ONLY LOVE CAN BREAK YOUR HEART :: Ed Tarkington

"Love can make people do terrible things."

Small-town Virginia 1977, a small enclave seemingly insulated from the general madness of the world. This is where narrator Richard "Rocky" Askew, almost eight, lives with his mother, father (the Old Man), and half-brother Paul, sixteen. Rocky, the "good kid," is "excessively governed and supervised,...imprisoned by his mother's anxieties" due to "what had become or appeared to be becoming of Paul."

By real world standards, Paul feels far from a bad kid, but in Spencerville, driving your Chevy Nova around town while smoking cigarettes, wearing your hair long, and listening to loud rock music is what constitutes a "bad kid" and that's how Paul is labeled. He starts out as a stellar big brother to Rocky, teaching Rocky about the greats of rock and roll and often letting him tag along with Paul and his girlfriend Leigh, daughter of a prominent local judge (none too happy about his top student-athlete daughter's relationship with a no-good like Paul Askew).

When left by the Old Man to bear a family burden alone, it's the last straw for Paul. Full of vengeance and misguided empathy, Paul undertakes a course of action that narrowly eludes disaster. The next day, Paul and Leigh run off, leaving devastation in their wake.

The lives of the Askews are also entwined with those of the Culvers, Brad and Jane, who live on the neighboring Twin Oaks property, a larger, historical parcel the Old Man was, in his mind, not good enough to buy when he tried. In the words of Rocky, "[the Culvers'] hands have been on every bad thing that's happened" to his family.

The troubled dynamic of the two families is set off on a new, fateful course when, eight years following the disappearance of Paul and Leigh, Rocky takes on work at the Culver stables, leading to a relationship with their daughter Patricia, many years Rocky's senior:

To the few people I've told about Patricia over the years, I have described her as a mysterious older woman who, through chance and circumstance, took me to bed and stole my innocence. To men, I would treat the whole experience as a naughty little conquest. To women, I would relate it as a dark secret that had marked me with a lingering, melancholy vulnerability. The truth was something more complicated.

The drama set up by Paul and Leigh's disappearance, Rocky and Patricia's "romance," and the Old Man's dealings with Brad Culver was palpable and I devoured and adored the first half of Only Love Can Break Your Heart. The characters and their relationships were engrossing and I was drawn into their world and issues very quickly; I simply didn't want to put the book down. My heart ached for Rocky, I felt for Paul but also wanted to smack him upside the head, same with the Old Man. The family dynamics were compelling, often sad, and always very human.

Tarkington's writing is beautiful and I flagged many passages throughout, but the second half of the story felt a bit loose and amorphous to me. A mystery is thrown into the last quarter and solved with a bit of a whimper, secondary characters appear and then seem to have trouble finding a place, and the crescendo really never crescendoed. I went from knowing I had to have a copy of Only Love for my shelf to the lesser but still positive vibe of being glad I'd found the book and this author. No doubt I will read Ed Tarkington's next offering.

STREET SENSE: Lovely and engaging writing, unique characters, and intriguing relationships and family dynamics highlight this tale of family, love, and tragedy. While the story flagged for me in the second half, I still recommend the book to those readers who aren't sticklers for a watertight plot over character and writing.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: We must all recall the incomprehensible spite of the schoolyard bully: The random selectivity of his malice, the helpless acquiescence of his prey. Perhaps worse of all, the pathetic betrayal of the victim's so-called friends, who stand aside or perhaps even laugh and jeer, loyalty being a far less powerful instinct than self-preservation. Instead of forming a line of defense, they part and flee, like the herd of wildebeests on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, blithely trotting away as the lion gorges on the the entrails of some unfortunate straggler while Marlin Perkins voices airy platitudes about the circle of life.

COVER NERD SAYS:  By now it should come as no surprise that the cover of Only Love is what initially caught my eye while I was perusing the NetGalley shelves. I had not heard of the book or Ed Tarkington when I clicked to read the summary based solely on the cover image. The title and fonts gave me the feeling I might like what was inside. In fact, even though I'm not a huge fan of the font used for the author's name, it evoked something lighter and humorous that made me curious as to how those elements might co-exist. Strangely, this is the second 2016 title to switch covers on me. When I started reading, the cover didn't speak to me as much as it did when I first saw it. A quick Google search revealed the initial cover below, which I like much more than the blue one. I think the brown fits much better and the author font presents much better in black. Overall, well done.

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NO BAGGAGE :: Clara Bensen

"How well can you know someone you just met on the internet?"

An interesting question, though perhaps not quite as interesting as this one: "Would you travel the world with little more than the clothes on your back accompanied only by someone you recently met on the internet?"

The seemingly simple premise of No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering, traveling with no luggage, was enough to pique my curiosity, but the story is much deeper than that. A mere four weeks after meeting through online dating site OkCupid, Clara ("a reclusive tech writer from a big family of dyed-in-the-wood introverts" with "more houseplants than friends") and Jeff ("a mad scientist who delighted in creating a spectacle for the crowd"who "had never met a stranger in his life") buy a pair of one-way tickets to Istanbul with return flights from London. How they get from one place to the other is completely up in the air.

