1 comments about The Old Man.

1. All proceeds from will goto the humane society and dogs for seniors programs so please show your support! Its a great short story about a man who lost his wife and found comfort and friendship in a stray dog.

4 comments about Small Deaths: Photographs (Southwestern & Mexican Photography Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University-San Marcos).

1. There is a great deal of juxtaposition in Kate Breakey's work, and to great effect; though her photographs capture often pitiable subjects, particularly the birds, they portray them with a magnificence of color they could only dream of in life. Breakey's photography is excellent and evocative, and her skillful application of color to each image only heightens the experience. Soft focus and a saturated palette produce a dreamlike quality to many of her pieces. As I turned the pages of the book, I felt sadness for the small creatures that go unnoticed, but I was also moved by the quiet dignity they have in death. Breakey's treatment of her subject matter elevates it from the mundane to the transcendent, and it's an utterly captivating journey.



2. This book has received the Southern Books Competition 2001 Award of Overall Excellence for book design. "Truly enchanting, this is a wonderful example of how valuable intellectual content is enhanced and enriched by thoughtful book design. From the breathtaking front and back covers to the informative colophon at the end, this is an exceptional book. Color continuity from jacket to the text pages rewards the reader and enhances legibility. The dramatic frontispiece dazzles, and the title page is clear and elegant. Section openings mirror the title page opening. Plates and captions combine in bright, clean two-page spreads that inform and reward the viewer." Congratulations to the author, designers D.J. Stout & Julie Savaska of Pentagram Design, and the University of Texas Press.



3. I bought this book after not being able to find any other images online except the cover. I was really looking forward to owning it; I'm one of those people who collect things like tiny bird bodies, egg shells, nests....
   It's a beautiful concept, but the format of the book was extemely disappointing; too much white space framed the images, keeping the viewer at a distance instead of inviting intimacy, empathy. The creatures in the photographs often looked posed.

   The images also would have been more touching if they hadn't seemed so manipulated in color. It was like the photographer hadn't truly been recording the beauty of the "insignificant" deaths but seeking and exploiting them by forcing unnatural aspects on them.
   
   I also expected this book to be filled with the record of the deaths of bird, rodents, lizards.... not the many images of dying flora that looked like pop culture greeting cards.




4. A beautiful book of an art form created with a heartfelt sensitivity for some of nature's smaller creatures.

4 comments about To Absent Friends: A Collection of Stories of the Dogs We Miss.

1. The delivery on this was also wonderful the book is about dogs who we've loved and lost is a wonderful book



2. I have always thought there was a good reason that "dog" is "God" spelled backward.
   This book, and I have read many on the subject of companion loss, truly capturess
   the absolute unconditional love that dogs so willingly bestow on us mere humans. It
   is a tragedy in the worst sense that some of us don't deserve such devotion -
   as in the story of the "Dark-Brown Dog." I would caution readers that this particular
   chapter is exceedingly difficult to to absorb. Most of the stories however are a
   heartfelt tribute to dogs whose love and complete dedication colored the authors landscapes
   in the most meaningful of ways. It is, as is said in the book, a travesty of justice
   that they can't accompany us longer in our journey through life.



3. Yes, it's THAT Jameson Parker, the blond brother from TV's "Simon and Simon" PI show. He left show biz to become a writer, and is apparently doing a darn good job.

   This is a collection of stories, essays, and poems about dealing with the grief of losing a beloved dog. Included are familiar names - like James Herriott, John Updike, and James Thurber - from familiar books, and unfamiliar pieces, originally published in newspapers and foreign books. Parker himself even has a short piece, a very touching one on the pet-owner's most difficult decision: euthanasia.

   Let me warn you, you probably won't be able to read more than one or two of these pieces at a time. I found myself in tears, time after time. But the writing is good, and not all of the stories are complete tearjerkers.




4. Those of us who have ever loved a dog will be deeply moved by this collection of stories. The authors range from dog trainers to owners of a beloved household pet, but each writer captured something of the gift dogs give their human companions. My only complaint with the book was with the occasional typographical errors that the publisher should have caught. The book was most impressive in every other respect. It tugged at my heart strings, and I am sure that other readers will share my feelings.

No comments about Pet loss: implications for social work practice.(PRACTICE UPDATE): An article from: Social Work.

