Featherweight, loving moments of one woman and her many dogs. For Steel’s fans and die-hard dog lovers.
The mega-selling novelist shares happy memories of her numerous dogs.
Steel (First Sight, 2013, etc.) brings readers into her life, recounting delightful moments with her many dogs, the dogs her children have owned, and her newest friend, Minnie, her tiny Chihuahua. Minnie dominates the scene as Steel describes the moment she fell in love with this little bundle of joy and the many ups and downs of life with such a tiny dog. "It is absolutely absurd that anything so small should own my heart, but she does,” writes the author. “[O]wning a puppy, or a dog you love, is pure joy…that's what Minnie is for me!!!" In addition to the numerous recollections of the miniature Brussels griffons, Rhodesian ridgeback, basset hounds, and Chihuahuas that Steel and her family have owned, the author sprinkles throughout the book helpful hints on how to take care of a dog. Although not everyone will have the sufficient funds to treat his or her dog as Steel does, anyone who is a pet lover will understand the desire to provide the very best for their animal. The author discusses the pros and cons of traveling with a dog (small dogs like Minnie fare better on airplanes than large dogs, who must be placed in cargo); how to find a vet who will listen to your concerns; how to know when to let a dog die; how to return a dog or place it with someone else when the needed bond between human and dog just doesn't exist. Plainly told with honesty and affection, these stories are an affirmation of the timeless connection between humans and their canine companions.
Featherweight, loving moments of one woman and her many dogs. For Steel’s fans and die-hard dog lovers.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-345-54375-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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