The Dog Doesn’t Die

http://www.chicagotribune.com/carolquiz,0,4932856.triviaquiz

All I want for Christmas is spell check.

Or did the Chicago Tribune — the Chicago Tribune, people! — unilaterally replace “Noel” with “Nowell”?

This beautifully written book won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize of 2006, and deservedly so in my opinion. However, although this is one of the best books I’ve read in years, The Inheritance of Loss is Not Safe for animal lovers. In order to discuss the animal issues further, I must spoil one of the major plot threads. So if you choose to read my continuation of this post in the first comment below, consider yourself warned.

This book is beyond SAFE for animal lovers — it is recommended! Check the first comment below to see why.

What does a guitarist do when left alone to goof around? And what does that goofing around sound like when he takes it on stage? Check out Tommy Emmanuel’s prelude to Mombasa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZzUCuCosnE&eurl=

I’m all for phonics. I learned how to read and spell that way, after all. But we all know there are words that are spelled a bit differently from the way they sound, especially if we’re mispronouncing them in the first place.

For example, I’m listening to Christmas music on an Internet radio station that has on its playlist the following: Parade of the Wooden Solgiers.

No. No, no, no, a thousand times no. Just … no.

The title of this blog relates to a concern many animal lovers have about the books they read. So I am going to do short reviews of books with animal characters and tell what happens with the animals. I will not otherwise spoil the ending of a book.

Three Junes is SAFE if you don’t want to read about animal cruelty or sad, premature deaths. There are four animal characters in this book:

• Felicity, a parrot. Felicity has a large presence in this book. The last we see of her, she is in good hands with someone who has cared for her well.
• Roger/Rodgie, a border collie. Rodgie is lightly and briefly neglected when a human character tends to another human’s crisis, but otherwise he is well-loved and cared for. He dies of old age.
• Mavis and Druid, spaniels. One dies of old age.

Dogs and birds are discussed quite frequently, and the mother of a main character was a dog trainer.

I would also recommend this book for book groups. In fact, I read it because it was the second choice of my own group last month. It’s well-written, the characters are complex without being off-putting, and there’s ample opportunity for discussion among the various plot elements, themes, characters, etc. I give it a solid A for this purpose.

For a synopsis of the entire book and some other reader reviews, here is the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Junes-Julia-Glass/dp/0385721420/ref=ed_oe_p

Yeah, my new blog, The Dog Doesn’t Die, is under construction. It may take me a few days to get it set up the way I want.

But let me at least explain the title. Last weekend, I finished reading a book in which there were several animals. Some people, myself among them, worry about the fate of animal characters — are they safe? are they going to live? And it occurred to me that since I would of course include the occasional book review in my blog, I’d write about whether the book was “safe” for animal lovers.

I also plan to include observations from my work as a writer and editor, as well as recipes, links, and random thoughts.