4 comments about Sometimes It Breaks Your Heart.

1. WHAT AN AWESOME VET. DR. ORZECK IS. WE HAD THE PRIVIDLEGE TO KNOW HIM AS OUR VET. WHEN WE LIVED IN THE GENEVA, N.Y.-OVID AREA..
   
   DR. ORZECK..KEEP WRITING..YOU HAVE SO MUCH WISDOM AND GODLY KNOWLEDGE
   OF ANIMALS..A GOD GIVING TALENT..
   GOD BLESS!
   REV. GAIL CAMPBELL/DD



2. A wonderful book examining pet loss from multiple perspectives as observed by a humble country veterinarian.Through his career as a farmer, student, and professional caregiver, the pain of losing a loved one remains constant. Dr. Orzeck shares personal tragedies, as well as those of his friends and colleagues. A touching portrayal of the pain we all endure when a beloved pet is lost, regardless of species or circumstances.



3. Dr. Orzeck addresses some difficult issues in euthansia with a sense of wonderment and love towards animals. The book brings both tears and joy as "Doc" describes many of the creatures that he has enjoyed in life and grieved in death. As a veterinarian, he has illuminated one of the hardest chores an animal doctor has to perform with both compassion and sensitivity. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves animals, anyone who aspires to be a veterinarian or anyone who has recently lost a pet.



4. A must read for anyone who shares his or her life with a pet, or has loved and lost a pet.

   From his dedication page to his closing sentence, Dr. Orzeck will captivate the reader with his endless empathy and anguish of dealing with the death of animals. Written with candor, this gentle and compassionate country vet tells of unforgettable animals. These are animals he must enthanize due to old age, trauma, illness, and owner neglect and selfishness. Each animal's story will leave you deeply touched; you feel the doctor's own heartbreak and pain at the loss of each innocent life.

1 comments about When Your Pet Dies: Dealing With Your Grief and Helping Your Children Cope.

1. This book really helped me when my dog died. It covers subjects such as how we relate to pets, ways people grieve, pets that die suddenly or after a long illness, choosing euthanasia, helping children when a pet dies, and many other topics. My dog died after a long illness and that section was very good for me. It is a very well written, easy to read book.

3 comments about In a Desert Garden: Love and Death Among the Insects.

1. This book relates some of the observations that Alcock made when he converted his grassy lawn in front of his Arizona house from grass to desert flora. In his neighborhood, residents dutifully maintained wide swaths of green grass through continuous fertilizing, watering, cutting, and trimming. They controlled pests and weeds through spraying, but if they missed one chemical treatment or watering, unwanted species would begin to take over. When Alcock first moved to the area, he went along with local custom for several years. Finally, he asked himself why he was working so hard to maintain grass at such high economic and environmental costs, when it was really the desert surroundings that he enjoyed. It took some effort to kill his lawn and replace it with a yard filled with thriving desert species, but maintenance eventually became much easier and cheaper once he had landscaping fit for the local environment.
   
   As an entomologist, Alcock greatly enjoys observing the insect life in his new yard. In this book, as well as describing how he transformed his yard, he also describes such insects as ladybugs, praying mantises, earwigs, desert termites, paper wasps, bees, grasshoppers, inchworms, whiteflies, mayflies, and aphids. The book is arranged into chapters by topic, including chapters on insects that control pests, compost lovers, insects that sting, camouflage experts, alien insects, and migrating insects. In reading the book, I was struck by how fascinating the lowly insect species can be. The book is written in an informal style appropriate for general readers. It is illustrated with black and white drawings by Turid Forsyth. Scientific sources are listed in a bibliography at the end of the book (but not referenced directly in the text), and there is an index.



2. John Alcock loves Nature. Sometimes, though, getting from a suburban home to the wilderness he relishes can be tedious. So he brought some of his favoured Sonoran Desert environment to his front yard. Using a ramshackle Kubota tractor, he stripped away the layer of Bermuda grass surrounding his house. Over time, and with no little effort, he transformed that yard into a little pocket of desert environment. All this was more than an exercise in redecorating, however. Alcock studies insects, especially their mating rituals, and this transplanted environment gave him ample opportunity. Even if his practice of crouching over desert shrubbery at odd hours raised a few neighbourhood eyebrows.

