The Cat Whisperer: Why Cats Do What They Do--and How to Get Them to Do What You Want


Mieshelle Nagelschneider - 2013
      Cat Whisperer Mieshelle Nagelschneider has been helping people deal with these dilemmas for two decades, achieving a near-perfect success rate. Central to her approach is a keen understanding of the unique way cats see the world—their need for safety and security, their acute territoriality, and their insatiable desire to catch and kill prey. Her proven C.A.T. cat behavior modification plan is a commonsense course of action that can be specifically tailored to your cat in the context of its behavior problems and its particular household environment. Easy-to-implement solutions help transform even the most anxiety-riddled companions into confident, gregarious, and relaxed cats who live longer, happier, and healthier lives. Inside you’ll discover   • how to harness the power of “friendly pheromones” to improve your cat’s appetite, exploration, grooming, and play • where, when, and how to create a litter box environment that will  provide ease of access and reduce anxiety for you and your cat • how to end aggression in multiple-cat households and help your cats coexist peacefully   Is it impossible to train a cat? Not anymore! Your days of yelling and tearing your hair out in the wake of the latest household “cat-astrophe” are over. In this fascinating and indispensable book, the Cat Whisperer takes you inside the mind of a feline to explain why members of one of the world’s most inscrutable species act the way they do—and how you can convince them to change their behaviors for the sake of your peace of mind . . . and theirs.Praise for The Cat Whisperer   “I wish I had read The Cat Whisperer before I started filming Must Love Cats. The cats would have liked me a lot more.”—John Fulton, host of Animal Planet’s Must Love Cats   “Mieshelle Nagelschneider is a wizard at demystifying cat behavior and providing easy-to-follow steps for solving vexing problems. I dog-eared (or should I say cat-eared) so many pages for later reference that my book doesn’t want to close. Living with six demanding cats in a small house, I wish I’d had this excellent guide years ago.”—Bob Tarte, author of Kitty Cornered, Enslaved by Ducks, and Foul Weather   “The reason people are so mesmerized by house cats is because they are truly miniature versions of lions, tigers, and leopards. In her book The Cat Whisperer, Mieshelle Nagelschneider explains the behavior of the house cat in an unprecedented and most accessible way, offering unique insight into the often misunderstood companion animal that is as wild as we have become civilized.”—Jordan Carlton Schaul, Ph.D., contributing editor, National Geographic, and curator, Orange County Zoo   “Pet owners despairing of getting their cats to behave will find new hope in this comprehensive guide. . . . This book more than meets Nagelschneider’s goal of guiding owners to the strategies for behavioral and environmental change needed to address issues such as urination outside the litter box and aggressiveness.”—Publishers Weekly

On Animals


Susan Orlean - 2021
    Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, she’s been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us. Now, in On Animals, she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career.These stories consider a range of creatures—the household pets we dote on, the animals we raise to end up as meat on our plates, the creatures who could eat us for dinner, the various tamed and untamed animals we share our planet with who are central to human life. In her own backyard, Orlean discovers the delights of keeping chickens. In a different backyard, in New Jersey, she meets a woman who has twenty-three pet tigers—something none of her neighbors knew about until one of the tigers escapes. In Iceland, the world’s most famous whale resists the efforts to set him free; in Morocco, the world’s hardest-working donkeys find respite at a special clinic. We meet a show dog and a lost dog and a pigeon who knows exactly how to get home.Equal parts delightful and profound, enriched by Orlean’s stylish prose and precise research, these stories celebrate the meaningful cross-species connections that grace our collective existence.

Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story


Daphne Sheldrick - 2011
    Her deep empathy and understanding, her years of observing Kenya’s rich variety of wildlife, and her pioneering work in perfecting the right husbandry and milk formula have saved countless elephants, rhinos, and other baby animals from certain death. In this heartwarming and poignant memoir, Daphne shares her amazing relationships with a host of orphans, including her first love, Bushy, a liquid-eyed antelope; Rickey-Tickey-Tavey, the little dwarf mongoose; Gregory Peck, the busy buffalo weaver bird; Huppety, the mischievous zebra; and the majestic elephant Eleanor, with whom Daphne has shared more than forty years of great friendship.  But this is also a magical and heartbreaking human love story between Daphne and David Sheldrick, the famous Tsavo Park warden. It was their deep and passionate love, David’s extraordinary insight into all aspects of nature, and the tragedy of his early death that inspired Daphne’s vast array of achievements, most notably the founding of the world-renowned David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the Orphans’ Nursery in Nairobi National Park, where Daphne continues to live and work to this day.  Encompassing not only David and Daphne’s tireless campaign for an end to poaching and for conserving Kenya’s wildlife, but also their ability to engage with the human side of animals and their rearing of the orphans expressly so they can return to the wild, Love, Life, and Elephants is alive with compassion and humor, providing a rare insight into the life of one of the world’s most remarkable women.

