Patricia McConnell is a Genius

You may be aware of the fact that Amy and I have two dogs, Maggie and Otter. (In case you weren’t, I direct you to the posts in the blog tagged “the dog“. Or head to the flickr set entitled “Maggie + Otter“.)

At any rate, the dogs are great fun and bring a lot of joy to our lives. Like all members of the family, however, they tend to drive us nuts on occasion. Moving from Philly to Boston was hard on them – we went through a six-month period of pretty nasty fights between the two of them (although they always showed bite inhibition, which meant they weren’t actually trying to kill each other even if it sounded like it.) But since June, when we moved into this house, they’ve been getting along like a brother and sister… which means they mostly like each other, and she bitches at him for being a big doofus the rest of the time. Normal sibling behavior.

Despite the fact that they’re getting along, I still wanted to understand more about how their brains work, why they’d gone through that period of freaking out our downstairs neighbors with their fighting noises, and why they had such different temperments. Otter is a pretty happy-go-lucky dog, with just a few phobias/quirks (hates having his toes touched [his nickname is Otter Scissortoes], hates having his collar grabbed, loooooves to snuggle but only on top of the covers). Maggie is a lot more intense – always thinking, always alert, ready to fight/run at a moment’s notice, but cuddlier than you can even imagine a dog could be. So I’ve picked up a few books along the way and done some reading – I hit the usual suspects first: the Monks of New Skete and Dog Training for Dummies. I read a few more books here and there, and thought I was really starting to figure things out. But a few months ago, I was in the public library and picked up Patricia McConnell’s book The Other End of the Leash.

In the book, McConnell makes the argument that many of the difficulties humans have with dogs (and vice versa) stem from our fundamentally different ways of approaching the world. Humans look each other in the eye and approach head-on in greeting, dogs approach from the side and only look each other in the eye when they are trying to threaten another dog. Humans enjoy chest-to-chest contact (hugs) while dogs flat-out don’t. And so on…. It was really one of the best books I’ve ever read about the human/dog (mis)connection.

Imagine my delight when I wandered back into the library a couple of weeks ago and stumbled across McConnell’s newest book For the Love of a Dog. If it’s possible, I think this book may have been even better than the first one. In this book, McConnell discusses how emotions are similar and different in humans and dogs, dealing with things like the biology of emotion and the behavior of emotion.

While I can’t say that I completely understand either of my dogs, I do have a bit more knowledge in my arsenal that helps temper my frustration when the dogs are doing something I wish they wouldn’t do, or not doing something I want them to do. Maggie and Otter may not realize it yet, but this knowledge will make their lives better.

Finding a home in Boston-area bookstores

One of the things that makes a place “home” for me is a good local bookstore. When I lived in Philadelphia, I frequented the campus bookstore, a local Borders, and several smaller places in West Philadelphia. Never did find that one that just felt right to me, though…

So now that I’m in the Boston area, I’ve been wondering where to go that’s not too far (i.e. all the way into Boston/Cambridge). There is a Booksmith in Wellesley that I tried and tried to love, but alas, the inventory just isn’t up to snuff. The campus bookstore carries books for courses almost exclusively. And I suppose I could go to the local large mall area to find a B&N or Borders. But frankly, I’m just not that interested in heading to the mall area on a regular basis.

Imagine my delight, then, to find the most AMAZING bookstore in Newton Highlands, near a place where I go every week anyway. It’s called the New England Mobile Book Fair. And when I walked in, my jaw dropped and I knew I was home.

For the curious, here’s the deal. Books are arranged in a completely out-of-the-box way. Division number 1: full-price vs. remainders. Within full-price, division number 2: hard-cover vs. paperback. Within those, division number 3: adult vs. children. Within those, division number 4: publishers vs. subject areas. Within the publisher areas, division number 5: title arrangement vs. author groupings. It’s completely illogical to me, yet it works! They don’t have an inventory control system per se, but use Books in Print to determine if something is in print. Then you walk to the publisher area first, and subject area second, because a book could be in either place. The serendipity is stunning. And what I like about the shelving in each area is that it’s by title rather than by author. So no, I can’t see (most) authors’ full works, but I can do more random browsing, as I’ve got no way to really tell what I’m looking for. They are a very Long-Tail business. An inventory control system would help them immensely, but their quirkiness makes up for it.

Coolness: They had almost the entire set of offerings from Seal Press.
Coolness: More AMC books than you can shake a stick at.
Coolness: 20% off paperbacks and 30% off hardbacks every day.

I highly recommend this place.

Finishing Library Books on Time

Tab-tastic: Use 3M Post-its to mark how much to read on daily on a library book so you don’t have to return it late!

I wonder if this idea could somehow be applied to knitting…. Great lifehack!

Parrot Love

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story . . .with Wings

My rating: 4 out of 5

A delightful book by Mark Bittner, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is the story of one man’s foray into becoming an urban naturalist. Bittner, a man who lives on the outskirts of 9-5 society, ends up living on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, trying to find himself. The book, while ostensibly about the relationship he develops with a flock of wild parrots, has a depth to it that the goofy birds on the cover hide.

For really, Bittner chronicles not only the relationships he develops with the flock of parrots and with individual members of the flock, but he more subtly chronicles his path of spiritual and emotional seeking and searching.

Very much recommended. I finished this book in an afternoon and an evening.

Bring out your dead and get your vaccine

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History

My rating: 5 out of 5

A rousing trip through medical education, epidemiology, war preparations, political intrigue, and scientific research, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History kept me riveted for the past three weeks!

John M. Barry, resident scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities in New Orleans, thoroughly researched the influenza pandemic of 1918. In this detailed and wide-ranging book, Barry shows how the pandemic of 1918 ripped through the world, killing millions in a few months, and demonstrates how the changing face of medical education and research in the U.S. at the time put scientists in the position to finally try to determine the root cause of influenza. Unfortunately, President Woodrow Wilson’s war machine – both the information machine (propaganda and censorship were the name of the game) and the human/mechanical machine (soldiers, drafts, shipyards, etc.) – fed into the rapid spread of the epidemic around the world.

I’m not a huge non-fiction reader (although I’ve been on a non-fiction kick lately), but this book hooked me from the beginning. The people, the stories, and the influenza bug kept me glued to the pages. Highly recommended.