Dewey by Vicki Myron

Are there any cat lovers (or animal lovers in general) who read my blog? If so, you will love Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World.

The author, Vicki Myron, tells the story of how she discovered a half-frozen kitten in the library book drop one morning, and how that cat lived for 19 years in her library. The stories are touching, and show how unique this cat was. He was clearly a born library cat.

The stories also remind me a lot of the types of feel-good animal stories you find in Allen and Linda Anderson's books, such as Angel Horses.

In addition, Myron tells stories about her life, and what it was like living and working in a small Midwestern town.

This is an amazing book, and I highly recommend it!

Pretty is What Changes by Jessica Queller

I actually finished this book a couple of days ago, but I've been so busy that I forgot to blog about it until now.

I first heard about Jessica Queller's Pretty is What Changes via a story on NPR. Of course, I was as appalled as the rest of the world probably is at the thought of a woman having her breasts surgical removed by choice, so you could probably make the argument that I read Queller's book out of morbid curiosity.

I have to say that Queller makes a great case for why she made the decision she did, but she also does a good job of relaying what she was feeling at the time. In the beginning of the book, when she describes finding out that she has the breast cancer gene not long after her mother's death from ovarian cancer, you are as horrified as she is at the thought of having a prophylactic double mastectomy. As she comes to terms with it, though, the reader is able to as well.

This is a great book that touches on subjects such as how pretty is defined and how far a person will go to defy death. And although Queller doesn't address this topic directly, her experiences also point to how strongly we are socialized to believe that marriage and motherhood deterine our success and fulfillment as women.

Shattered Dreams by Irene Spencer

Shattered Dreams is a memoir by Irene Spencer, a woman who lived for 28 years as a polygamist's wife.

I didn't choose this book because of the recent raid on a Texan polygamist colony — I actually saw it at the library, in a stack of books that the librarian was checking in. I remembered the title, and looked it up online when I got home. It looked interesting, so I placed a hold on it using my library's online catalog.

Shattered Dreams is a beautifully done memoir. Part of Spencer's skill is the way she separates her current views of polygamy from the way she felt about it when she was younger. This separation enables her to matter-of-factly describe living conditions and ways of life that her readers would find absolutely horrific.

The end result is, of course, that by the time Spencer actually says that polygamy is horrible, her readers no longer need convincing — they've already read about the extreme poverty, delusional leaders, and horrific situations that Spencer had endured for 28 years.

Last August, I read a similar book: God's Brothel, by Andrea Moore-Emmett. However, that book was a collection of personal essays about different women's experiences with polygamy. This one is almost more horrific because it traces one woman's entire life in the fundamentalist Mormon community, demonstrating the extent of the suffering plural wives — and their children! — endure.

On the Couch by Lorraine Bracco

I finished reading this book, On the Couch by Lorraine Bracco, just last night.

My husband and I are big Sopranos fans, so when I saw this book I just knew I had to read it.

I don't remember where I first heard about the book, but it was only a few months ago, so it couldn't have been from the NPR story. In any case, I was glad to took the time to read the book. Bracco's story is one that I think many people, especially women, can relate to: the depression she went through, the emotional abuse she put up with from her second daughter's father, and her struggle to raise her girls well as a single mom.

Her descriptions of her relationship with Harvey were especially poignant for me. I went through an abusive relationship in 2003 and 2004 that was very similar; although in my case there was no child to fight for custody over (thank goodness), the possessiveness, jealousy, and manipulation were echoes of Bracco's relationship with Harvey Keitel.

I respect Bracco's straightforwardness about subjects such as financial troubles and depression. This is a very engaging memoir, and a worthwhile read.

Chosen by a Horse by Susan Richards

Saturday night I finished reading Chosen by a Horse by Susan Richards. Probably unsurprisingly, I read this book in just a couple of days: The topic is one that is very dear to my own heart.

In this memoir, Richards tells about rescuing Lay Me Down, a neglected brood mare and former race horse. Since I also own a rescued horse, I could relate to many of her experiences.

Of course, as most pet-related memoirs are, Chosen by a Horse is a little sad. However, it's also hopeful in its own way, because it demonstrates how much a strong connection with an animal can benefit other areas of your life. In this case, Richards describes how watching and interacting with Lay Me Down — a sweet-tempered mare, despite the mistreatment she had experienced at the hands of humans — taught her more about trust, love, and forgiveness.

Good Dog. Stay. by Anna Quindlen

Don't get too excited — I'm actually not done with Unbending Gender quite yet. I took a short break to read Anna Quindlen's Good Dog. Stay., a short memoir focusing primarily on her dog Beau, but also touching on other dogs she has owned over the years.

Dog lovers will find a lot of truth in Good Dog. Stay. It's beautifully told, capturing perfectly all of the joys and heartbreaks of owning a dog.

The book is actually more of a personal essay in length, with lots of adorable dog pictures thrown in. As a result, it's a quick read, and one I highly recommend to any dog owner or dog lover who has an hour to spare.

