Month: January 2010

by Stephen Budiansky

A very interesting book about horse evolution and behavior. It has a scientific bent, but is well-written and easy to read.  As well as delving into the origins of many things horses do and how they act, it also debunks a lot of myths about horses, looking closely at reasons behind them. I wasn\’t familiar with a lot of these misconceptions, having never owned a horse or been part of the horsey world, but I liked reading about them nonetheless. Some of the more interesting parts were in the beginning, where The Nature of Horses discusses how horses might have first been domesticated by man. In the latter section the book focuses on how present-day horse breeding practices (particularly closed stud books) are affecting the animal, and what this might do to domestic horse breeds in the future. Overall a book any horse owner (or one just interested in the animals, like myself) is sure to enjoy.

Rating: 3/5 …….. 290 pages, 1997

More opinions at:
Dana\’s Doodles
Women and Horses 
the stay at home bookworm

While I was semi-absent from the blogging world during holidays, Carol’s Notebook so kindly gave the DogEar Diary this award. The rules of the Beautiful Blogger award are to pass it on to seven other bloggers, and tell seven things about yourself.

I’d like to hand this one on to:

A Life in Books- I really like the look of this blog, the header image especially. Always features the most interesting books, too.

Nan’s Corner of the Web– Nan’s Corner is a blog I’ve discovered recently. I think I first started reading it because I stumbled across a post on an animal book (and she has the most lovely, fun chocolate lab you’ve ever met, frequently featured), then kept coming back for all the great, honestly written book reviews.

A Striped Armchair– one of the blogs I’ve been reading since I first discovered book blogs. Eva is on a challenge kick right now, so many I never heard of! Go on over and see if you want to join any of them!

Paperback Reader- The background of worn book spines on this blog is just awesome. I wish I had it on mine. I go there just to look at it, seriously (I’m all about the visuals, sometimes). Nice to read about all the books and things too, of course!

Bloody Hell, It’s a Book Barrage!– Chartroose’s blog has gone silent lately, which makes me very sad- I always loved reading her blog. I do hope she’s well and returns someday soon! In the meantime, there’s still lots of cool posts to read about books and things over there.

Read All Day is another blog new to me- and it has a very unique, bold look. I really enjoy Nina’s writing, and have added quite a few books to my TBR because of her.

The Book Zombie- is so classy-looking. And the reviews are fun. I’m not really into vampire books, myself (yet– maybe I just haven’t discovered the right ones) but there’s a wide variety of books Joanne reads and writes about, so I keep coming back for more.

And seven things about me? Hm:

My favorite time of year is autumn. I love the colors of the fall leaves, and the crisp, cool air. I’ve come to love it even more now that I live in an area that has humid summers- the coolness of autumn is a blessed relief!

When we got our first cat, I wanted a beautiful cat (shame on me). Our first cat was very handsome- but high-strung and aggressive. Our second cat we picked because he was laid-back and easygoing- but sometimes he’s so cooly removed and aloof. Our third cat we picked because she purred the most- and she’s the most friendly, playful, happy-to-sit-in-your-lap cat! I think I’m getting better at appreciating cat personalities.

I’m afraid of mold. On food. It gives me the willies. Especially the insides of old Halloween pumpkins- that’s just horrifying. (Have I mentioned this before?)

I like composting. There’s just something about making stuff you’d throw away into something that can feed my garden. When I find the real dirt at the bottom of the pile I’m thrilled. I don’t know anyone else who gets happy over a pile of rotting vegetation and kitchen scraps.

I love houseplants, but don’t have many right now. I used to have some philodendrons, until I read they were poisonous to pets (my kitten likes to chew on plants). Then I had a venus flytrap- very cool- but it got forgotten one weekend when we were away and dried out. The only live plant in my house right now is a tiny geranium bonsai I’m trying to slowly coax into shape.

For some reason, Christmas music gets on my nerves. I like to listen to George Winston’s December album- where the carols and tunes are melded into piano music- and especially I like to play it at other times of year when it confuses people. Used to drive my college roommates nuts! They hated hearing Christmas music in the middle of summer.

Right now I’m thinking of my favorite food combinations with chocolate. Strawberries dipped in chocolate. Chocolate chips mixed with raisins and peanuts. Chocolate and cheese wedges. Chicken cooked in chocolate sauce- mole! What are yours?

Yesterday I read my last book for the What An Animal Challenge. The goal was to read six books featuring animals before Feb 2010 but I kind of outdid myself and read thirteen. That\’s because I realized the first list I made was too easy for me (I read animal books all the time, in case you haven\’t noticed) and I swapped it out before starting, to include books I was less likely to pick up on my own initiative. I ended up reading half of that first list anyway, just because I really wanted to!

