Heartfelt accounts of restorative experiences with animals.
A memoir about a man’s love for his horse along with a collection of anecdotes about others’ unique experiences with animals.
Rowland, author of Unspoken Message (2013), returns in this memoir to continue the story of his beloved horse, Pal. This book is split into two parts: Rowland’s short account of his family’s decision to sell their farm and his horses, including Pal, and a collection of stories about others’ connections to their animals. As a cancer survivor and animal lover, Rowland believes in the mystical powers of the animal kingdom: “All of them are magical and highly advanced sentient beings capable of showing us the truth about this universe, but we have to be open to see what they show.” He discusses how and why he made the hard decision to sell the farm and relocate to be with his wife’s aging parents in Maine, forcing him to say goodbye to Pal. In a last effort to connect to him, Rowland hired a horse psychic to read Pal’s mind. His story is quirky and lively, but unfortunately it’s rendered in plain prose, which, to some extent, he counters with a conversational style, often addressing readers directly. The second part of the book is more interesting. The author chronicles others’ experiences with animals, from those who’ve made spiritual connections to their horses to a person with PTSD discovering a horse’s healing potential. Not every anecdote is based on equines. A former real estate agent happened upon and saved a badly injured 25-pound snapping turtle, for example. Rowland characterizes the rescue as more than a lucky human intervention for the turtle: “I am one to believe once the universe finds people with open minds to its enchanted ways, it sends even more to you.” Animal lovers will appreciate the sometimes-dramatic stories of animals rescuing humans and vice versa. While details are occasionally scant, the efforts here are passionate and authentic.
Heartfelt accounts of restorative experiences with animals.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982255-55-8
Page Count: 282
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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
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