Adding more layers to the yin and yang of their new romance, Clara is on the mend from a "two-year mental breakdown" and Jeff is in a confirmed "no strings" state after his recent divorce. But in an effort to start living life to the fullest, Clara agrees to throw caution to the wind and travel Jeff's way: flying from country to country with no hotel reservations and no itineraries, generally starting the journey with nothing but a credit card, a phone charger, a passport, and the outfit he sets out in.

A ballsy thing to do under any circumstances, but I had a ton of respect for Clara for jumping in with both feet, leaving all of her literal baggage behind and putting herself in a position that forced her to deal with the metaphorical baggage of life that isn't as easily left behind. No Baggage has as much or more to do with the latter than the former.

Indeed, if it's a strict travelogue you're after, No Baggage likely isn't going to fit the bill. Of course Clara provides details of her and Jeff's journey across eight continents over three weeks, but it's the journey she takes as a person that pulled me in. She allowed herself to be vulnerable, both as a traveler and a human being, a position difficult enough in normal circumstances, only heightened by her circumstances:

Standing in an airport with no baggage is a lot like the dream where you show up to a party and you're the only one who forgot to get dressed. I felt naked. Unmoored. Weightless. I have nothing. We have nothing. My head was light with the nothingness. Without a suitcase to hold me down, I felt dangerously at risk of floating up and and away towards the skylights of Terminal D - like the buoyant Mary Poppins (sans her magic satchel).

Despite her unease and the issues she is just putting behind her, Clara decides to push herself, to be vulnerable, to "allow [herself] to be temporarily lost, exhausted, and roofless, to test the very worst that might happen." She is tested in many ways on the trip, and it was a fun and fascinating journey to share with her. I really enjoyed watching her change and grow over the course of the pair's travels.

I also admired Clara's perspective about the trip; that while for her it was a huge, boundary-pushing undertaking, in the grand scheme of things she still had a choice:

We weren't exactly reinventing the wheel as middle-class white Americans intentionally choosing to test the unknown with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Large swathes of the global population had nothingness and uncertainty thrust upon them - not as a deliberate and temporary choice, but as a lifelong fact of their existence.  

Jeff is another story. Playing by his rules, flying in his comfort zone, he was for the most part a supportive partner. But I also found him to be a bit reckless at times. Once, before the trip, he put Clara in a position I thought rather dangerous, all seemingly for the sake of a thrill. After that moment, he didn't hold the same allure or shine for me. Maybe I'm just older and more curmudgeonly than I thought.

To be fair, some of the more memorable moments of the trip arose because of Jeff's persona. He is the epitome of the idea that wonder is married to risk and "the really magical stuff tends to show up when you have no idea what's going to happen next." He helps Clara live in the moment, less weighed down by the stresses that haunt her. I'm really curious to know how and where their relationship stands today. Despite their seeming differences, I wouldn't be surprised to find them still inextricably linked in wonder.

STREET SENSE: Part travel journal, part personal journey, No Baggage is both a deep and light trip with two fascinating and diametrically opposed people, each struggling to find his or her place in the world while traveling through it aimlessly. I quite enjoyed it and recommend it for those of you interested in travel, the challenges of baggage-less journeys, and the insight and personal growth both might bring to bear.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: The etymology of the word "travel" can be traced back to the word "travail," which brings to mind the sorts of arduous journeys that blister your ankles, burn your calves, and provide a melange of reasons to wish you had never left home at all. The reality is that every good and wonderful thing tends to be accompanied by some degree of travail.

Desire was an insatiable consumer beast. Yet by eliminating the possibility of new acquisitions from the outset, I had moved into a surprising state of satisfaction with the basics: food and shelter shared with someone who made my heart beat a little faster. In a way, it was an alchemic process - by dropping desire, a cheap paper cup of Nescafe, a crocheted blanker on a stranger's couch, and a clean pair of underwear suddenly transformed into tiny, generous miracles.

COVER NERD SAYS:  I don't think the cover above is the cover I first saw for this book. I don't remember much about the one I saw, but enough to know I prefer it. Nothing about the current cover speaks to me; the faded images would not scream out at me from a table or shelf to pick the book up. I do like the font and how the title and author are presented, but together it doesn't have any draw or wow factor for me.

P.S. I did a Google search and found the below image, which I think is the one I first saw. I like it much better. Is it just me? I'd be curious to know the strategy behind the switch. The first image does make it clearer that a man and a woman are traveling together, so perhaps the change was to highlight the fact that this book isn't strictly about travel or a single woman taking on the 'no baggage' premise. The image below certainly evokes the "woman conquering the world alone" feeling for me. Thoughts?

ELON MUSK :: Ashlee Vance

Until I started reading about Tesla Motors, Elon Musk was just another local tech guru to me. I didn't know much about him and wasn't particularly moved to find out. Then I saw my first Tesla, the Model S. I'm no gearhead, but I've always been a car nerd to the extent that I love a beautiful form.

