Book picks similar to
Todo in Tuscany: The Dog at the Villa by Louise Badger
non-fiction
animals
dogs
italy
Garfield What Leftovers?: His 71st Book
Jim Davis - 2021
They're all here in this brand-new full-color compilation comic strip book: Jon, Odie, Nermal, and, of course, our favorite fat cat, Garfield!
Leftovers? Garfield doesn't get the concept. The conscientious fat cat does his best to reduce food waste, gobbling all the grub the first time. (Besides, ignored edibles develop low self-esteem.) Garfield fans will feast on this binge-worthy new collection of comics!
A Dog Named Beautiful: A Marine, a Dog, and a Long Road Trip Home
Robert Kugler - 2019
Lost in grief, Rob finds solace and relief in the one thing that never fails to put a smile on his face: his chocolate lab Bella. Exceptionally friendly, and always with - you wouldn’t believe it - a smile on her face, Bella is the friend Rob needs, and they spend their days exploring nature and taking photos.But then Bella develops a limp in her front leg. It’s cancer, and the prognosis isn’t good. Rob has a choice, either to let Bella go now, or amputate her cancer riddled leg, and see what the next few months would bring.For Rob, the choice is a no-brainer, and instead of waiting at home for the cancer to spread, Rob and Bella pack their bags and hit the road. Life is short, but the road ahead is long and winding, and as they criss-cross the country Rob and Bella meet remarkable, life-changing men and women who are quick to make friends with this incredible three-legged dog. A Dog Named Beautiful is a book full of inspiration, hope, love, tears, and laughs. Enjoy the journey.
Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod
Gary Paulsen - 1994
For seventeen days, he and his team of dogs endured blinding wind, snowstorms, frostbite, dogfights, moose attacks, sleeplessness, hallucinations--and the relentless push to go on. Winterdance is the enthralling account of a stunning wilderness journey of discovery and transformation (Chicago Tribune), lived and told by the best author of man-against-nature adventures writing today (Publishers Weekly).
A Street Cat Named Bob: How One Man and His Cat Found Hope on the Streets
James Bowen - 2012
The moving, uplifting true story of an unlikely friendship between a man on the streets and the ginger cat who adopts him and helps him heal his life.
Caught Screaming
Otep Shamaya - 2006
It can be downloaded as an electronic book OR you can order it in BOOK form that will be mailed to you.It can be purchased using Debit/Credit Card or PayPal account. CAUGHT SCREAMING includes over 140 pages of previously unpublished poems, private illustrations, & a blank diary section at the end of the book for buyers to add their own thoughts, poems, dreams, rants, & raves.BUY YOUR COPY TODAY!
Cancer Is a Bitch: Or, I'd Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis
Gail Konop Baker - 2008
I want to be big. I want to be gracious and cool. I want to be the Audrey Hepburn of cancer…” Gail Konop Baker was a runner, yoga practitioner, and lifelong subscriber to Prevention magazine. As her forty-sixth birthday approached, she looked forward to a time when she could at last take a deep breath, with one child heading off to college and the other two busy with their lives. She finally felt as if she was getting her life back.Then, right before Valentine’s Day 2006, she heard the words that would forever change her: Just to be safe, I think we should biopsy.It was the beginning of her year-long struggle with breast cancer and its fallout—one that would upstage any midlife crisis she’d fretted was waiting in the wings. “I want to feel bad about my neck. I do,” she writes. “But I feel bad I may not ever get to feel bad about my neck.” Gail was suddenly faced with the truth that awaits us all—this was her life, and she would do anything to hold on to it. As a doctor’s wife, she knew more than she should about her diagnosis and treatment. As a mother, she found unbearable the idea of not being there for the next birthday, next graduation, next anything. And as a woman who’d put her dreams on hold for years, she was determined to make every minute count.But Cancer Is a Bitch is about much more than the “C” word; it's about the outrageous challenges of marriage, the joys and unpredictability of motherhood, about figuring out what it is you want to do with your life, about wanting to live now.Funny, raw, and moving, this story will resonate with every mother and wife, and with anyone who has been affected by cancer. It is one woman’s unforgettable, beautifully told account of juggling midlife and motherhood with a rogue boob—and, ultimately, triumphing.