The Dogs Who Found Me: What I've Learned From Pets Who Were Left Behind


Ken Foster - 2006
    Their circumstances offer a grounding counterpoint to his own misfortunes: the shock of New York City after 9/11, the evacuation of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and the day his heart nearly stopped for good.

The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild


Craig Childs - 2007
    But the glory of each essay lies in Childs's ability to portray the sometimes brutal beauty of the wilderness, to capture the individual essence of wild creatures, to transport the reader beyond the human realm and deep inside the animal kingdom.

The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death, and Happiness


Mark Rowlands - 2008
    After acquiring Brenin as a cub, it quickly became apparent that Brenin was never to be left alone, as the consequences to Mark’s house and its contents were dire. As a result, Brenin and Mark went everywhere together—from classroom lecture to Ireland, England, and France. More than just an exotic pet, Brenin exerted an immense influence on Rowlands as both a person, and, strangely enough, as a philosopher, leading him to re-evaluate his attitude to love, happiness, nature and death. By turns funny (what do you do when your wolf eats your air-conditioning unit?) and poignant, this life-affirming book will make you reappraise what it means to be human.

Don't Look Behind You! A Safari Guide's Encounters with Ravenous Lions, Stampeding Elephants, and Lovesick Rhinos


Peter Allison - 2009
    In Don't Look Behind You, Allison recounts adventures few would live to tell.

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace


David Lipsky - 2010
    Wallace’s pieces for Harper’s magazine in the ’90s were, according to Lipsky, “like hearing for the first time the brain voice of everybody I knew: Here was how we all talked, experienced, thought. It was like smelling the damp in the air, seeing the first flash from a storm a mile away. You knew something gigantic was coming.”Then Rolling Stone sent Lipsky to join Wallace on the last leg of his book tour for Infinite Jest, the novel that made him internationally famous. They lose to each other at chess. They get iced-in at an airport. They dash to Chicago to catch a make-up flight. They endure a terrible reader’s escort in Minneapolis. Wallace does a reading, a signing, an NPR appearance. Wallace gives in and imbibes titanic amounts of hotel television (what he calls an “orgy of spectation”). They fly back to Illinois, drive home, walk Wallace’s dogs. Amid these everyday events, Wallace tells Lipsky remarkable things—everything he can about his life, how he feels, what he thinks, what terrifies and fascinates and confounds him—in the writing voice Lipsky had come to love. Lipsky took notes, stopped envying him, and came to feel about him—that grateful, awake feeling—the same way he felt about Infinite Jest. Then Lipsky heads to the airport, and Wallace goes to a dance at a Baptist church.A biography in five days, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself is David Foster Wallace as few experienced this great American writer. Told in his own words, here is Wallace’s own story, and his astonishing, humane, alert way of looking at the world; here are stories of being a young writer—of being young generally—trying to knit together your ideas of who you should be and who other people expect you to be, and of being young in March of 1996. And of what it was like to be with and—as he tells it—what it was like to become David Foster Wallace.

How to Be Alone


Jonathan Franzen - 2002
    Reprinted here for the first time is Franzen's controversial l996 investigation of the fate of the American novel in what became known as "the Harper's essay," as well as his award-winning narrative of his father's struggle with Alzheimer's disease, and a rueful account of his brief tenure as an Oprah Winfrey author.