Cars these days don't often float my aesthetic boat, but I just about tripped over my own feet when I saw that Model S. What a gorgeous piece of machinery. A piece of art, really (seriously, if you ever go by a showroom/store, sit in one - the attention to detail and artistic form are thrilling, down to the flow of the dashboard).

Now my ears were open when Musk or Tesla was the topic of news or conversation. The more I learned, the more my interest was piqued. What kind of businessman shares his patents with the world? Could Musk actually care more about the advancement of the electronic car, green energy, and the human race than the almighty dollar and market share (or at least care at all)?

One night I saw Musk on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the genius man-nerd blew my socks off. Here was a guy talking in all seriousness about colonizing Mars, striving to be environmentally sound, and making the world a better place. What parallel universe had I encountered?

I noticed the relatively new (May 2015) Musk biography by Ashlee Vance was available through my local library in audiobook form and jumped in line to get a copy. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future is a meticulously detailed, riveting look at a complex, brilliant, maddening, and compelling man and one of the best books I read this year.

I adored Musk as a total book nerd of a kid growing up in South Africa. His upbringing was often rough and difficult to read about, but also illuminating. A real boy genius, Musk was working with computers at a young age and developing his own code and games by ten or twelve.

It was wonderful to see Musk's current ideals about the environment and progress bubble forth at such a young age. Even in his twenties Musk bucked the norm and spoke out about green energy and space exploration.

As an adult businessman, Musk seems to have the qualities that breed both success and adversity. Ever an optimist, he tends to set unrealistic deadlines and insist they be met. Driven and demanding, sometimes perceived as callous, he sometimes seems genuinely unaware of how he can come across and quite often evidences a very generous spirit. It has been speculated he is somewhere on the spectrum for Asperger's. True or not, he is a compelling mix of characteristics.

I found myself really falling in like with this man, his optimism, and drive for better things for humanity. How can you not admire the fortitude required to become the first person to build a private rocket? His vision for the electric car was not just to build a car, but to build the best car. And build it he did. In November 2012, the Tesla Model S was the first unanimous winner of Motor Trend's Car of the Year award. It beat out eleven other vehicles, including Porsche, Lexus, BMW, and Subaru. Motor Trend believed the Tesla is:

Proof positive that America can still make great things...the vehicle handled like a sports car, drove as smoothly as a Rolls Royce, held as much as a Chevy Equinox, and was more efficient than a Toyota Prius.

Consumer Reports gave the Model S the highest car rating in history, 99/100, while proclaiming it "likely the best car ever built." Pretty high praise. I was all in.

Then Musk got married and made a remark to his wife on their wedding day that screamed "misogynistic dick." I was unsure how to fit that remark in with the rest of the Musk profile, that of a man who regularly hires women as his top executives, including the President and CEO of SpaceX, and his right-hand person on all matters. Maybe it was a one-off. Maybe it didn't come across in the context of the book. Maybe he really is a dick. The book does not shy away from a full portrayal of Musk, good and bad, but I couldn't help but like him in the end.

It should be noted that after first refusing, Musk gave Vance full access to his life and those around him, for better or worse. Vance did a fabulous job portraying this multi-faceted man as fairly and fully as can be expected in a work such as this. I was truly riveted, and that is no small testament to Vance's ability to winnow a vast amount of dense and complex information into something workable and interesting.

I ended up with some clear perceptions about Musk:

• While I wouldn't want to work for him now, I would clamor for the opportunity if I were young and had the talents necessary to work in one of his industries
• I wouldn't want to marry him, but I would love to spend time with him
• I sure as hell would want him working on my project

The book is somewhat heavy on business deals and specifics of the industry, but (1) that's likely a requirement for much of audience interested in Musk and his work, and (2) it was necessary to show how Musk deals with business setbacks (and there have been many) and achievements. Don't let this dissuade you. I'm not the audience for those facts, but I still enjoyed every minute of this biography.

STREET SENSE: Readers interested in the future of industry and how one of our greatest technological leaders got his start and continues to make his mark will want to read Elon Musk. Heck, even if you're not interested in those things I highly recommend it. I'm generally not interested in those things and I found it to be a fascinating character study that got me interested in them.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: GM pulled together a team to study Model S, Tesla and the methods of Elon Musk. "It's worth pausing for a moment to meditate on what Tesla had accomplished. Musk had set out to make an electric car that did not suffer from any compromises. He did that. Then, using a form of entrepreneurial judo, he up-ended the decades of criticisms against electric cars. The Model S was not just the best electric car, it was best car, period, and the car people desired. America had not seen a successful car company since Chrysler emerged in 1925. Silicon Valley had done little of note in the automotive industry. Musk had never run a car factory before, and was considered arrogant and amateurish by Detroit. Yet one year after the Model S went on sale, Tesla had posted a profit, hit $562 million quarterly revenue, raised its sales forecast, and became as valuable as Mazda Motor. Elon Musk had built the automotive equivalent of the iPhone, and car executives in Detroit, Japan, and Germany had only their crappy ads to watch as they pondered how such a thing had occurred.

