Book Review: The Vet at Noah's Ark (inner city veterinarian)

The Vet at Noah's Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-city Animal Hospital, by Doug Mader (Apollo Publishers, $24.99, 2022, 371pp) 

A big book that reads fast, with chapters titled month by month and with the names of their major characters so you can guess or remember.

This may just be the Book of the Year! Except this year is 2025 and The Vet was published in 2022.

Veterinarian Doug Mader is someone I would love to know, work with and learn from. The Vet at Noah's Ark (the name of his practice) is located in a less than safe location of a major city, Los Angeles, and author Mader writes about his first year in his own practice, from the viewpoint of years later. Part of this early year is the Rodney King verdict so we live through the aftermath of the rioting that took place mere blocks from the vet clinic.

Mader is someone who embodies the human-animal bond, like a big brother, and though he is one of the few exotic animals vets in California, he writes less about those animals (and a few good dogs and cats thrown in) than about their humans and how all the humans relate to each other - from his staff to the vet students who rotate in each month (some make it, some don't), to the devoted humans who live with snakes or lizards. And the students plus a staffer live in the upstairs apartments!

Mader has high moral standards and wrestles with discounting his knowledge (his prices) for those clients who can't pay the full amount. And we meet the resident hooker and her kitten, John. After all, every hooker needs a John.

To interject a little humor we have the good vet being picked up in a sushi restaurant by a striking blonde. I bet you will read that couple of pages more than once!

The Girls Come Marching Home (female veterans of the Iraqi War)

The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq, by Kirsten Holmstedt (Stackpole, 2009, $27.95, 325pp)

Author Kirsten Holmstedt, who also wrote Band of Sisters. 

has put together a volume of experiences that encompass nearly all that was possible for the women who deployed to Iraq, including their post-deployment trials and tribulations. Her writing style varies with each woman in order to relay each personality and growth while lengthy chapters alternate with very short ones - a unique feature.

Both enlisted and officers' stories, from teens to their 40s, from medical personnel to convoy drivers, those who stayed in the military and those who got out or were chaptered out sometimes for medical reasons, and all the branches, particularly the Marines. The reader truly gets the flavor of what they might expect from women in combat for the first time: their bonding and closeness with each other and with the males in their units. Gender didn't matter: the mission came first. And yet, sexual misconduct does occur and did and is not always dealt with appropriately. Some even came from  broken families and discovered a new family in the military.

This reader especially found the EOD chapter fascinating (explosive ordinance destruction/disposal, the locating and disarming of mines and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). You will find a book that you simply can't put down, especially in the middle of a chapter. And  you will them want to read Band of Sisters and Soul Survivors: Stories of Wounded Women Warriors and the Battles They Fight Long After They've Left the War Zone.

Book Review: Lessons in Chemistry (a dog named Six-Thirty, a woman chemist ahead of her times, a TV cooking show)

 Lessons in Chemistry,  by Bonnie Garmus (DoubleDay, 2022, 404pp, $15.68)

"If you could use three words to describe yourself, what would they be?"

"Carbon, oxygen and hydrogen."

A study guide for book clubs, a cookbook, trailers, numerous different cover designs, translated into 43 different languages, even an 8-episode miniseries on Apple TV (2023). And a New York Times (among others) Best Book of the Year.

And I love love love the cover (with parts of the periodic table on the inside covers)! 

Our hero wore a pencil in her hair, just like we remember our first-grade teachers (or librarians) did. This hero, however, broke all the rules - being awarded her M.S. without having an undergraduate degree was one. 

Lessons in Chemistry is the book that shook the world, starring a 1960s woman chemist who is a mover and shaker - way ahead of her times. Not afraid to tell it like it is. If you haven't read it yet, get going!

She is the one PhD chemists (male) come to to check their work. That is, until she is let go. What she does next will amaze you, surprise you, astound you at times - and she gets away with it all!

Style

Author Bonnie Garmus got it right (at least in the eyes of this reviewer, who minored in Chemistry).