Bloodhound in Blue: The True Tales of Police Dog JJ and His Two-Legged Partner
Adam David Russ - 2013
He caught his first criminal when he was just two years old. By his sixth birthday, he had located burglars, rapists, drug dealers, missing children, and murderers—including Utah’s most wanted criminal. Known to friends as JJ, to law enforcement as Michael Serio’s partner, and by captured criminals as “that damned dog,” Jessie Jr. was an exceptionally talented bloodhound, baying like a sea lion that had swallowed a fog horn. Before JJ, few police departments in the West used bloodhounds, and none in Utah. But just when JJ finally convinced naysayers, he and Officer Serio ran into something worse than resistance: the despair of failure amid high hope. JJ had been tracking Brian David Mitchell, the man who abducted Elizabeth Smart, when he was pulled off the track. Elizabeth later told investigators that on the day she was kidnapped she heard a dog baying in the woods behind her. In almost nine years of service, JJ helped apprehend nearly 300 criminal suspects in the Salt Lake City area. Here is his remarkable story, fleas and all.
My Four Hollywood Husbands
Joyce Bulifant - 2017
While following the path of her own successful career, Ms. Bulifant managed to navigate the choppy waters of husbands' alcoholism, codependency and an extended family of four marriages.James MacArthur played Danno on Hawaii Five-0. Edward Mallory was Dr. Bill Horton on "Days of Our Lives.” William Asher was the famous director-writer-producer of "I Love Lucy", "Bewitched" and the Beach Party movies. Roger Perry starred in "Star Trek" and over 300 TV shows and films. He has also composed music for Barbra Streisand and Bing Crosby.Along the way Bulifant managed to command the spotlight for her own accomplishments. As Gavin MacLeod’s wife Marie on “The Mary Tyler More Show”, a concerned mother in the movie “Airplane”, dancing with Fred Astaire, and her reoccurring role on “The Match Game.”My Four Hollywood Husbands is a rare peek into what happens off the screen. It’s a story of love, a lasting love that is woven through the fabric of the world of entertainment. It’s also a story about perseverance and overcoming obstacles—and that happy endings are indeed possible.
Creatures of the Rock: A Veterinarian's Adventures in Newfoundland
Andrew Peacock - 2014
It was certainly an adventure--a whole series of adventures--but there was nothing temporary about it. He practiced in Newfoundland for nearly 30 years and is still living there. In fact, he has lived there so long, the locals are starting to think of him as one of them.Creatures of the Rock chronicals a career spent working with and getting to know a rich variety of animals and their owners, on farms, in homes and in the wild. Andrew was the only vet for miles around. A day of practice could include anything from a Caesarian section on a cow in a blizzard to freeing a humpback whale from a trap designed for cod to capturing a polar bear after its surprise visit to a bingo parlor. And, on the human side, anything from trying to impress a surpringly large audience of farmers with your first boar castration, to taking care of a family just as well as its stricken cat, to discouraging farm hands from helping themselves to hypodermic needles. All this against the background of a domestic scene in which Andrew's wife Ingrid--also freshly qualified, as a doctor--shares the adventure of making a new life, and in due course of starting a family.Told in a series of brief, endlessly engaging stories, Creatures of the Rock is a funny, thrilling, unflinching but ultimately heartwarming narrative about the connections between people and animals, and people with each other.
Art's Cello (Kindle Single)
James N. McKean - 2014
Told in eloquent, honest prose, Art’s Cello is a story about coming to terms with the past and letting go of the failures we allow to define us — and, in the process, honoring the lives of those we’ve lost. Jim McKean is an international award-winning violinmaker, author, and corresponding editor of Strings Magazine. He is a graduate of the first violinmaking school in America and the former president of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers. His novel, Quattrocento, was published in 2002. Cover design by Evan Twohy.
Naked by David Sedaris Summary & Study Guide
BookRags - 2011
29 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Naked. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Naked by David Sedaris.
