School's out, kids are home, sky is clear, and books are aplenty... Let me share as much as I can in this one post.
Give It All, Give It Now: One of the Few Things I Know About Writing by Annie Dillard (Welcome Books) is a unique gift book beautifully illustrated by Sam Fink and filled with choice words of wisdom about the art of writing, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer.
"One of the few things I know about writing," says Dillard, "is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time."
In her lovely introduction to the book, Susan Cheever says, "Writers who are willing to cut their favorite flourishes find them replaced with shimmering linguistic gifts. It's hard to do."
It's also hard to find a more interesting accordion-style creation that celebrates the spirit of art and expression.
Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is fascinating reading for anyone with the remotest interest in animals and their behavior. In a straightforward style, Grandin (author of four earlier books, including the best-selling Animals in Translation) shares a range of insights about cats, dogs, horses, and other favorite animals, and always her focus is on how we can offer pets a happier, healthier life and reap the benefits of that better life as well. For example, "You can't lock up a lone cat inside a bedroom and go off to work twelve hours a day," she says. "That kind of life is no better than what zoos used to do with their captive animals." A variety of stimuli inside the house (cat trees, mazes, toys, etc.) will keep a cat occupied and appeal to his "seeking" system, something an outdoor cat obviously needs no help with.
Sounds commonsensical and clear, but Grandin (who holds a PhD in animal science) grounds it with fascinating background and history.
"When you buy a dog today," she also says, "you have to think about how to make up for the fact that he's not going to live the life that comes naturally to him." Instead, he's going to be inside a house for most of the day... and lucky to get an hour's worth of his owner's attention. (I took her advice about getting a second dog as companionship for the first, by the way ... though this is not a move I recommend lightly!)
So much more book news to share--watch this space in coming days and weeks, and do let me know if there's a particular genre of books you'd like to see covered.