A Girl and Five Brave Horses by Sonora Carver

Every once in a while, a book comes along that really tests your resolve to read it. That's the way it was with this book.

A Girl and Five Brave Horses is technically the basis for the Disney movie Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, which is loosely based on the life of Sonora Webster Carver. Unfortunately, the book is out of print, and has been for a very long time — as far as I can tell, the first edition (in 1961) was also the last edition printed. Even many libraries don't have it; I had to order it through an interlibrary loan.

Since the book is hard to find, yet has attracted a bit of a cult following, its value is phenomenal — Amazon's current price of $498.50 being the cheapest I've seen it, and that's for an ex-library copy (which usually devalues a book considerably.) Being a book collector and a horse lover, I would love to own a copy — but being a writer, I needed to find a cheaper (read: free) way of reading it, which is why I settled for checking it out for the library.

I don't really expect that anyone is going to buy a five hundred dollar book, but I'll include the Amazon link anyway, in case anyone wants to look into the book a little more.

Basically, A Girl and Five Brave Horses is the autobiography or memoir of Sonora Webster Carver, one of the most famous (if not the most famous) of the horse diving girls in the 1920s, 1930s, and into the 1940s. Sonora wasn't any ordinary diving girl, though: She was blinded in 1931 after she hit the water with her eyes open, yet she continued diving for 11 more years afterward.

As is typical for Hollywood and Disney, the story as it is told in Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken is very romanticized. Sonora wasn't a runaway; her mother actually suggested she join the diving act in 1923, when she was 19. She and Al didn't have some kind of whirlwind romance; they had been working alongside one another for six years before they married, and even then he had to talk her into it.

One thing the movie did manage to do justice to was Sonora's bravery and spirit. She really was that determined to continue diving after she was blinded. She never wanted to be treated any differently, and as a result, she dove blind for five years before a reporter finally found out.

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken is a wonderful movie, a (somewhat) true-life Disney fairy tale. However, for anyone who is truly interested in Sonora Carver or her experiences diving horses, I suggest getting your hands on A Girl and Five Brave Horses any way you can.

Other Resources:

* Yahoo diving horses group, an effort to get A Girl and Five Brave Horses republished

* Sonora Webster Carver on Wikipedia

* The Diving Horses of Atlantic City, by Susan MacDonald: descriptions, eye-witness quotes, and pictures

* Article by Mike Cox about Doc Carver (Sonora's father-in-law), the diving horse show, and Sonora

* YouTube video "Last Days of the Steel Pier" — the video of the diving horse, and the two pictures that follow it, are of Red Lips, Sonora's favorite horse; the color picture is of Sonora, and I'm assuming it's her riding Red Lips in both the video and the photograph that follows

* Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of interviews with Allen "Boo" Pergament, a historian and friend of Sonora's, about the Atlantic City Steel Pier

Girl, Interrupted by Susana Kaysen

After finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I was finding it difficult to think of reading anything else, so I deliberately chose a book that was short and would be less involved: Girl, Interrupted by Susana Kaysen, one of my choices for Banned Book Week. (Yes, I'm reading my Banned Book Week books rather late.)

I wasn't disappointed with my choice. Girl, Interrupted is made up of many short essays, some of them only a couple of pages long. While doing an excellent job of illustrating how disjointed her experiences in the hospital were, it also was much less demanding of me as a reader — a good thing after the suspense and high involvement of Harry Potter.

Although the movie Girl, Interrupted was based heavily on Kaysen's book, there was of course a lot of drama added that wasn't present in the book itself. The book is more of a look at the wrongs done by the system: Kaysen was sent to the hospital after a brief (i.e. 20 or 30 minutes) exam by a doctor she had never seen before in her life, diagnosed with a condition that could be applied to 95 percent of teens, and lost nearly two years of her life as a result.

Practically Perfect in Every Way by Jennifer Niesslein

If you are amused and mildly disgusted by the self-help genre, Jennifer Niesslein's Practically Perfect in Every Way is the perfect book for you.

In Practically Perfect, Niesslein decides that something is missing from her life, and that self-help may hold the key to happiness. To make things more interesting, she decides to write a book chronicling her experiences. The result: lots of sarcastic humor, but also a good, quiet look at why self-help is overrated.

The book focuses mostly on self-help in the areas of the household, relationships, and parenting. (If you think Feng Shui is kind of silly, like I do, you'll especially like the commentary in the first chapter.) As you near the end of the book, Niesslein obviously starts losing steam. She is not as gung-ho in her experiments, but at the same time you start getting more down-to-earth, insightful observations about self-help.

The very last chapter of Practically Perfect is my kind of chapter: Niesslein deals with the issue of The Soul. In doing so, she delves into the world of religion, but she also talks a lot about why she isn't particularly religious — something I can totally understand. It is fitting that this is the last chapter, because by this point Niesslein has decided that taking every one else's advice is a really bad idea.

