Past Reads Archives - Dogear Diary

The Lion and the Puppy and Other Stories

by Leo Tolstoy

I don\’t remember where I once came across this collection of short stories by Tolstoy- must have been from a library when I attended college or in the years soon after. The stories were actually written in the 1850\’s when Tolstoy established a school for local peasant children at his estate and himself wrote a primer to teach them reading. His fables were not re-tellings of Russian folktales, but original material. The stories are in the style of Aesop\’s fables- each with an obvious moral. They don\’t all have happy endings- in some the lesson is brought home because one of the animals or characters dies… One was of a wolf visiting a dog- the wolf asks the dog how he is so well-fed and the dog invites him home to share in the duties of guarding the farmhouse, and also the meals provided by his master. The starving wolf is agreeable until he notices a worn spot around the dog\’s neck from being tied up at night. The wolf changes his mind, deciding he\’d rather be hungry and free than well-fed in chains. I also recall the title story where an unwanted puppy was thrown into a lion\’s cage in a zoo- and instead of eating the puppy (as was intended) the lion befriended it. I wish I could remember more of them better, or find another copy of the book to read again.

Rating: 3/5 76 pages, 1989

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Juvenile Fic, Past Reads, Short Stories

Animalscam

the Beastly Abuse of Human Rights
by Kathleen Marquardt

This book is an opposing voice to animal-rights extremists. Using public quotes from animal-rights activists themselves and revealing machinations behind nonprofit organizations that claim to help animals, the author points out how absurd and harmful to mankind some animal-rights agendas can be, plus how money raised by some big-name organizations doesn\’t actually do anything to help animals at all. Funds not ending up where you think they should. People purporting to defend animals who use violent methods like bombing buildings and shooting at hunters. How activists stall research efforts that are working to help mankind by advancing medical science (not all research labs are poorly run or treat animals badly). She makes the case that animal-rights people are so for animals that they deliberately do things harmful to people, and that they would ban pet ownership altogether. And so on. Some of the arguments seem poorly put together, I am not sure how much of the quotes to believe- I\’m sure they could all be found in public record, but guess that probably a lot are taken out of context to make their viewpoints seem more extreme. It\’s one of those books you really have to read with a lot of skepticism. A different take on everything. The author\’s voice comes across as pretty angry and judgmental throughout. This book is out of print. I read it some years ago.

Rating: 3/5 221 pages, 1993

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Past Reads

Nim

by Herbert S. Terrace

In the 1970\’s, scientist Herbert Terrace attempted to teach a chimpanzee called Nim to communicate via sign language. It\’s been years since I read the book, and I can\’t find a library copy to refresh my memory, but this is what I can recall.

Nim the chimp was at first raised in a human household, to see if he could assimilate language like a child. But if I recall correctly, his later years were spent mostly at a research facility, being taught and tested. He learned to use over 100 words in sign language. It\’s fascinating to read about Nim, the methods and details of the research project, the chimpanzee\’s behavior. Overall the burning question addressed in the book was: did the chimp know what he was saying? or was he just cleverly mimicking the hand gestures, following subconscious human cues? In this regard Terrace seems to be really critical of the project, scrutinizing his own scientific methods and finding fault with Nim\’s performance. Nim wasn\’t the only chimpanzee being taught language at the time; if I remember rightly quite a bit of the book included the author\’s criticism of other language experiments among his colleagues. But then again, I read several books about similar efforts around the same time frame, so I could be getting them confused in my memory.

You can read more about Nim here. There are a few more books written about Nim from other viewpoints, including one which details the end of his life and discusses abuse which occurred at the facility. I wasn\’t aware of this aspect of Nim\’s story before, just discovered it while poking around online today, and it made me very sad to think of.

I cannot find a single other review of this book online. If anyone out there has read it and can correct my memory, or give more insight, please comment!

