A New Book...and we got to meet her!

Before I left my job at the bookstore, I bought a copy of Susannah Charleson's new book, THE POSSIBILITY DOGS.

      

SCENT OF THE MISSING was her first book. In it, we came to know Susannah and her dog Puzzle, the golden retriever she decided to bring into her life and train to work Search and Rescue (SAR). She had questions about her own ability to handle a dog for SAR, which is difficult work in and of itself. She and Puzzle have come to work together beautifully, and I felt privileged to learn about her journey in SCENT OF THE MISSING.*

In THE POSSIBILITY DOGS, she explores whether rescue dogs, dogs who have been through abuse or neglect, can be trained to work as service dogs. Would this be possible? Could she find rescue dogs that were trainable? What if she works at training a dog and he doesn't work out as a service dog? She asks these questions as she meets Jake Piper (that's Jake on the cover of the book!). When Jake came into her life, he was a cruelly neglected, starving puppy. Could Jake become a service dog, even with his rough start in life?

Her discovery that Jake was actually quite well suited to service work is only part of this wonderful book. Susannah talks about all kinds of service dogs, what is involved in assessing and finding dogs suitable for service work in the rescue population, the people who can benefit from service dogs (including perhaps herself), as well as living with and loving dogs as pets. Susannah has Puzzle and Jake, as well as several assorted Pomeranians and a couple of cats. She was, as she did so well in SCENT OF THE MISSING, brilliantly able to capture the joys and challenges of having, training, and loving dogs.

I loved the stories of handlers and how they got matched with dogs who were perfect for them. Bob was one, a traumatized firefighter and his dog, Haska, his psych service dog who can lead him home if he becomes disoriented. And Nancy, whose rescue/service dog Lexie can help calm her panic. And of course there is Jake Piper, who, through the course of the book learns, along with Susannah, how he can become invaluable as a companion and as a service dog. I must admit, there were some tears as I read this book. There was laughing too. She had some great descriptions of the Poms, some of which, she discovered, were also well suited to service work. Some of the other Poms were not, and her life with all of them is rich and wonderful.

Not only have we gotten to read this book, but lucky for us, Susannah Charleson came to town! She and Jake came to Powell's. We got to hear more about her, Jake, and her important work with her organization, Possibility Dogs. And we got to meet her...

     

If you look closely, on the table in front of us, you can see the certificate I got after handselling 100 copies of SCENT OF THE MISSING, which she graciously signed.

Clicking on the book covers will take you to Amazon's web page for each book. Clicking on the underlined book title may take you to the Barnes and Noble page for each book. Purchasing through these links helps support the blog...and the author and her work. You can like us on our facebook page, NOT The New York Times Book Review. You can also like Susannah's facebook pages, Possibility Dogs, Inc, and her Scent of the Missing facebook page. Thanks for stopping by!

*I have talked about and reviewed SCENT OF THE MISSING in several posts on this blog. I chose SCENT OF THE MISSING as my handsell when I worked at the bookstore. I sold over 120 copies of SCENT OF THE MISSING during my tenure there.

Enon by Paul Harding

I love getting ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) of books. I feel as though I'm on the inside and am getting a sneak preview of what has not yet been released.

I was excited to learn that I won an ARC of Paul Harding's new book, ENON though librarything.com's Early Reviewers program.
(The Early Reviewer program is a free, lottery-style ARC giveaway. All they ask in return is a review on their site that is at least 25 words long. Deal!
Go to librarything.com and check it out!)

      

Paul Harding wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book, TINKERS, which I liked very much. Told through the wandering memory of an old man near the end of his life, it was short and quite lovely. Liking TINKERS so well made me eager to receive an ARC of Harding's second book, especially when I found out that the main character in ENON (Charlie) is the grandson of the main character in TINKERS (George). I like it when authors connect their books through characters.

But the title was a little off-putting. What is Enon? A person? A place? Does the word have some other meaning that will be explained in the book??

I could get past that, though.

So. Into the story. Charlie narrates ENON, Charlie, a middle-aged man with a 13 year old daughter who dies. On the first page. Um...

Charlie struggles with his daughter's death, and the narrative meanders from the present to the past to the further past as Charlie, so deep in his grief, struggles with his life now that his only child is dead.

The meandering narration didn't work as well for me this time in ENON. Interesting because I liked it so well in TINKERS. I found myself getting annoyed at the wandering..."He already told this same story five pages ago, and he's telling it again? And I'm only 20 pages in..."

I wanted to like this book. I wondered if I wasn't attracted to the sad story. Or the wandering narration. I read TINKERS not too long after my own mother died, so perhaps it felt more pertinent to me. Or maybe this just wasn't the right time for this book for me.

I'll be interested to read other reviews and see how other people liked it!

Clicking on the book covers will take you to Amazon's web page for each book. Clicking on the underlined book titles may take you to Barnes and Noble's page for each book. Purchasing through these links helps support the blog. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Getting Acclimated

I've been feeling pretty tired and scattered. Today I actually sat down and looked at the calendar and saw that I've been at my new job less than a month. And during that month, I had about a week of overlap time where I worked my last job and this new job.

As a good friend reminded me, there is much to adjust to with a new job. New co-workers, new industry (I'm still in retail, but instead of books, I'm selling food), new operations, new commute, new schedules. Lots of new.

I do feel as though I'm starting to get acclimated. I'm feeling more comfortable there both with the people on my team as well as with the work I do.

One of the things I scoped in on right away was the bookcase in the break room. It's there for staff to bring in any books they're done with and want to share. It's a small bookcase with three wooden shelves, and it is full of books. Seeing that little bookcase helped me feel more at home.