COVER NERD SAYS:  I really like this cover. I find everything about Musk interesting and unique, from his personality to the way he speaks to the way he looks. This picture evokes some of the mystery of Musk to me, and I love the mechanics in the background. It also has sneaky-good mirroring of the red, "white" and blue machinery highlights in the title and author text. Well done.

SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES :: F.H. Batacan

"This is the amazing mystery you've been waiting for!" ~ Liberty Hardy, Book Riot

A couple months ago, I was invited to try the new Book of the Month Club. This iteration operates a bit differently than your grandfather's Book of the Month Club. A panel of fantastic individuals ("judges") from all different arenas of the literary world offer recommendations from which members can make their monthly selection. (Other books are available for purchase at a reasonable price. You can learn more about the club and meet the judges here.)

I was a bit trepidatious about accepting the invitation. I'm not much of a joiner, nor am I one for being obligated to buy or read any book in particular. But in only my second month I discovered a novel so outstanding it will easily be in my top picks for the year. Without Liberty Hardy's Book of the Month Club recommendation, I likely wouldn't have found it at all. Which would be a shame, because F.H. Batacan's Smaller and Smaller Circles is one of the smartest and most thoughtful books I've read this year, crime fiction or otherwise, and I fell in love with its characters wholeheartedly.

Manila, 1977. A difficult time in the Philippines, rife with poverty, corrupt officials, lazy or uncaring law enforcement, and a Catholic church closing ranks to protect its own. Some families are so poor their children leave school and instead scour the local dump for food to bring home.

When someone begins preying on young, at-risk boys, leaving their horrifically mutilated bodies in the dump, Jesuit priest and forensic anthropologist Gus Saenz is asked by the Director of the National Bureau of Investigations to help with the case. Father Gus, along with his former student and mentee Father Jerome Lucero, now a psychologist, throw themselves into the case with their hearts and their heads.

Of course, there is more than a killer getting in their way. Not everyone cares that young boys on society's fringes are being victimized. Not everyone wants the Director to succeed. Not everyone likes Father Gus and his "meddling" ways.

The brilliance of Batacan's storytelling is that these facets, nothing new to crime fiction, don't feel like retreads. Everything fits, the plot and characters are all drawn so well the whole feels very, very real indeed. There is no wasted prose here. I was amazed how quickly Father Gus and Father Jerome became a duo I was wholly invested in and knew I would crave more from. I knew these characters, and Batacan let me know them in the most intimate way - not by spending time describing them, but by shining a light on their souls through their words and actions. It was really beautiful to feel so powerless to avoid investing in these characters and their plights.

Wanting to know more about Batacan, her background, and other potential work, I looked her up, only to discover Smaller and Smaller Circles has quite a history. It was first published in the Philippines in 2002 as a 35,000-word manuscript, and acknowledged as the Philippines' first crime novel. It was critically acclaimed, winning the 1999 Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for best English-language novel (known as the “Philippine Pulitzer”), the Madrigal-Gonzalez Best First Book Award in 2002, and the Manila Critics’ Circle National Book Award for Fiction in 2003.

The University of the Philippines Press’s ten-year publication license expired in 2012. At that same time, Soho Press Associate Publisher Juliet Grames was invited to the Manila International Literary Festival, where she picked up a copy of the book. Blown away but knowing “the format was not quite what the global crime fiction audience expects in a novel—it was rather short," Grames approached the author to see if she would be willing to tell more of the story. Batacan has previously considered expanding the story, did just that, and the final Soho edition was published this past August.

I hope Smaller and Smaller Circles meets with as much critical acclaim world-wide as it did in the Philippines. It's more than worthy, and I for one want to see more from Batacan and more about Gus and Jerome.

STREET SENSE:  A lean, mean, fighting machine of a crime novel, built on the shoulders of a story well-told and supported with characters who get under your skin. The crimes are grotesque, but there is no lingering on the details, no effort to shock, just the facts required to tell the story and investigate the crime. The story is also infused with warmth and humor that help balance the dastardly deeds being investigated. I will buy the next Batacan title without hesitation and I recommend you give Smaller and Smaller Circles a go. This is crime fiction at its very best.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  After the rain, life - earth, foliage, frogs - momentarily reclaims human attention from those things which are not life. Everything else - the cars, the buildings, the dingy shop signs and crumbling waiting sheds, the garlands of electrical wiring that line the streets, the rusting metal and concrete and plastic that jut out singly or in masses to stab the city air - everything else recedes into a damp and quiet dullness. The dead things know their place.

COVER NERD SAYS: For the first time in a very long time, I didn't buy or judge a book by its cover. I selected Smaller and Smaller Circles as my BotM pick because the other choices weren't really in my wheelhouse and because Liberty made it sound interesting. Frankly, I would normally not be inclined to buy or read a book focusing on two priests. But because I had to pick a book, I picked this one without much thought to the cover. I'm not sure whether this cover would have attracted me from a book store table or not. It's certainly bold in imagery and color. The question would be whether I would have seen the cross as a cross or just an image. Frankly, the texture of the cross looks like the surface of a basketball, which would be more likely to grab my attention than a cross. But judging this one in hindsight is tough. the cover is nothing spectacular, but I can no longer think about it objectively, just as the cover of a fantastic read. Perhaps that alone is enough to keep it in the "well done" column.

