by Daniel McGinn
ONE-LINE SUMMARY: America is obsessed with square footage, renovations, House Hunters, and flipping houses.
After three houses in nine years and a realtor with a fondness for embezzlement, my lust for housing had begun to wane. Sure, I still checked ZipRealty daily, had registered for various MLS alert notifications under numerous aliases, and knew sale prices for every house in our neighborhood that had gone on the market during our time here, but my heart wasn’t really into it. (Yes, you should see me when my heart really IS into something…just stay out of my path of destruction, is all I can say.)
The hideousness of our last real estate transaction had pretty much beaten out what little optimism I’d had in life, and I had just about resigned myself to merely making catty comments about housing ads and pictures (”You think your living room looks best with your giant dog sprawled on the couch? Really?”) when I read this book, and immediately all my lust was back.
On nearly every page, I came across something interesting that I saved to tell Chris later. (I’m sure Chris appreciated my thoughtfulness.) The book is well-written and enjoyable. Best of all, it made me realize that I am not alone in my obsessive need to look at housing.
If this book had photos, I would have immediately shelled out the $24.95 ($16.47 on Amazon) to buy it. Those of you who are less obsessed can find it in a library.
by Ted Kerasote
ONE-LINE SUMMARY: Merle, a dog who wanders into the author’s life, enjoys life in rural Wyoming.
Okay, I realize the one-line summary is lame, but it’s hard to describe a book which is essentially the autobiography of a dog. I don’t usually read books about dogs’ lives anymore because I cry too much if the dog dies. Marley and Me, for example, sat on my bookshelf for over a year before I finally re-sold it on Ebay, unread, because I was afraid to read it.
As usual with dog books, I flipped to the end of this book at the library to see if the dog dies at the end. Yes, the dog dies at the end. Yes, I used up half a box of Kleenex during the last 30 pages; what’s it to you?
Despite the waterworks, I still enjoyed this book. Merle had a very unusual dog life–an owner who cared for him, but was also willing to let Merle lead his own life. Merle was able to walk around town, unleashed, unbothered, mainly because of the town where the author lives.
Merle is quite a character, but there is more than just a dog’s story here. Kerasote also offers interesting scientific studies on animals’ brains. For example, he describes a study in which it was found that it wasn’t exercise that mattered so much for increasing the size of a rat’s brain, but more that the rat had complex, engaging exercise. What does this mean? It means I have to build that agility course for Stanley.
This book is recommended, but only if you buy your tissues from warehouse clubs and are in no danger of running out.
by Micheal Lewis
ONE LINE SUMMARY: The history of the evolution of the left tackle is intertwined with Michael Oher who will one day be an NFL star.
I will admit that I know almost nothing about football, and that the closest I ever came to understanding it was when I went to a football game in New Orleans and could actually see the entire field. So you may be surprised that I picked up this book about football. I was, too, especially since I didn’t realize it would be so technical about football.
I first heard about Michael Oher when Reader’s Digest ran an excerpt from the book a few months ago. I usually hate the book excerpts, but I was interested in this one. The excerpt explained how Michael is a black kid who lives with (and is adopted by) a white Christian family. How he ends up with them and how his football ability developed is what I thought the book was about.
The book is indeed about these things, but is also about football. I read the first five pages of this book without understanding anything at all. The diagrams in the book didn’t even help me. But then I became involved in the story.
Michael Oher is apparently eligible for the NFL draft in 2009, so I’ll be watching out for his name.
by David A. Karp
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Karp, a professor at Boston College, compiles quotes from people about taking anti-depressants.
As someone who has often wondered, “is it me or my meds?,” I thought this book would be pretty interesting. And it is, but not in the way I expected. I was expecting, well, some kind of answer. A method, if you will, of determining whether it is indeed you or your medicine. That was obviously too much to expect.
If you go into this book without expectations about the title, you will get more out of it. The book is useful in that it lets you know that other people feel the way you do about medication. It probably should have just been called, “Living With Anti-Depressants.”
by Stefan Fatsis
ONE LINE SUMMARY: The author sets out to become an expert-level Scrabble player, and takes us behind the scenes at various Scrabble tournaments.
Who knew that Scrabble could be so complicated and fascinating? I admit that the last time I played Scrabble, Chris and I probably had a total of ten words on the board before we ran out of space. The tournament players described in Fatsis’s book would probably fall off their chairs laughing if they saw our board. Fatsis presents a nice mix of his personal struggle to improve at Scrabble (involving memorizing a vast selection of words), the big players in Scrabble tournaments, and the history behind Scrabble.
Some of the Scrabble techniques and explanations get a little too mathematical and involved, and I had to skim those sections. But overall, the book was fascinating.
By Amy Sutherland
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Amy Sutherland follows a year in the lives of students at the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program (EATM) at Moorpark Community College.
This is a terrific book that is well-organized and engrossing. The “Harvard for exotic animal trainers,” EATM trains people who work in zoos, Hollywood, the U.S. Navy, Ringling Bros., Guide Dogs for the Blind, research facilities, aquariums, sanctuaries, and animal parks. During their twenty-one months at the school, students learn about animal anatomy as well as getting hands-on practice at the teaching zoo, which includes learning to kill rats and pigeons to serve as food for other animals.
Although this book only tracks one year of the program, it covers students from the first and last year of the program, so you get a good look at what the program entails and what kind of jobs graduates go on to take, as well as the incredibly difficult schedule they have for the length of the program.
by Susan Forward, Ph.D. with Donna Frazier
ONE LINE SUMMARY: This book examines the different types of toxic in-laws and how to deal with them.
I’m not sure how helpful the strategies are with dealing with in-laws, but the examples were great and gave me some insight into how in-laws think.
by Steve Brown and Beth Taylor
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Steve Brown, creator of Charlee Bear Treats for dogs and Steve’s Real Food, describes how a fresh food diet can benefit dogs.
Although this book has many footnotes, it does not come off as a scientific book. The first third of the book consists of anecdotes from holistic vets about how some diseased dog came in and got better once it was put on a fresh food diet. The rest of the book talks about why fresh food is better than kibble, with no mention of canned food, but remains surprisingly vague about the specifics of what balance of food would work well for dogs. Granted, there aren’t many studies on this, but I was expecting something a little more comprehensive, like along the lines of Dr. Pitcairn’s Guide to Natural Health.
This book made me more determined to eventually move my dogs over to a fresh diet, but it didn’t really instruct me on how to do it.
by Po Bronson
ONE LINE SUMMARY: In this collection of essays about different families, the author explores what makes families work.
I was put off by the title of this book, for reasons I can’t explain. I was also put off by the questions at the beginning of each chapter. That being said, each family’s story was engrossing, even if it didn’t tie into other stories.
The only theme that ties these stories together is that they are about what makes a family. Otherwise, each story essentially stands alone.
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Steven D. Levitt, an economist, looks at cheating schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers, the Ku Klux Klan, drug dealers, abortion and parenting.
This is well-written and clear, and makes me wish the President of the United States had an economist like Levitt on his staff. I feel certain that Freakonomics 2: Return of the Freaky will soon be on its way to a bookstore near you.
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