   Alcock loves what he does, imparting his passion to us with lively prose. His academic background merges with his expressions of feeling to keep this book a delight to read. This blending places his writing skills in a comfortable [and comforting] niche somewhere between E. O. Wilson and John McPhee or David Quammen. He keeps you at ease as he builds the desert floor, inserts shrubbery and vegetables, and welcomes the bird and insect visitors to his creation. He protects the native species of plants and animals where possible, but doesn't summarily reject harmless exotics. And he carefully explains how to tell the difference.

   The underlying reason for the garden's transformation was to attract insects. Alcock is at his best in watching, analysing and explaining the life styles of desert bees, wasps, beetles and the rest. How did they develop those behaviours? What do their activities it mean to us humans, who are too often ardently killing the ones in our own gardens. He poses his questions with the puzzlement of fresh discovery. Then, adroitly picking through the available evidence - while calling out for further studies - he sifts through the optional answers to deliver the most likely, and most logical scenario. Yet, at no point are you being "lectured to". Instead, you are introduced to some of the awesome array of variation nature offers. This is no specialist's daunting lecture, but the confessions of a man who finds wonder in small things. It's also, of course, an example for any reader to enter his own yard to consider restoring it some state of origins instead of developer's artificiality.

   Alcock's view of his environment isn't wholly without concerns, however. There's no question of his concern for the impact of unrestricted "development". Phoenix, the urban hub of his home in Tempe, is one of the fastest growing cities in the US. With reconstructed landscapes, imported species, proliferating golf courses and a staggering consumption of water, this emblem of "progress" is another urban blight on the landscape. Alcock is uncomfortable with this situation, but nearly helpless to block it. His example of bringing some of the countryside into the city and restoring a bit of balance at a time is an example we should all consider carefully. His book's photo collection will make every gardener smile knowingly. The illustrations portray the object of his studies. With this combination he has produced an example of what a single individual [with some spousal support] can achieve, and told us all about it in this fine book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]




3. I thoroughly enjoyed this intersting, thought provoking book from John Alcock. His thoughts on the modern American lawn should be required reading in the suburbs. The world would be a better place if all would read and comprehend his thoughts on connecting ourselves to the myriad wonders that go on all around us every day.

5 comments about The Lost River: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Transformation on Wild Water (Sierra Club Books Publication).

1. I haven't had so much fun in a long time. I wanted to go up and down the river with this one. I found it interesting and challenging too. Good book.



2. Having navigated only a few rivers, none of them virgin, my interest was piqued when a former boss of mine told me about this guy Richard Bangs she knows. So I ... read the reviews, ...Suffice it to say I sat down with the book in hand, looked up roughly three hours later, and noticed I finished the book. The last book I recall which captivated me so was Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground.

   In any event, the narrative is always fascinating if the prose is somewhat heavy-handed or purple at points.




3. Richard Bangs and his Sobek rafting company were clearly the early trend setters in world-wide adventure travel. Those who enjoyed other books by Bangs including River Gods and Riding the Dragon's Back will enjoy this first-hand account of Bangs's early development as a world-class rafter including his teen adventures on the Potomac, his first summer working on the Colorado as a swamper and finally a guide through the Grand, and his first major first descent of the Omo River in Ethiopia. It was the Omo trip, which cost the members a total of $1400, where Sobek beat a well-financed National Geographic expedition by three months to what was then billed as the Mt. Everest of Whitewater, a distinction many now bestow on the Tsangpo in Tibet.

   The first 2/3 of the book are well-written and include Sobek's tragic initial commercial trip ending with a client death in the first major rapid and later the death of Lee Greenwald, who Bangs met as a client on one of his Colorado trips. Greenwald had provided the financial backing to get the fledgling Sobek company off the ground, and became an accomplished river-runner under the mentorship of Bangs and one of his closest friends.

   The book builds towards a climax of the much-anticipated exploratory descent of the Tekeze, a trip Bangs had promised to do with Greenwald two decades earlier and one he must complete to bring closure to Greenwald's premature death, but here the book begins to fall a little flat. The account of the Tekeze expedition reads more like a sequence of daily journal entries that could have used a bit more editing and the writing itself takes a slight downhill turn. There are daily accounts of setting up the satellite phone to transmit reports back to Microsoft's Mungo Park online travel magazine which Bangs was hired to create. For some reason, Bangs turns to language he must feel required to use to match the technology he is using and some of his phrases are a bit heavy handed:

   ...the tail of the wet season has made every tree and shrub burst into hectic leaf... it feels like we're in an oversized diorama, or the middle of an IMAX film--everything is exaggerated, the colors more brilliant than enhanced photos, or HDTV."