London's Number One Dog-Walking Agency
Kate MacDougall - 2021
A true love letter to London, dogs, and growing up. Aside from the odd biter or growler, the occasional bolter and the one dog who didn’t want to walk, the canines were the easy part. They were a muddy, messy joy in all shapes, sizes and breeds, from greedy Labradors to pampered pugs and everything in between. It was the owners who were the real challenge, a giddy mix of the over-protective, the clueless, the eccentrics and the perfectionists. There is no rule book on how to navigate the obsessions of the London dog owner. A degree in human psychology would have been far preferable to any sort of animal qualification. Not that I had either…In 2006, Kate MacDougall was working a safe but dull job at the venerable auction house Sotheby’s in London. After a clumsy accident nearly destroyed a precious piece of art, she quit Sotheby’s and set up her own dog-walking company. Kate knew little about dogs and nothing about business, and no one thought being a professional dog walker was a good use of her university degree. Nevertheless, Kate embarked upon an entirely new and very much improvised career walking some of the city’s many pampered pooches, branding her company “London's Number One Dog Walking Agency.” With sharp wit, delightful observations, and plenty of canine affection, Kate reveals her unique and unconventional coming-of-age story, as told through the dogs, and the London homes and neighborhoods they inhabit. One walk at a time, she journeys from a haphazard twentysomething to a happily—and surprisingly—settled adult, with love, relationships, drama, and home ownership along the way. But, as Kate says, “It’s all down to the dogs” and what they taught her about London—and life.
Lucky Dog: How Being a Veterinarian Saved My Life
Sarah Boston - 2014
From the moment she uses her husband’s portable ultrasound machine to investigate her lump — he’s a vet, too — it’s clear Lucky Dog is not your typical cancer memoir. She takes us on a hysterical and thought-provoking journey through the human healthcare system from the perspective of an animal doctor. Weaving funny and poignant stories of dogs she’s treated along the way, this is an insightful memoir about what the human medical world can learn from the way we treat our canine counterparts. Lucky Dog teaches us to trust our instincts, be our own advocates, and laugh while we’re doing it.
When Harry Met Minnie: A True Story of Love and Friendship
Martha Teichner - 2020
Stories that exist because impossible-to-explain coincidences change everything. Except in real life, not all of them have conventional, happily-ever-after endings. When Harry Met Minnie is that kind of fairy tale, with the vibrant, romantic New York City backdrop of its namesake, the movie When Harry Met Sally, and the bittersweet wisdom of Tuesdays with Morrie.There's a special camaraderie among early-morning dog walkers. Gathering at dog runs in the park, or strolling through the farmer's market at Union Square before the bustling crowd appears, fellow pet owners become familiar-as do the personalities of their beloved animals. In this special space and time, a chance encounter with an old acquaintance changed Martha Teichner's world. As fate would have it, her friend knew someone who was dying of cancer, from exposure to toxins after 9/11, and desperate to find a home for her dog, Harry. He was a Bull Terrier--the same breed as Martha's dear Minnie. Would Martha consider giving Harry a safe, loving new home?In short order, boy dog meets girl dog, the fairy tale part of this story. But there is so much more to this book. After Martha agrees to meet Harry and his owner Carol, what begins as a transaction involving a dog becomes a deep and meaningful friendship between two women with complicated lives and a love of Bull Terriers in common. Through the heartbreak and grief of Carol's illness, the bond that develops changed Martha's life, Carol's life, Minnie's life, Harry's life. As it changed Carol's death as well.In this rich and touching narrative, Martha considers the ways our stories are shaped by the people we meet, and the profound love we can find by opening our hearts to unexpected encounters.
Hooligan: A Mormon Boyhood
Douglas Thayer - 2007
Douglas Thayer was such a boy. In this poignant, often humorous memoir, he depicts his Utah Valley boyhood during the Great Depression and World War II.Known in some circles as a Mormon Hemingway, Thayer has created a richly detailed work that shares cultural DNA with Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and William Golding's Lord of the Flies. His narrative at once prosaic and poetic, Thayer captures nostalgia for a simpler time, along with boyhood's universal yearnings, pleasures, and mysteries.