A charming, lucid exploration of how dogs can heal our bodies, minds, and hearts.
In our turbulent times, the unconditional love of a dog is more important than ever.
Humans have had canine companions since before history was recorded, and there is an excellent reason for it. Dogs are good for us, and we are good for them; this book explains how and why. Golbeck is a scientist whose research field is personality and psychology, and Colino is an award-winning writer who specializes in health and psychology. Both are lifelong dog lovers. They add the surprisingly large body of research into human-dog interaction to their own experience, finding that people with dogs in their lives are happier and healthier. Part of this might be because they are more likely to exercise, but there is also the aspect that such indicators as blood pressure and heart rate improve by simply petting a dog. Then there is the emotional side, with dogs providing crucial support. During the pandemic, many people looked to dogs to counter isolation. "Dogs can…serve as a sort of balm to mental health struggles and ongoing stress," write the authors. “Our canine companions help us feel grounded and present-minded, leading by example.” Interestingly, studies on brain chemistry in dogs have shown that they enjoy interacting with people, and their affection goes well beyond the food bowl. The book has plenty of feel-good stories about dogs who helped people through illnesses and sometimes even detected a health problem at an early stage by smelling biochemical changes. Golbeck and Colino provide guidance on choosing the right dog, developing a relationship with it, and how, when the time comes, to say goodbye. "Dogs can lend a sense of stability and permanency when life feels chaotic,” they conclude. “They serve as a bright, integral thread in the fabric of our lives."
A charming, lucid exploration of how dogs can heal our bodies, minds, and hearts.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781668007846
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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