunger Games, there can only be one winner out of the twenty-four; the rest must die.

Sounds depressing, doesn’t it? Noir-y? Violent? It’s a little of those things, but mostly it is surprisingly original, gripping, and memorable. And it’s a love story! The characters are almost uniformly likeable without being cardboard, and the fantastical elements are not too absurd or unbelievable. Well, maybe the last-featured of the mutations, or muttations [sic] as they are called. Otherwise, I am pleased to say there is no shark-jumping in this book.

Evaluation: This book is terrific. If you are one of the few people in the universe who have not yet read this, I think you should find out what all the buzz is about; you won’t be disappointed.

Rating: 4.5/5

FTC Disclaimer: I bought this book at Target in an attempt to sneak it into our “sundries” budget so my husband would not see that I bought yet another book.

Note to readers: This review is part of my ongoing series, “Probable Last Person in the Universe to Have Read This Book.”

Sunday Salon – Review of “Angels: A Pop-Up Book” by Chuck Fischer

This gorgeous pop-up book is guaranteed to thrill you even if you don’t have the slightest belief in Seraphim, Cherubim, Principalities, or any of the rest of the nine angelic orders.

According to St. Thomas of Aquinas in Summa Theologica, angels are intellectual creatures of pure spirit, i.e., they are completely incorporeal. Nevertheless, he concedes that from time to time they assume bodies just to perform some specific service for God.

This book highlights the visual representations of these incorporeal beings and tells something of the history of how they came to look the way they do in art and literature.

It is important to understand that, at least according to St. Thomas of Aquinas, an angel is not a dead human; angels are as different from humans as animals are from us. They are endowed with a power and intellect not proper to man. Thus the angels are not humans, and humans can never become angels. So how do we know what they might look like? Why do we depict them with wings, for example? Fischer tackles these questions and more in the surprisingly comprehensive written material.

The book is divided into three sections: Messengers, A Hierarchy of Angels, and Secular Angels. Next to the large central pop-up section on each page, small booklets to either side give explanations for what you are seeing, drawn from cultures and religions around the world.

But you don’t even need to read a thing to enjoy this book. I could sit and turn the pages for hours, just to partake in the pop-up confections. And you definitely don’t need to believe in angels. You just need an appreciation of art, culture, and design, and the magical wonder of elaborate pop-ups.

In the review by Kathy, a.k.a. Bermudaonion, you can see a quick one-minute video with more gorgeous pictures from this book.

Evaluation: If you need a lovely present to give someone for Christmas this year, I don’t think you can go wrong with this book! You might want to protect it from your resident wild things, however, whether human or beast.

Rating: 4/5

Thanks to Anna of Hachette Press for providing this gorgeous review copy.

Happy Halloween Post: Review of “Dead Until Dark” by Charlaine Harris

In general, I am wont to make scathing deprecations of vampire books. Historically, I have preferred to think of myself as sticking to a program of self-improvement suggested to me so many years ago by Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. But really, sometimes one just wants to have fun.

Michelle of Gallysmith insists that one place to go for fun is the Sookie Stackhouse mystery series, and by George, I believe she’s correct!

Dead Until Dark is the first book of this mystery series that features Sookie Stackhouse, a saucy, telepathic blonde, blue-eyed, 25-year-old barmaid from northern Louisiana who falls for a vampire named Bill. Bill is tall, dead, and handsome; preternaturally strong and correspondingly unhumanly gentle; and filled with a longing for love that has been building for centuries.

The author of the Sookie Stackhouse books (adapted by HBO into the series “True Blood”) has a delightful sense of humor and an impish imagination. She portrays vampires as having a social status analogous to gays: vampires can now be “out of the coffin” (read: closet); there is controversy over how they got to be that way; there are politically correct ways to refer to them; there are hangers-on called “fang-bangers” (read: fag-hags); and there is some vicious prejudice against them and occasional hate crimes. Yet this sometimes serious approach is both tempered and augmented by the author’s sense of humor.

Sookie’s telepathy also adds to the fun, especially since vampires’ minds are closed to her – which is part of Bill’s appeal. As Sookie says:

…sex, for me, is a disaster. Can you imagine knowing everything yor sex partner is thinking? Right. Along the order of ‘Gosh, look at that mole…her butt is a little big…wish she’d move to the right a little…why doesn’t she take the hint and…?’ You get the idea. It’s chilling to the emotions, believe me.”

By the way, yes, there are sex scenes, but they mange to be romantic and titillating [sic] without any off-putting language or anatomical detail. And yes: apparently having sex with a vampire is all that it’s cracked up to be!

Best vignette:

The first time Sookie brings Bill home to meet her grandmother (with whom she has lived ever since her parents died when she was almost seven), she tells Bill: “Gran says to please eat before you come.”

Worst revelation about myself:

Ugh: Clearly I’m in that demographic that has long transitioned from the passionate excitement of romantic pursuits and crazed hormonal longings to the mundane quotidianness of settled life. (read: “whose turn is it to wait for the cable guy?” and “don’t forget the trash!”) I’m just ripe for the picking for this kind of book, in which I can thrill to the “Remembrance of Things Past.” How embarrassing. Sigh.

Evaluation: A bodice ripper with blood, and loads of fun.

Rating: 4/5

Shelf Cleaning Giveaway Winners

Congratulations to the winners!

J. T. Oldfield wins Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro – paperback.
Trisha (Electic Eccentric) wins Testimony – Anita Shreve – paperback.
Janel wins Feather Man – Rhyll McMaster – paperack.
Megan (Write Meg) wins The Gargoyle – Andrew Davidson – paperback ARC.

I will be sending emails to all of the winners.