THE PENGUIN LESSONS :: Tom Michell

"Had I been told as a child in the 1950s that my life would one day run parallel with that of a penguin - that for a time, at least, it would be him and me against the world - I would have taken it in my stride. After all, my mother had kept three alligators at the house in Esher until they grew too big and too dangerous for that genteel town, when keepers from the Chessington Zoo had come and removed them."

I recently found myself in a severe book rut, the likes of which I can't remember having suffered before. I had DNF'd three straight audiobooks (and only hate-finished the fourth because I just had to see if it was as aggravating as I thought it was - answer, yes) and wasn't having much better luck with tree- or e-books. To be fair, life in general has been nothing but a wheelbarrow full of upheaval lately. I needed something special to snap me out of my malaise.

I'm a sucker for a well-told animal rescue story, so I hitched my happy-reading wagon to Tom Michell's The Penguin Lessons: What I Learned from a Remarkable Bird. Boy did this brief but utterly charming memoir help me waddle right out of my literary doldrums.

In the mid-1970s, Michell, then 23, left his native England for a position at an Argentinian boarding school. On a weekend jaunt to Uruguay, he came across the horrific results of an oil spill: hundreds of dead, beached penguins. When one mighty penguin showed signs of life, Michell felt he had no choice but to rescue the plucky fellow, who he (quite hilariously) cleaned up, smuggled back to Argentina, and ultimately christened Juan Salvado.

If you're given to anthropomorphizing, you'll love this book. If you're not, I dare you to read this gem and not come away with a different feeling and understanding about the minds and emotions of animals. Juan Salvado is a sheer delight - to Michell, his students, his cleaning lady, school staff, and, I'm betting, most readers. At turns warm and laugh-out-loud funny (I literally did "lol" at Michell's efforts to clean the bird in a posh Uruguayan apartment), I was entranced from beginning to end.

The Penguin Lessons also provides interesting insight into Argentina and its people in the 1970s. It was a difficult time, politically, socially, and environmentally ("terrorism was rife; murder and kidnappings were everyday events"), and any dip into those territories runs the risk of becoming preachy or, well, political. I thought Michell walked that line perfectly. The information added necessary flavor and background information without overpowering the story Michell set out to tell. "Juan Salvador was a penguin who charmed and delighted everyone who knew him in those dark and dangerous days."

I recently read another animal rescue story that dealt with "lessons learned" from the animal and it turned out to be nothing but an excuse to quote Bible scripture. So I've become a bit wary of that tag line. Nothing to fear here. We all have things to learn from listening to animals, and this story stays true to the themes of rescue, friendship, and compassion.

A slim volume at just 240 pages, with chapter headings alone worth the read (i.e, "7 Upstairs Downstairs. In which Juan Salvado takes up residence and hosts a house-warming party"), this would be a great holiday gift for the animal lovers in your life. I know it's on my list.

STREET SENSE: Michell has hit this one out of the park. A funny and heartwarming story that lives up to Michell's quest to live a grand adventure in his twenties. Highly recommended.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  All of a sudden I was hoping against hope that the penguin would survive because, as of that instant, he had a name and his name was Juan Salvador Penguino, and with his name came a surge of hope and the beginning of a bond that would last a lifetime. That was the moment at which he became my penguin, and whatever the future held, we'd face it together.

COVER NERD SAYS: C'mon. A PENGUIN WEARING A SCARF. If you can resist that, I'm not sure I know who you are. I love the art work on this cover and although I haven't yet seen it in person it looks as though it may even be letterpress. A+ stuff worthy of the innards.

THE DOGIST :: Elias Weiss Friedman

When Elias Friedman was laid off from his job at a major New York agency, he decided to become more entrepreneurial. After some work on a startup that was ultimately sold, he decided to combine the two things he loves most: photography and dogs. The result was a 2013 Instagram feed (@TheDogist) that took off across most social media platforms (1.2 million followers on Instagram; same Twitter handle and Facebook page name). His work has now been compiled into a fantastic hardbound collection entitled The Dogist: Photographic Encounters with 1,000 Dogs.

I came across The Dogist on Twitter and was captivated. As a fellow lifelong lover of dogs and photography, this work captures two things I hold dear, and does it quite well. Elias’ work is brilliantly expressive; it’s mostly close-up work on the streets of New York and truly captures the many different personalities and essences of “dog.”

The photos generally include the dog's name (which is something I always love to know), breed, and age. Sometimes, if the dog does something interesting or the owner starts talking with Friedman, we also get a little fact about the dog. The international posts (Friedman doesn't stop working when he travels) are especially fun, treating those of us here in the U.S. to breeds (and names) we don't see as often or at all.

As Friedman once said in an interview, "Every dog deserves recognition." I believe he practices what he preaches, as the spectrum of unique is fully explored in both Friedman's work and the book. The collection is put together in entertaining categories too numerous to recount here, but includes: heavyweights, barkers, sassy, haircuts, head tilts, rare breeds, snow, bionic, tongues, beautiful blends, cones of shame—you get the picture.