We Bought a Zoo


Benjamin Mee - 2008
    In the tradition of "Marley & Me" comes an unforgettable memoir about the mysteries of the animal kingdom, the power of family, and the triumph of hope over tragedy in this chronicle of the Mee family's purchase of the Dartmoor Wildlife Park, a dilapidated zoo in the English countryside.Weinstein Books

Soul Comfort for Cat Lovers: Coping Wisdom for Heart and Soul After the Loss of a Beloved Feline


Liz Eastwood - 2012
    Reading this book is like talking to a friend who knows you almost better than you know yourself...it doesn't stop at just helping you through the grief...it will help you find an even deeper connection to your lost loved ones." - Ingrid King, ConsciousCat.net, author of Buckley's Story and Purrs of Wisdom If the loss of a feline friend has hit you particularly hard, know you are not alone.In Soul Comfort for Cat Lovers, you will find validation, coping insights, and practical wisdom conveyed with spiritual warmth.Liz Eastwood, CNC weaves her own experiences with advice from grief experts and stories from cat lovers to help you:process your feelings and recognize them as normal create something positive out of the energy of grief cultivate a continued sense of connection to your cat deal with inconvenient grief strengthen your natural coping chemistry This book also explores evidence of the most soulful of soul comforts: the possibility of the continuation of your loved one's spirit-and your connection to that spirit-after death. This topic is discussed from a perspective of open-minded curiosity, without bringing in any particular dogma or religion.Asserting that you can live wholeheartedly after loss, and that your feline friend would want nothing less for you, Soul Comfort for Cat Lovers is a compassionate handbook for your grief-healing journey.

Cockpit Confidential: Everything You Need to Know about Air Travel: Questions, Answers, & Reflections


Patrick Smith - 2013
    Patrick Smith, airline pilot and author of the web's popular Ask the Pilot feature, separates the fact from fallacy and tells you everything you need to know...-How planes fly, and a revealing look at the men and women who fly them-Straight talk on turbulence, pilot training, and safety-The real story on congestion, delays, and the dysfunction of the modern airport-The myths and misconceptions of cabin air and cockpit automation-Terrorism in perspective, and a provocative look at security-Airfares, seating woes, and the pitfalls of airline customer service-The colors and cultures of the airlines we love to hateCockpit Confidential covers not only the nuts and bolts of flying, but also the grand theater of air travel, from airport architecture to inflight service to the excitement of travel abroad. It's a thoughtful, funny, at times deeply personal look into the strange and misunderstood world of commercial flying.It's the ideal book for frequent flyers, nervous passengers, and global travelers.Refreshed and vastly expanded from the original Ask the Pilot, with approximately 75 percent new material.

The Cat Who Came for Christmas


Cleveland Amory - 1988
    Thus begins this tale of a man and his cat or, rather, of a cat and his man. A touching, timeless, and inspiring story about the animal/human bond and the spirit of the holiday season.

Zoobiquity: The Astonishing Connection Between Human and Animal Health


Barbara Natterson-Horowitz - 2012
    Beginning with the above questions, she began informally researching every affliction that she encountered in humans to learn whether it happened with animals, too. And usually, it did: dinosaurs suffered from brain cancer, koalas can catch chlamydia, reindeer seek narcotic escape in hallucinogenic mushrooms, stallions self-mutilate, and gorillas experience clinical depression. Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Kathryn Bowers have dubbed this pan-species approach to medicine zoobiquity. Here, they present a revelatory understanding of what animals can teach us about the human body and mind, exploring how animal and human commonality can be used to diagnose, treat, and heal patients of all species.

Amazing Gracie: A Dog's Tale


Dan Dye - 2000
    Amid the frenzied barking and prancing of a house full of Great Danes, one pup was shivering in the corner. Gracie. But when Dan Dye reached her, she struggled to her feet like a clumsy foal, raised her forehead to his, and announced, as clearly as if she had actually spoken the words, You know I'm the one. Now get me outta here! By turns funny, moving, tender, and inspiring, Gracie's tale is a treat for every dog lover. There is Gracie's first morning, racing around Dan in the snowy yard. Gracie's first determination to prove to her step-sisters, Dottie the Dalmatian and Sarah the Black Lab, that she's one of the girls. Gracie's defiant romance with a pint-size charmer named Byron, a Boston Terrier from the wrong side of the fence. Then born of necessity, the eureka moment: When Gracie's delicate constitution starts turning into anorexia, Dan teaches himself how to cook, and in three days is baking her the cookies that will spur her appetite, launch Three Dog Bakery, and transform their lives forever. Courage. Compassion. Kindness. Soul. Tenacity. And joy, above all, joy. These qualities Gracie possessed in abundance, and shared with everyone, human or canine, who had the good fortune to cross her path.