Lessons, the book, starts out slowly, as many books do, but gathers steam and races through to the end, so pay attention.

First thoughts: oh, no! A long book at 404 pages but it reads quickly and has some of my favorite features: short chapters with titles and even some cliffhangers. Plus a mystery to boot. This is a book you can't wait to get back to, to see what Elizabeth will do next that is controversial. And you can't help but learn a little chemistry.

Book Review: From Elephants to Mice: Animals who have Touched my Soul

From Elephants to Mice: Animals who have Touched my Soul, by James Mahoney (Howell Book House, 2010, $22.95, 248pp) 

Essays about pets, or rather working animals like elephants and monkeys, many being research animals. . . . but not a boring non-fiction book. Rather, stories of one veterinarian's life, in chronological order, touching on the animals he knew - from monkeys to dogs to mice and birds. Some he worked with, some he treated, some he lived with (and loved). And, the author has snuck in the titles of other books you may want to enjoy.

You may not want to begin at the beginning, so starting with chapter two is what I would suggest. 

Author James Mahoney is a British veterinarian with three kids and married to a French woman, who spent his career in American animal sanctuaries, research facilities and on special projects worldwide. With an advanced degree, he also drops names, papers, books and accomplishments of other animal researchers and includes suggestions for further reading, an index and a list of sanctuaries.

Now, About that Title

Does the title, "From Elephants to Mice," remind you of "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck? Actually, author Mahoney begins his career working with elephants and ends the book with a chapter about mice but feel free to skip over the first chapter on elephants: it is rather graphic while the other chapters delve deeply into more pleasant animal topics such as animal captivity, personalities, love (between and within species), survival, and more.

 Do You Skip the Reviews? And the Back Cover Quotes?

Not this time! This time they say precisely what From Elephants is all about. Read the following slowly and also after reading the book, and see if you agree with me.

*A heartfelt narrative on the many ways animals touch our lives. . . .

Join veterinarian and animal lover James Majoney as he shares heartfelt ad often heart-wrenching stories of a cast of creatures who left a permanent mark on his soul. More than just a sentimental memoir, this thought-provoking collection raises such issues as whether animals experience the same types of emotions as humans, whether it is right to use animals in medical research, and even whether animals might have a sense of humor.

Whether you're a dedicated animal activist or just a compassionate animal lover, these unlikely stories of survival, freedom, dignity, courage, and love will leave you deeply affected.

Book Review: Buddy (How a Rooster Made me a [Family] Man)

Buddy (How a Rooster Made me a [Family] Man), by Brian McGrory (Crown Publishers, 329pp, 2012, $24) (video trailer) 

The book I read by mistake, but I'm glad I did! 

(Thought this was the book by Sy Montgomery* about an octopus or a chicken)

Author Brian McCrory (nephew of the Washington Post reporter of reknown) pens a totally funny book, in places. And though about a chicken, and family, the book really shines when McGrory writes about dogs** and his relationship to the dogs of his life.

Learning to be a Dad

I'd like to do a great job of writing a review of Buddy but I don't want to give anything away. Suffice it to say the author lived an enviable bachelor life in downtown Boston, writing for a living, in between his marriages***. Mostly focused on his second, the book also highlights how he met his second wife (unbelievable, but no hints other than involving a fish) and tells us all about the trials and tribulations of little girls, of which he inherits two, with his second marriage. Leading a hectic but suburban life all of a sudden (with a working wife) McGrory learns that 7- and 9-year-old girls can be more than a handful, speaking a language he doesn't get: for example, all three females love their ornery rooster Buddy and love to cuddle him while the author and said rooster are nearly mortal enemies. But all ends well, sort of, after several hilarious escapades.

*Sy Montgomery did write an endorsement on the back cover, however

**the first few chapters and one towards the end. Almost tear-jerkers but this reviewer wishes to state she wished he used only reward-based methods with his best friends

***"Marriages stay intact for one basic reason, because the people involved want them to, . . . Marriages fall apart for a million reasons. . . ." (p. 28)