There’s something for everyone and I guarantee you’ll see at least one thing you’ve never seen before. Elias has been doing the work long and steadily enough that there is no shortage of material to work with, and each page is a lesson in the beautiful and unique qualities of human’s best friend.

Elias also created the Give a Dog a Bone program, featuring stories of shelter dogs (more than 50 in 20 different shelters), most of which have since found homes. Says Friedman, "I visit shelters and photograph adoptable dogs to be featured on the site. From there people from my audience will sponsor the dogs. It gives these dogs more exposure than they would otherwise have and helps tell an important piece of the story."

The Dogist is highly recommended for photographers and dog admirers alike, and would be a super Christmas present for the dog lover in your life.

STRICTLY POSITIVE

A few weird, wondrous, and wacky things that kept me afloat this week:

Exhibit A: The video tells the story. Robert Downey, Jr. (i.e., Tony Stark/Iron Man) delivers a bionic arm to a young boy with a birth defect.



Exhibit B:  Baron the German Shepherd is a pretty damn good housekeeper. He does laundry, dishes, dusting, mopping, and general clean-up. I watched this and learned what a spoiled slacker I have let Bird become. A new regime is on the way!

Baron the GSD does all the housework!
Baron The German Shepherd is the BEST house keeper ever - he can do the laundry, the dishes, the dusting, the mopping... and even cleans up his own cookie crumbs!!This is some seriously amazing training! :)
Posted by K9 Instinct on Friday, May 15, 2015

Exhibit C: I recently discovered a new photographer who has changed my world. I've always loved lions (and am a sucker for black and white photography), and when I saw Laurent Baheux's work, I knew I had to have one of his spectacular pieces. You can see some of Laurent's work here or here. I've posted the image I bought below, along with a few others and a brief interview with Laurent. I also love Laurent because he works to help ban trophy hunting. This work just blows my socks off and warms the cockles of my heart all at the same time.

Exhibit D:  Wacky local story. Suspected car thief ends up hanging from a third-story window threatening to kill himself. For three-plus hours, the cops try and talk him down without luck. Then reinforcements arrived — police discovered the man's family had shown up with his cat. Using his pet, hostage negotiators were able to persuade the man to surrender without incident within 45 minutes. “Using the cat was ingenious,” a police spokesman said. “Never underestimate the power of the love between people and their pets. I think it was great to think outside the box like the officers did. It made enough of an impact on this person to bring him down and come to his senses.” Here's a picture of the little life-saver.

Exhibit E:  Women from a Los Angeles shelter get together each week to share stories, find community, and create pieces to sell in order to fund shelter programs. Text taken directly from this article: Each Wednesday evening, around 6:30 p.m., an unlikely group of artists congregate in the activity room downstairs at the Anne Douglas Center for Women, located in downtown LA. For an hour and a half, [they] sing along to Mariah Carey, swap tales from the weekend, compliment each other's work, and make things. More specifically, wire sculptures and multimedia masks, collages and self-portraits, worry dolls and letters to [their] future selves. [They] play telephone Pictionary and draw with closed eyes. Some projects come together with ease, others are more of a gamble -- turns out, mixing bubble formula and paint does not look that cool. However, regardless of the finished products, all cherish the roped-off time each week when there are no strict instructions, no right answers, no winners. And this is not to say the finished products aren't surprising, genuine and wildly beautiful -- which they most definitely are.

Exhibit F: Genevieve Piturro is an avid reader and wanted to focus her long-time volunteer work on literacy and kids. To that end, she began to spend her evenings reading to kids in homeless shelters, foster care facilities and organizations for abused, neglected and needy youth. She noticed that once the reading was done and the kids got into bed, they had nothing to change into. No pajamas. From there, Piturro's Pajama Program was born. In the five years since, she has arranged for 85,000 pairs of pajamas to be gifted to kids in need. If you're interested in learning more about the Pajama Program or how you can help, go to pajamaprogram.org.

Obligatories:  Still living like the Flintstones. B don't care.

Peace, love, and Bobby Sherman.

A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS :: Paul Tremblay

Lock up your siblings and hide under the covers, this one's a corker. If you're a fan of spooky creepy and/or psychological suspense, Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts is your spirit book (no pun intended). The story is told from three perspectives - present day 23-year-old Meredith "Merrie" Barrett sharing the story of her childhood with best-selling author Rachel Neville, flashbacks to the horror that befell the Barrett family fifteen years ago (where we spend most of our time), and mysterious blog posts detailing the events and the reality show that chronicled them. It's a catalog of perspectives, none of which can be counted on as reliable, which only heightens the sense of dread and apprehension Tremblay aptly creates.

The trouble begins at a difficult time. John Barrett has lost his long-time job, and the financial pressures are putting a strain on his marriage as his wife Sarah tries to hold everything together. Fourteen-year-old Marjorie and eight-year-old Merry cope as best they can, Marjorie often setting aside her teenage ways and "closed-door policy" to tell stories to Merry.