Rating: 3/5 322 pages, 1987

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Past Reads

The Herring Gull\’s World

Niko Tinbergen

This is one of those scientific books written by a naturalist that I remember loving vividly, although I haven\’t been able to find a copy to read again. It\’s about a study done on coastal seagulls. Similar to other books of its type, it describes how the scientists approached the animals, using care to get close enough to observe and photograph the wild birds without frightening them away or altering their behavior. Details what they learned about how the gulls live: finding food, courtship, raising their chicks and so on. I remember an experiment where they fashioned a fake bird\’s head with a red dot on the bill, and presented it to newly-hatched chicks to see if they would instinctively beg for food by pecking the spot- or something like that. Not sure why that incident stood out to me. Like the best of animal behavior studies, the book is written in a conversational narrative fashion. It details not only the animals\’ behavior in both anecdotal and scientific fashion (those two might sound conflicting, but I remember they dovetailed nicely here), but also muses on the nature of the animal mind, the naturalists\’ methods and their own experiences while conducting the study. I do want to find this book again, and add it to my permanent shelf. It is strongly paired with A Beast the Color of Winter in my mind; probably because I read them during the same period in my life and they are of similar quality (although the animal subjects could not be more different!).

There\’s an entire article about the red-spot aspect of the study here. I guess there\’s a reason that part of the book stood out to me! Also an interesting tidbit here from a current worker in the field who reflects on Tinbergen\’s words.

Rating: 4/5 255 pages, 1953

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Nonfiction, Past Reads

The Lady\’s Not for Burning

by Christopher Fry

I read this one because it was mentioned by a character in Tam Lin and sparked my curiosity. I don\’t often read plays, it\’s quite a different format for me. This one was both fun and thoughtful. It\’s set during the witch-trial era of New England. The two main characters are a disillusioned ex-solider who wants to die – he claims to have killed two men and thus deserves to be hanged, but no one believes him. At the same time, there is a woman named Jennet accused of being a witch; the crimes stated against her are ridiculous but the townsfolk insist she is guilty. So the story is mostly a lot of talk and it all takes place in one room but in spite of that is quite interesting. The background characters never really change their stance of believing that Jennet is a witch and basically ignoring Thomas\’ desire for assistance to meet death. But through the conversations that occur the soldier realizes that he really does want to live and moreover he is now in love with Jennet, so together they flee the town. I liked the irony of the play, even though I had to read it rather slowly as the old-fashioned phrasing sometimes took me a moment to figure out. It\’s one I want to read again someday, or better yet, see performed in the theater.

Rating: 3/5 95 pages, 1948

more opinions:
Reading the End
anyone else?

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Historical Fiction, Past Reads, Plays/Poetry

Queen of Shaba

by Joy Adamson

Joy Adamson is famous for the lioness she raised and then released into the wild, recounted in Born Free (I can\’t believe I haven\’t written about that book yet). She also raised and rehabilitated into the wild a female cheetah. Then determined to do the same with a leopard. It took her some time to find an orphaned leopard cub, but she did and named it Penny. The leopard was a bit different from the lions and cheetah; it wasn\’t quite as affectionate. This combined with Adamson\’s very matter-of-fact writing style makes it a bit of dry reading but I was intrigued regardless, if just for the novelty of what she was trying to do. The book is a very straightforward account of how Adamson raised the leopard, along with some glimpses into the difficulties of living in the bush and dealing with various problems- shortage of supplies, accidents, the local wildlife and dishonest (or disgruntled?) employees. I found most interesting reading about how she taught the leopard to hunt. With all the wild cats Adamson considered it a success when the female could live on its own, mated with wild males and raised her own cubs. In each instance the grown female brought her cubs back to Adamson\’s camp, showing trust and affection even after living in a wild state. This still amazes me.

Rating: 3/5 180 pages, 1980

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Past Reads

The Sea-Wolf

by Jack London

A seafaring adventure that at first glance would be something like Captain\’s Courageous (which I actually liked) but similarities are only on the surface, as I surprisingly found this book very forgettable. Not sure why, as I\’ve like other books of adventures at sea before, and also London\’s books about intrepid canines in the North (Call of the Wild and White Fang) are among my favorites, very memorable. Maybe this one waxed too philosophical. Or got me lost in nautical terminology and descriptions I couldn\’t quite follow.

