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ANOTHER GOOD DOG

Name: ANOTHER GOOD DOG
Author: Cara Sue Achterberg
ISBN: 978-1-68177-793-1

ONE FAMILY AND FIFTY FOSTER DOGS

by Cara Sue Achterberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 7, 2018

A compassionate and humane canine tale.

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A writer’s account of how becoming a foster “dog parent” changed her life.

When a beloved hound Achterberg (Practicing Normal, 2017, etc.) had kept for 17 years died, the loss “left a gaping hole” in her family’s “collective heart.” Seeking to heal from loss, the author turned her home into a way station for canine rescues. In this heartwarming memoir, Achterberg lovingly describes the ups and downs of her first two years rehabilitating 50 dogs for new lives in “forever homes.” She begins with the story of Galina, a traumatized beagle who shrank from human touch. Under Achterberg's care, Galina soon grew into a “wonderful distraction” the author found difficult to give up. She continued to foster, knowing that another dog would only bring more challenges to a five-person household. Despite feeling unsure she had the “emotional and mental room” for more than one rescue, she brought home a puppy and, later, a large coonhound. Achterberg soon realized that her job was not only teaching her to look past former dog owners’ cruelties, but also to forgive inevitable doggie “accidents” like chewed shoes and bathroom mishaps. Other lessons followed. In fostering a pit bull, Achterberg learned to move beyond social prejudice and love dogs for their individual personalities. In fostering a dog who had just given birth to nine puppies, the author became aware that the process of weaning pups was much like weaning her own half-grown children from maternal care. The dogs tested both her and, at one point, the patience of a long-suffering husband who, in a moment of anger, told her to choose between him and the dogs. Yet fostering—and ultimately saving—rescues also gave her a renewed sense of purpose. Illustrated with photographs of some of Achterberg’s many fosters, this book blends insight and entertainment to tell an unforgettable story about seeking, and finding, life purpose through caring for abandoned dogs.

A compassionate and humane canine tale.

Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-68177-793-1

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Pegasus

Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)