But Marjorie's stories begin to turn dark, and her behavior soon follows. She tells Merry "green growing things" are going to take over the world and everyone will die. She claims her possessions rearrange themselves in her room while she sleeps, speaks in voices, and rages about the ghosts she hears in her head, how there are too many and she can't escape them.

It's apparent to everyone Marjorie is having a psychological break. Or is she?

Psychiatry and medication don't help and Marjorie's behavior worsens. It gets louder, scarier, more physical, and more pronounced, along with the family fractures. All the while, Marjorie is giving Merry mixed messages, on one hand claiming she's faking, while on the other hand warning Merry to remember her stories in order to save herself.

I said, "It's okay. But you'll get better, right? Then we'll tell normal stories, like we used to. It'll be fun."
"No. You have to remember the story about the two sisters. You have to remember all my stories because there are - there are all these ghosts filling my head and I'm just trying to get them out, but you have to remember the story about the two sisters especially. Okay? You have to. Please say, 'Okay.'"
Marjorie was just a shadow on the bed. She could've been a pile of blankets, twisted and discarded. I couldn't see her eyes or her spaghetti-sauce-stained chin.
When I didn't answer her, she screamed as though she were being attacked; so loud it lifted my feet off the floor and pushed me backwards.
"Say, 'Okay,' Merry! Say it!"
I didn't. And I ran out of the room.

John begins taking solace in religion; praying for guidance and spending much of his time at the local church. Becoming more and more convinced Marjorie is possessed by an evil spirit, he seeks the counsel of Father Wanderly. At desperate ends financially, the Barretts agree to let The Discovery Channel come into their home and film the family trying to cope with Marjorie's condition, including a planned exorcism.

Things get downright crazypants in the Barrett house, and A House Full of Ghosts grabbed me and held me pretty well captive. Tremblay had me fully engaged and tense as hell trying to get to the resolution, which was a true gut-puncher and turned the book into something special. Tremblay did a fantastic job keeping me guessing, trying to figure out which character's voice to believe, especially when they all seemed a bit off their respective rockers at various times. I doubted Marjorie, I doubted Merry, I doubted everyone. Well done.

There were a few snags. I found the blog posts truly annoying. A decent premise utilized to provide a "third eye" view and recap of the reality show aired during "the troubles," they failed in the execution. Obviously written by an adult (they discuss patriarchy and urtext), they sound like they were written like a tween on speed, mixing in all caps, line outs, childish snark, and cringe-worthy vocabulary like "for realsies." It helped there were only three of them, but one dropped a major plot point (a spoiler, if there can be such a thing within the book being spoiled) as a seeming afterthought.

Adult Merry also had a strange way of communicating that left me a bit cold. I loved Merry as an 8-year-old, but had something of a disconnect with 23-year-old  Merry. Grown Merry uses the term "physical artifacts" when discussing books and muses (three times) over the possibility that she is "conflating" her memories with all of the urban legends, media coverage and pop culture references she's been bombarded with over the years. This disconnect may have been intentional, as Merry is obviously a bit messed up from the events of her childhood and has turned into something of a recluse. My reaction may have been what was intended by the author, but I was sorry for that disconnect.

Overall, I thought A Head Full of Ghosts was a terrific read and a fantastic mix of genres. I don't read much "horror" and a book including an exorcism wouldn't normally be in my wheelhouse. But Tremblay has written a story so full of questions and doubt you're never sure what it's going to turn into and I loved that feeling. While potentially clunky in less able hands, I thought the author handled the mix seamlessly, and this is one of my favorite reads from the first half of the year.

STREET SENSE: If you like scary movies, psychological suspense, potentially unreliable narration, family drama, thrillers and/or sympathetic characters, A Head Full of Ghosts is for you. Doesn't leave many of you out, does it? It's an engrossing page-turner for sure, and will more than likely keep you on the edge of your seat until the end takes the air out of you. While it does likely fit the horror genre, it's not gory horror (though there was one brief tidbit that squicked me a bit, and I'm a tough sell), so not to worry if that's not your thing.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  There was a lot to like about Tremblay's writing and I'm going to pick two, one to give you a flavor for the book and the other just because I love the line:

My cardboard house's outer walls, the windowsill flower boxes, the slate roof, and even the chimney, were scarred with detailed vines and leaves drawn in sharp black outlines and colored in green with Magic Marker. Her growing things choked my house. In the window was a piece of paper with two Richard Scarrey-style cats drawn so they were peering out of the window and at me. The cats were sisters. The bigger sister wore a gray hooded sweatshirt and looked ill, her eyes glassy and droopy lidded. The little sister was wide-eyed, determined, and had glasses on.
I got out of bed quickly and didn't wake Mom. I plucked the picture out of the window. Written on the bottom was the following:

There's nothing wrong with me, Merry. Only my bones want to

grow through my skin like the growing things and pierce the world.

* * *

"I won't, sweetie. I promise" Her promise wasn't a real one. It was simply the dot at the end of her sentence.

COVER NERD SAYS: This cover did a lot to win me over, including the fact that it took me a minute to figure it out. Once I did, there was no way I wasn't reading the book. I love the image and the palette, but most of all I love the rotation, which is something I haven't seen very often. Very well done.

