CONFESSIONS OF A PET AU PAIR

Name: CONFESSIONS OF A PET AU PAIR
Author: Sheli Ellsworth
ISBN: 978-1596300903

THE ABCS OF PET AILMENTS INCLUDING TRADITIONAL AND HOMEOPATHIC CARE

by Sheli Ellsworth Bill Wafer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 2014

A guide to pet health from a caretaker and a veterinarian.
In this valuable and accessible reference guide, Ellsworth (The Psychoanalysis of Everyday Life, 2012), with her veterinarian co-writer, Wafer, details a number of ailments dogs and cats can face, from the common to the rare, via stories of the pets she cares for. “Technically, I’m a pet sitter,” Ellsworth says. “But since some of these pets spend more time with me than their owners, I prefer to think of myself as a pet au pair.” The stories illustrate illnesses like thyroid problems and heartworms as well as conditions like obesity and behavioral problems. Some end sadly—Fowler, the best bird dog in Solano County, California, had aged well past his prime before being euthanized—while other issues were little more than brief disturbances in a dog’s or cat’s routine. Ellsworth tackled all problems with a level head, even though they included things like anal gland expression and tumors. The book’s lighthearted tone is clearly full of love for all creatures, yet it’s also elevated enough to include medical terminology: “Dandelion root (Taraxacum officinale) alone contains copper, iron, selenium, magnesium and zinc,” readers are told, “as well as vitamins A, B1, B2, B5, B6, B12, C, D and E.” The work would make an ideal reference for pet owners who need basic information about pet health problems as well as advice on when it’s time to take a cat or dog to the vet. Offering readers numerous avenues to attack a particular health problem, the authors provide information on homeopathic treatments as well as modern veterinary medicine along with the necessary cautions that come with taking such an approach. Through dialogues with Ellsworth’s own veterinarian, Dr. McKenna, and his assistant, the authors make complex terminology and difficult decisions seem simpler and easier to manage. Also included is a comprehensive list of the subtypes of many conditions—such as possible dermatological issues and mental problems—as well as other useful sections covering common substances poisonous to pets and a discussion of vaccines.
A handy, approachable reference for cat and dog health.

Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2014

ISBN: 978-1596300903

Page Count: 252

Publisher: BeachHouse Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION

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WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

A LIFETIME OF RECORDINGS

by Bob Thiele with Bob Golden ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1995

Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)

Pub Date: May 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-19-508629-4

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995

Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION

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IN MY PLACE

by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992

From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)