To conclude, I would like to post a quote from Niesslein's chapter on The Soul, one that pretty much exemplifies her humor and the way she came to view self-help:

Are my morals proof of the existence of God? If anything, they seem to me to be proof of the existence of my mother.

Truer words have never been spoken.

The Milk Memos by Cate Colburn-Smith and Andrea Serrette

I am currently reading The Milk Memos, by Cate Colburn-Smith and Andrea Serrette. This book was a total impulse buy: Last week, when Michael and I were at Tattered Cover (a local, independent Barnes and Noble-style bookstore that offers free WiFi), I spotted it on the shelf right next to where we were sitting.

How can you resist a book with the title "The Milk Memos," especially when it has wide baby's eyes and an almost-bald baby's head on the cover? I picked it up and started looking at it, and I very quickly became intrigued.

The Milk Memos is part memoir, part how-to for working moms. Basically, the authors were both working at IBM shortly after giving birth, so they were both using the lactation room -- the room the company provided them in order to pump at work. Along with other nursing/working moms, they started keeping a little notebook, where they would all leave messages to each other while they were pumping.

The Milk Memos includes some of those exchanges, divided into specific topics and accompanied by related commentary and how-to information. The focus of the book is helping working moms continue to breastfeed; despite the dramatic health benefits enjoyed by breastfed babies, the task of pumping throughout the day intimidates many new mothers into switching to forumla.

The biggest reason why I bought the book was that it has a chapter for work-at-home moms. Since I am a writer who works from home, I thought the book might have some good tips for when Michael and I have a baby. I know that many of my fellow writers are also work-at-home moms, so once I finish the book I also plan to review it on one of my other blogs, Reading For Writers.

The Man Who Listens to Horses by Monty Roberts

My current goal is to learn as much as possible about horse training methods and theories -- in about a month, we are moving my horse from the inlaws' place in the country in order to have him nearby. I am very excited, as it has been difficult not to be able to see Panama very often this past year. I want to start working with him, as he has had little to no training, but I need to find out how to start.< The Man Who Listens to Horses is, as it turns out, a great place to start. I've known that I don't want to use any harsh training methods, and Monty Roberts is living proof that I don't have to. His book is very detailed in describing the body language of horses, which he calls "Equus," and how he uses it in order to train them.

Of course, since the book is also told in the style of a memoir, there are plenty to hold one's attention, too. The stories of his childhood, his abusive father, and his early encounters with horses are fascinating. In fact, I stayed up past my bedtime last night because I was so engrossed in the book. :o)

If you are a horse person and have not yet read this book, I highly recommend it. The insights Monty offers are quite valuable for someone who wants to train their horses in a way that fosters a respectful relationship for both parties. And even if you think "gentling" horses instead of breaking them is hokey, you may still find Monty's personal experiences intriguing.

Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs

I am currently reading Magical Thinking, a collection of essays by Augusten Burroughs. The essays are about various events in his life, but what is most noteworthy is the sense of humor with which he approaches everything. Burroughs is sarcastic and laugh-out-loud funny -- and believe me, it's not often that a book gets me to laugh out loud.

The biggest surprise for me was the discovery, several essays into the book, that Burroughs is gay. He lets the reader know gently, by first talking about how one of his childhood heroes was a transsexual. I totally didn't pick up on the cues at all, so when he started talking about how he had considered getting a sex-change operation, I was shocked.

All in all, the experience was kind of humbling. I write regularly for a GLBT parenting site, so sometimes I start thinking like I've got "them" all figured out. Clearly, that assumption -- including the reference to GLBT people as "them," an other -- stems from some sort of prejudice that I have been socialized with and unknowingly retained. I don't think of myself as prejudiced at all, but this just goes to show that getting rid of socialized prejudice is easier said than done.

But back to the book. My surprise at finding out the author is gay hasn't changed my enjoyment of the book any. In fact, I have to point out that another one of the funniest books I've ever read -- The Kid, by Dan Savage -- was also by a gay writer. I love a sarcastic sense of humor, and both of these guys have got it in spades.

Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster

I decided I needed a brief break from my steady diet recently of nonfiction and classics, so I'm now reading Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster. Although it's nonfiction, this memoir is told in light prose. It's a quick read and pretty darn funny.

The author is basically this stuck-up princess who loses her unbelieveable income during the post-9/11 layoffs. Although you can't help but laugh at the things she says about her co-workers, friends, neighbors, other dog owners, and her wedding, she's also the type of girl you'd love to hate: absolutely full of herself.

What I think is so funny about the book is that even though the reader knows Jen is a spoiled-brat-bordering-on-bitch, she's also saying things to the idiots all around her that most of us only dream of saying. There's something very satisfying about reading some of the things she says, and it's one of the few books I've read that makes me laugh out loud -- frequently.

If you need something really fun to read, look no further than Jen Lancaster's Bitter is the New Black!