When I went into the break room yesterday, I saw that the bookshelf was a mess. Some of the books were shelved neatly, spines out, but many were shelved with spines IN, and more books were stacked on top of the other books. Still others had fallen behind the books. The little bookcase needed some love.

So I straightened the books on the bookcase on my break. Of course I did.

I got to see in more detail what books were there...there were a few about food - NEW GOOD FOOD, INTUITIVE EATING. There were a few mass market paperbacks - a Janet Evanovich, a Dean Koontz, SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD, a couple of Michael Crichton titles. There were also a few decent trade paperbacks - TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, ONE DAY by Peter Nichols. But most of the books seemed like ones people brought in because they didn't know what else to do with them. Like books you'd find left over at a garage sale. There was a large hardcover Webster's dictionary, some old textbooks - DISCOVERING AMERICAN HISTORY, BIOLOGY: LIFE ON EARTH, and a few random obscure titles - THE MALE CROSS DRESSER SUPPORT GROUP book, THE ESSAIC REPORT, and an old small paperback called SURPRISING AMSTERDAM that had black and white drawings of scenes of Amsterdam. There was even a vinyl LP by Elton John.

It doesn't seem as though people use the bookshelves much, as some of the books I briefly saw on my first day are still there and many of the titles didn't seem to be ones people would be that interested in. But maybe that can change.

Having the shelves neat makes them more inviting. And perhaps we'll be able to cull some of the books that seem less likely to be picked up by team members. Is anyone really going to be very interested in a 1987 version of BIOLOGY: LIFE ON EARTH?

I know it will take more time before I feel settled into the new job. And I daresay I'm not done being tired and feeling scattered. But I know I'll be keeping an eye on that break room bookcase. And that will help.

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Dust Jacket, Is It Helpful?

I have always been a reader of dust jackets and back covers of books. I have liked getting a sense of what the book might be about to see if it might interest me.

Therapist is a believer in not reading the dust jacket or back cover to decide if she's going to read a book or not. She looks at the title, the cover, and reads the first line or first page to see if she's drawn in. She believes that the editorial comments on the dust jacket or back cover may misrepresent the book or maybe even worse, tell too much about the book.

With these books, I have to agree with her.

THY NEIGHBOR
I've been a Norah Vincent fan ever since her first book, SELF-MADE MAN in which she chronicles her experience of dressing like a man and living in the world as a man. (Read my blog post about that most excellent book here: http://notthenewyorktimesbookreview.blogspot.com/2010/01/self-made-man.html).

With THY NEIGHBOR, even as I was reading the dust jacket, I knew it was telling too much of the story. I knew that this was a book I wanted to read without knowing much. But one can't unsee what one has seen, or unread what one has read. I read the book anyway and did really like it, but wished I'd just read it without reading the dust jacket.

THY NEIGHBOR is Vincent's first foray into fiction. Nick Walsh lives alone in the house he grew up in. Nick tries to deal with his issues, or rather NOT deal with his issues by drinking and using drugs. He also spies on his neighbors. Intense, a little creepy, and well done.

A SIMPLE PLAN
I picked this up after reading a recommendation by Gillian Flynn, who said she rereads this book at least once a year. She praised its tight storytelling and plot development. You may have seen the 1998 movie of this story. I didn't read the back cover, nor had I seen the movie, and I was glad to be able to experience the novel without input from the movie or the back cover. Gillian Flynn's praise was more about the writing style and less about describing the story itself, which is a good way to praise a book. I was quickly drawn into the story, told by Hank, as he, his brother, and his brother's friend make a discovery and make a decision about what to do about it. A Simple Plan. A plan which, as you can imagine, becomes anything but simple. Well-crafted story-telling makes this a great read.


AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF US
Looking for something to read, I picked up this advance reader copy that Therapist received from librarything. There was a letter from the editor, giving a brief synopsis of the book and the publisher's encouragement to read it. I did not read this letter before I read the book.

I liked the title a lot. The title implies that there is an "us" to chronicle, which intrigued me. However, there wasn't enough in the beginning of the book to make their friendship believable in the first place, so when troubles came, supposedly in the friendship, I kept wondering why the book was supposed to be about their friendship and not just about one of the girls. Also, towards the end of the book Rebecca, the narrator, says, "but you'll want to know how I ended up with your father," which seemed to come out of the blue to me...oh, she's writing to her child? And yes, I had expected that she got married, but before this reference, there is NO reference to this future spouse. I think the book would have been much stronger had it been just Rebecca's story. That would necessitate a new title (and I like this title, just maybe not for this book). I was disappointed.

Would reading the dust jacket have helped (had I had one to read)? It's hard to imagine that a dust jacket description could have (or should have) redeemed this book for me.

MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND
I read about this on a booksellers' brief Facebook page, written by someone I didn't know. I'd never heard of it before. The person said that one of the reasons they liked it so well was because of the unique voice of the narrator - an imaginary friend.

I bought MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND without reading the back cover or knowing anything else about it. When I started reading it, I was immediately drawn in as Budo told the story of how he came to be, and about his friend, Max. Budo's voice was unique and engaging, similar to Enzo in THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN, or Mathilda in MATHILDA SAVITCH. Worth reading!

I still often read dust jackets and back covers. But sometimes I find myself taking a page out of Therapist's playbook, bypassing the dust jacket and relying on the writing of the book itself, and reading the first page or few pages to see if I am drawn in.

How about you?

            

Clicking on the underlined book title may take you to Barnes and Noble's web page for each book. Clicking on the book cover will take you to Amazon's web page for each book. Purchasing through these links helps support the blog. You can also "like" us on our Facebook page, NOT The New York Times Book Review. You can also send us email: 2of3Rs(AT)gmail(DOT)com. Thanks for stopping by!