   "...and every night I have slept fitfully, as though the night currents were arching through my cerebellum, conducting bytes and bits or worried thought."

   "I contemplate pulling out my Minolta for a parting shot but instead grab my DC50 Kodak digital camera..."

   Although the adventure aspects of the trip do not live up to the hype the reader anticipates, the story of Bangs coming to closure with the death of Greenwald provides a thread that keeps the story interesting.

   While the book does not hold the reader with the drama of Into Thin Air or the Perfect Storm, as promised on the dust jacket, it is a revealing and deeply personal account of the joys and sorrows that come from modern exploration of uncharted territory. The book is a must-read for anyone who has enjoyed previous books by Bangs and those interested in the development of modern adventure travel, exploratory boaters, and those who want to learn how Sobek came to be.




4. When I first heard that Richard Bangs had written another book I immediately ran to. I figured that I would read it over a two week period. After work on a Friday night I picked it up and started reading.

   Within three pages "The Lost River" grabbed me and when I looked up it was 3:30AM. I didn't want to stop reading, but I had a lot to do the next day, so I headed straight to bed. In the morning I decided to read some more and by 2:00 in the afternoon, I was making phone calls to cancel my appointments so I could finish the book, which I did by 6:00 that evening.

   This story is one that will stick with me for a long time. It is not only a wonderful adventure story about how he and his partners started Sobek, his rafting company, it is also an intensly personal self examination by Mr. Bangs. He dives deep into his own feelings. Ultimately, he triumphs over these feelings and by bringing the reader along this journey with him he teaches the value of good friends, the hope of great visions and the catharsis of confronting your past, head on. This is one of the great adventure stories of all time, but for me, it also served as a "self help" book. You'll be amazed and entertained by a fabulous story while going through your own internal exam at the same time.




5. I enjoyed the book tremendously. At times, I could even visualise the thrilling, dangerous and frightening moments down those wild rivers. I shall now look forward to the documentary.

1 comments about A Special Place for Charlee: A Child's Companion Through Pet Loss.

1. This story is simple and to the point about the loss of a pet. The family share in there love and loss of there pet. This book is a tribute to the pet and to the environment. I recommend this to both children and adults, that have gone through pet loss.

5 comments about Saying Goodbye to Buddy: When a Pet Dies.

1. "Saying Goodbye to Buddy" is a book that speaks directly and sensitively about the grieving process that children and adults face when their companion animals are ill and dying. Not only does it present the topic in a touching and compassionate manner, it also provides a workbook to help children express their feelings and to assist in their understand of the natural cycle of death and life. I recommend this book for all ages.



2. In "Saying Goodbye to Buddy", Jennifer Walz and Jinna Russell give parents a sensitive, imaginative, and yet common sense approach to what is most often a child's first experience with death. Attesting to the clarity and strength of this guide, the touching photographic illustrations alone could convey most of the message. Even so, their insight into how a child may show grief and how to use a journal-workbook to facilitate the process are essential for every parent.



3. While the book covers the aging, illness and death of Buddy, a beloved family pet, it goes far beyond by serving as a metaphor for the mortality that all pets and people on planet Earth must face. Children gain comfort from learning that the natural process of aging and death is simply a physical phenomenon. The concept that the spirit continues is presented in a way that all faiths can feel comfortable with. A fine book and genuine public service with beautiful photographs.



4. This book deals with the dying and grieving process involved in losing a pet. It is a good conversation starter for parents looking for ways to address the topic of death, dying and loss, not just for a family pet, but for other loved ones as well. It also a good book to acknowledge and affirm the importance of pets in a family's life. I would recommend it for children and adults as a compassionate and touching look at pet loss. The pictures are beautiful.



5. This is a sensitive book that is very helpful, especially for children dealing with the loss of a pet. In addition to the story, I liked the fact that there are "workbook" pages in the back to help in the grieving process and to provide a memorial to the pet. I definitely recommend the book.