So, here\’s the books I finished of the \”coffee-table\” set (the real challenge for me):

Frogs by David Badger
Alligators and Crocodiles by John Behler
The Cats of Lamu by Jack Couffer
The Long African Day by Norman Meyers
The Marsh Lions by Brian Jackman
Killer Whales by Sara Heimlich

And the others I read just for fun:

Running After Antelope by Scott Carrier
The Animal Wife by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
A Dog\’s Life by Ann Martin
The Dolphin Doctor by Sam Ridgway
Pigeons by Andrew Blechman
The Old Country by Mordicai Gerstein
Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong

That was fun! I\’m eager to sign up for this reading challenge again when the third time comes around- and I think I\’ll make myself read books about animals I\’ve never encounter between pages before. That should be interesting.

by Sara Heimlich and James Boran

A short but really interesting book on orcas, or killer whales. Discusses their worldwide distribution, physical development, social life, communication, hunting skills, and fate in captivity. All in brief, but at the same time quite informative. Having never read anything about these marine mammals before (aside from a few National Geographic articles, perhaps) there was a lot to interest me. Did you know that there are two distinct groups of orcas that live in the Puget Sound area, some \”resident\” animals that have a fixed territory, others \”transient\” who travel through. The former hunt mainly fish, the latter mostly other oceanic mammals, like seals. Their differences have become so marked that scientists believe they are evolving into separate killer whale species. Some other intriguing facts I learned were that orcas have a similar life span to humans- females can live up to eighty years- and the young remain with their mothers for most of their life. They take a long time to mature, and adults actively teach younger whales specialized hunting skills. Their social organization is akin to that of apes or elephants in its complexity. Long vilified for their carnivorous nature, orcas have proven in captivity to be curious, playful, easily trained animals- learning faster and performing more reliably than their popular relatives the dolphins. (Not to say that there haven\’t been injuries and deaths caused by frustrated, aggressive whales- the book says they get easily stressed by living in confinement). Killer Whales was a tantalizing introduction for me; now I want to read more in depth about these fascinating animals and their three-dimensional aquatic world.

Rating: 3/5 ……..  72 pages, 2001

by Markus Zusak

It\’s hard for me to find what to say about  The Book Thief. So many others have already read and shouted about it. I saw reviews all over the place, but it was Trish and BookGal who really made me want to read this one. I\’m glad I did. I really enjoyed it, but there were also some things that kind of annoyed me.

The Book Thief is about a young girl named Liesel in Nazi Germany. Living with foster parents in a poor neighborhood. She brings with her a stolen book, picked up off the ground from the cemetery where her brother was recently buried. She doesn\’t know how to read yet, but her new foster father patiently teaches her, and Liesel slowly finds a new world opening to her as words begin to speak from the pages. As the outside world crumbles around her- hatred, chaos, all the horrors of war- Liesel finds comfort in reading. And since there is no money to buy books, she steals them. A neighborhood boy who is her friend goes with her on forays to steal books, then her foster father teachers her to read them. At first she treasures the words for herself, later sharing them with others: the Jewish man hiding in their basement, the panic-stricken neighbors huddled together in a bomb shelter, the woman next door devastated by loss of her son. It\’s an amazing story about the power of words, and of friendship. Not without sorrow and pain. A rich and complex story about ordinary people suffering through wartime, about far more than just a girl who loves books, but I don\’t want to say much and give something away. The author will do enough of that for you.

I loved the way Zusak drew his characters, the ways his words crafted sentences, concise and yet strikingly descriptive. I was sometimes annoyed by the narrator. Who in this story is Death himself. There are frequent interjections by Death giving his overall opinion (in bold type, like a news headline) and he often announces what\’s going to happen later in the story. I was okay with this up to a point, but then fifty pages from the end of the book, Death bluntly reveals who is going to die. It deflated the emotional power of the book for me, and the ending fell a little flat. I much rather would have come upon that knowledge suddenly, through the events leading up to it, or with more subtle foreshadowing. Such a powerful story, but that part really disappointed me. Another small thing to note is that the story is told from the inside (so to speak) without much explanation of events in WWII or the Holocaust, so for readers unfamiliar with that history some things might be unclear. Check out some of the other reviews, listed below. A lot of them go into far more detail than I.

Rating: 3/5 ……… 552 pages, 2005

A few of the many other opinions:
The Zen Leaf
The Reading Life
Musings of a Bookish Kitty

I\’m joining the Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge, hosted at J. Kay\’s Book Blog. At first I wanted to sign up at the \”Just My Size\” level and commit to reading 50 library books for the year, but then I calculated in my head and realized I might not be able to finish. That\’s four library books a month, and I\’ve already got myself into the TBR Challenge, which is mostly books off my own shelves. As I average only one or two books a week at best, I\’m going for the \”Mini\” level, which is to check out and read 25 books. I think I can do that. I have so many heaps of unread books in my house I haven\’t been going to the public library much at all lately, and that makes me feel guilty (why, I don\’t know) so this challenge will help me remedy that!

On another note, I still have one book to read for the What An Animal challenge and ten for the Random Reading challenge. I\’m still plugging away at The Book Thief, which is only taking me a long time because it\’s been vacation time and there haven\’t been many quiet moments for reading (but lots of movies and jigsaw puzzles and cookie making and playing in the snow and little road trips and fancy cooking – I made pho last night- and overall general laziness!) Back into reading soon enough.

Happy New Year, everyone!!

DISCLAIMER:

All books reviewed on this site are owned by me, or borrowed from the public library. Exceptions are a very occasional review copy sent to me by a publisher or author, as noted. Receiving a book does not influence my opinion or evaluation of it

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