STRICTLY POSITIVE

A few fun and heart-warming things that got me through the week:

Exhibit A:  If you don't add this Instagram (or Facebook) account to your feed, I'm not sure we can be friends. Pumpkin the raccoon fell out of a tree in the Bahamas when she was only a few days old. Her mother never came back and the local animal rescue couldn't care for her, so Rosie and William Kemp and their family, which includes two dogs, took her in as their own. You can imagine what ensued. Here are a few pictures, but for reals, go to this link and read the whole story and see them all. This story pulled me from the depths on Wednesday, these are some great photographs and I'm all about the inter-species love (and good people rescuing pets, including the two potcake dogs):

Seriously, that pose. Gets me every time. (EDIT: I JUST noticed that in that first picture, all the hardware has been removed from the cabinet doors and drawers. Had to laugh. Such must be life with a raccoon.)

Exhibit B: My friend Erin sends me these whenever she finds them online and they never fail to cheer me up and make me guffaw. These "honest animal names" are the internet hive-mind at its best. Apparently it all started when shark biologist David Shiffman decided to call out animals with #StupidCommonNames by asking fellow scientists to share the common names of animals that are misleading, weird, and just plain stupid. Of course, us common folk didn't want to be left out, so people of the non-scientific variety intervened and renamed some of our animals more appropriately. A snake? Nah, that's a "nope rope." People be funny.

Ok, so I may have gone overboard a bit on the photos with this one. I can't help it, they amuse me to no end. (Seriously, Prison Pony? Still laughing.) And if you truly think that's too many you may be in the wrong place.

Exhibit C: Here is one for the Kids Are Awesome files. There aren't many facts, like where this is taking place or who the boy is, but apparently a blind deer is wandering a neighborhood and a ten-year-old boy has taken it upon himself to walk her from patch of grass to patch of grass every day before school so she can find something to eat. Some neighbors have arranged for the deer to be taken to a wildlife preserve, but they also intend to talk to the boy's mother about how his kindness and thoughtfulness might be rewarded. Huzzah. And thanks to Bev for sending this one my way.

Exhibit D: This dad is pretty amazing. Philippe became a single dad to his daughter Emma when she was just 1. Because she had a full head of hair, he realized he would have to learn how to style it. He taught himself some pretty amazing feats of hair along the way and now has gone a step further. After receiving quite a few inquiries from other dads on the subject, he decided to get a group of men together to teach them what he knows. He reached out to a local beauty college, which agreed to provide a free space. Seven dads and daughters showed up for the first free class and Philippe is now holding more Daddy Daughter Hair Factory classes to teach his skills. So much good here I can't even measure it.

 Exhibit E:  Via Chris Holm, Bailey the dog adopts ten baby chicks. Without further ado:




Exhibit F: Anyone who knows me knows I am a ginormous fan of putting semi-dissimilar things together. Inter-species love/friendships, animals and people, kids and old people. Elyse knows me all too well and sent me this great item about a pre-school in a nursing home.  Sound crazy? Well, this nursing home in Seattle, Washington found it had great benefits for the residents and kids alike. Filmmaker Evan Briggs was so impressed he's made a documentary film about the project and hopes to bring more awareness to the topic. Below are a few pics and a preview of the film.

Exhibit G:  It has blown my mind the way the neighborhood kids have reacted to Bird. I've had dogs ever since I started living in my current home 20+ years ago. There have always been kids around and they have always enjoyed my dogs, but this is something different. They see us coming down the sidewalk and they start screaming "Birdy! Birdy!" Then they all stand in a group waiting patiently (while screaming her name) on one side of the street, while Bird waits on the other until I give her the signal to cross.) One told me the other day she wrote about Bird in her journal at school. Parents tell me that a working parent can hardly get through the door in the evening before hearing all about their exploits with Bird from the day. There's something about this dog.

The other day I decided to brush her out on the lawn (since our house is basically a concrete slab at the moment) and all eight of the main hooligans happened to come out around the same time. While I am fairly positive they would have zero interest in brushing a dog of their own if they had one, they started fighting about who got to brush Bird. So we had them take turns, ten strokes a turn, no fighting about giving up the brush or the fun would be over. They were all pretty good about it, though there were some epic counting shenanigans going on.

I was collecting the hair in a plastic bag so it wouldn't float all over the 'hood, and they wanted to know what I was doing. I explained and then made the mistake of telling them I sometimes put it out in a tree or bush for the birds to use as nesting material. So now half were brushing and the other half were frantically collecting hair. By the end of an HOUR, they told me they were not putting the hair out for the birds, but were instead going to make something for Bird. Oy. One 5-yo boy said, "I can sew it!"

I'm not sure what these little weirdos are used to sewing or doing with body parts, but I love them. In the end, I had to finish brushing myself, but Bird had the best-brushed back ever in the history of dogs being brushed. Who wants on the list for a dog-hair gift for Christmas?

They are all such great kids and they keep me hopping. And hey, they love my dog, they win my affection right there at the starting gate.

TGIF, y'all. Have a fun and peaceful weekend.