Anyway, it\’s about a well-to-do young man named Humphrey (unfortunately his nickname is Hump) who survives when the ferry he\’s on capsizes, and gets picked up by a sealing vessel. The captain, Wolf Larsen, is a cruel taskmaster and forces Humphrey to work as part of the crew. So a lot of the story is about how life at sea hardens this young man, and friction among the crew. The main points I remember are an attempted mutiny, and that somehow a young woman ended up on board. Of course Humphrey falls in love with her, then has to protect her from the attentions of all the other men on board. I think at the end Humphrey and the woman end up shipwrecked on an island, surviving off seals, but that somehow the captain ended up there with them as well and there is some final confrontation. But I forgot most of it, and don\’t really feel inclined to read it again.

Rating: 2/5 244 pages, 1904

more opinions:
Come With Me If You Want to Read

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Classics, Past Reads

The Whistling Hunters

Field Studies of the Asiatic Wild Dog
by M.W. Fox

This short but very interesting book is about a wild canine that lives in jungles in India, the Indian wild dog, also called the Asiatic wild dog or dhole. I picture it as being something like an australian dingo, for it is mid-sized and reddish in color. It\’s the wild dog that formed the large packs featured in one of Rudyard Kipling\’s Mowgli stories. They are called whistling dogs because apparently they make a piercing whistling noise as a contact call. The author reports making a whistle to attract the dogs to his study area, after days of searching for the animals. The book is one of those written in a very reader-friendly fashion, describing the course of the study, what they learned about the dogs\’ behavior and pack structure, and plenty of interesting anecdotes. It\’s one I\’d dearly like to add to my collection, not having been able to come across another copy since I read this years ago from a public library in San Francisco. Oh, and it has lots of black-and-white photographs, which makes it look dated but they\’re very good images regardless, for the time.

Rating: 3/5 150 pages, 1984

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Past Reads

The Life of the Robin

by David Lack

Early book by an avid ornithologist who was passionate about studying birds from a young age (wikipedia tells me by the age of nine he could recognize and name most birds, and already had a written life-list of ones he wanted to see). This book is his study of european robins. Lack was notable for being one of the first scientists to study the behavior of living birds (as opposed to measuring and comparing lifeless stuffed specimens, I imagine). He tagged many with bands on the feet, to track where they returned to each year. The book is full of facts about the little birds, but it is engaging and easily accessible to lay readers who approach it out of pure curiosity, like myself. Plus, the cover image is really endearing.

Rating: 3/5 224 pages, 1943

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Past Reads

The Left Hand of Darkness

by Ursula K. LeGuin

I wasn\’t ready for this book when I first read it as a teen. At least, that\’s what I think now. Most of it went over my head and I found it to be, overall, boring in parts and frustrating in others, as I failed to really grasp the politics going on. Basically, it\’s a sci-fi futuristic story about an envoy from a united-planets kind of organization going to a foreign world that was long-ago colonized by humans who were then forgotten for centuries. They have evolved into different beings that basically don\’t have a gender except for a few days during the year when they are ready to mate and have children, and they can take either a male or female role during that time. Although the people look like our envoy he finds their culture very strange and they in turn see him as an alien and a freak. Even their history is vastly different from Earth\’s, as the lack of gender roles and identity as we see it shaped their society very differently. I remember some specific incidents where the envoy got into awkward situations from misunderstanding social cues, and other scenes which described the various arrangements of family life, but a lot of this book was a blur to me and I didn\’t really understand much of it. I\’m making a note of it here as I do want to revisit it someday and see what a new impression will bring.

See some of the reviews linked to below for a much more comprehensive description.

Rating: 3/5 pages, 2001

more opinions:
A Good Book
litreactor
Mugglenet
Just Book Reading
Opinions of a Wolf

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Fantasy / Sci Fi, Past Reads

Tag: Past Reads

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