Gold drops from the sky into the hands of a lazy beachcomber. A dog catcher falls dangerously in love with an animal-rights extremist. A fly precipitates the worst catastrophe in human history. A brainless nonperson goes missing and embarks on an impossibly rich life. An ego-driven businessman courts disaster by seeking revenge for old hurts. And on the eve of the Apocalypse, four horse-like characters try to cross a Los Angeles under martial law. *** Raz Elmaleh's writing has been described as 'modern noir', or suspense-drama with a touch of fun. It's humorous, hilarious to some, disturbing to others, and always with a twist. *** The stories in this collection span many flavors, from realistic to bizarre, from minimalist to expansive, and from wryly optimistic to darkly foreboding. Pick any story and step into a reality almost like this one. Well, almost. *** ..".simultaneously funny and tragic. A rare and good thing! Would I read Raz Elmaleh's stories if I didn't know him personally? Absolutely." - Joshua Samuel Brown
The heartwarming true story of the demanding and rewarding life of an animal control officer, wife and mother. Her passion to make a difference shines through during exciting animal rescues and funny situations to scary police raids and gang encounters. The story is told with warmth, humor and most of all compassion for mans best friend and the other animals and people that make up her world. Follow along as the author adopts and trains a wild mustang and a terrified Great Dane and deals with the trials and triumphs of of the job. Attempts to balance career and home life will leave you with a smile. Animal lovers of all kinds will enjoy this entertaining and joyful book.
The thirty-two stories in this new collection reflect the differences between man's real self and the various masks he has to wear in a Romanian society that vacillates between nostalgia for its communist past and restrained optimism about its capitalist future. The characters, who are taken from all walks of life, face constant political intrigues, moral dilemmas, and/or family crises. They must find a way to fit their own life stories, however insignificant, within the often ruthless history of their native land. Written in a journalistic style, and based very loosely on incidents that the author encountered while working for a local newspaper, these stories are filled with unexpected twists and turns, pathos, and small glimpses of average and extraordinary people coping with real-life crises. Gripping tales from Eastern Europe!
What separates us from animals? What connects us? Award-winning cartoonists Peter and Maria Hoey probe these mysteries across six surreal and interconnected stories. After tremendous acclaim for their series Coin-Op Comics, two brilliant creators present their first graphic novel: a menagerie of wild tales. Pushing the boundaries of their dazzling and unique narrative style, Animal Stories weaves together six short stories exploring the mysterious relationships between humans and other animals. A girl who keeps pigeons starts receiving messages from a new bird in her flock. A ship’s crew rescues a dog, only to find far stranger things in the sea around them. A reincarnated cat with criminal intentions, a parrot who leads a revolution, and a squirrel who tempts a woman in a beautiful garden glade. Drawing inspiration from Aesop’s Fables, film noir, and the Old Testament, Peter and Maria Hoey apply their singular and sophisticated visual storytelling to create a new set of modern animal tales for modern times.
“No Dog Should Die Alone” was the attention-grabbing — and heart-stirring — headline of journalist Laura T. Coffey’s TODAY show website story about photographer Lori Fusaro’s work with senior shelter pets. While generally calm, easy, and already house-trained, these animals often represent the highest-risk population at shelters. With gorgeous, joyful photographs and sweet, funny, true tales of “old dogs learning new tricks,” Coffey and Fusaro show that adopting a senior can be even more rewarding than choosing a younger dog. You’ll meet endearing elders like Marnie, the irresistible shih tzu who has posed for selfies with Tina Fey, James Franco, and Betty White; Remy, a soulful nine-year-old dog adopted by elderly nuns; George Clooney’s cocker spaniel, Einstein; and Bretagne, the last known surviving search dog from Ground Zero. They may be slower moving and a tad less exuberant than puppies, but these pooches prove that adopting a senior brings immeasurable joy, earnest devotion, and unconditional love.
Post-divorce dating is one more cause for celebration (or a quick call in to the police) in Beth Bosworth's revelatory new book, The Source of Life and Other Stories. The spine of this collection is a series of linked stories about Ruth Stein, a Brooklyn author whose first book has exposed her father's abuses; while the voice here, speaking across a lifetime, ranges from bittersweet to humorous to lethal. In other stories Bosworth's narrators—a mother left to care for her son's suicidal dog, an editor haunted by a dog-eared manuscript—seem to grab hold of the reins and run off with their fates. Meanwhile Bosworth explores the extended family, the bonds of friendship, an apocalyptic Vermont, the rank yet redeemable Gowanus Canal; also rites of passage, race relations, divorce, middle-aged romance, dementia, funerals, alcoholism, and the Jewish religion. Reality is just another stumbling block for Bosworth's characters, who might help themselves but don't always choose to. There are leaps of faith here, nonetheless, as the collection dispenses a kind of narrative psychotropic for survival and redemption, with a chaser of humor mixed in.
A “haunting meditation on trust, hope and love” by a woman who adopts and trains a Golden Retriever puppy to become a search-and-rescue dog (People). In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, Susannah Charleson’s attention was caught by a newspaper photograph of a canine handler, his exhausted face buried in the fur of his search-and-rescue dog. Susannah, a dog lover and pilot with search experience herself, was so moved by the image that she decided to volunteer with a local canine team, plunging herself into an astonishing new world. While the team worked long hours for nonexistent pay and often heart-wrenching results, Charleson discovered the joy of working in partnership with a canine friend and the satisfaction of using their combined skills to help her fellow human beings. Once she qualified to train a dog of her own, Charleson adopted Puzzle—a smart, spirited Golden Retriever puppy who exhibited unique aptitudes as a working dog, but was a bit less interested in the role of compliant house pet. Scent of the Missing is the story of Charleson’s adventures with Puzzle as they search for a lost teen; an Alzheimer’s patient wandering in the cold; and signs of the crew amid the debris of the space shuttle Columbia disaster—all while unraveling the mystery of the bond between humans and dogs. “A riveting view of both the human animal bond and the training of search and rescue dogs. All dog lovers and people interested in training service dogs should read this book.” —Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make Us Human
Eleven short stories designed to cover all aspects of society, especially government, religion, academia and those, elected and appointed, to be leaders in those areas.
The Jersey shore is frequented by millions of tourists every year. For many people living in the great cities along the East Coast of America, the Jersey shore is their only vacation destination. They come for many reasons, the ocean, the glitz of the casino, and the glitter of the boardwalk. Some come to visit and never leave. The 1st Annual Unofficial Point Pleasure Skimmer Survey tells about a fictional seashore resort populated by colorful quirky locals. They may be the waiters or ticket takers you encounter as shadowy enablers of your vacation pleasures, but when the season's over and the tourists are gone, they live their own lives but oh, those lives!
“A near-miraculous, brilliant debut.”—George Saunders, Man Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo “In one exquisitely crafted story after the next, Will Mackin maps the surreal psychological terrain of soldiers in a perpetual war.”—Phil Klay, National Book Award–winning author of Redeployment WINNER OF THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION The eleven stories in Will Mackin’s mesmerizing debut collection draw from his many deployments with a special operations task force in Iraq and Afghanistan. They began as notes he jotted on the inside of his forearm in grease pencil and, later, as bullet points on the torn-off flap of an MRE kit. Whenever possible he incorporated those notes into his journals. Years later, he used those journals to write this book. Together, the stories in Bring Out the Dog offer a remarkable portrait of the absurdity and poetry that define life in the most elite, clandestine circles of modern warfare. It is a world of intense bonds, ancient credos, and surprising compassion—of success, failure, and their elusive definitions. Moving between settings at home and abroad, in vivid language that reflects the wonder and discontent of war, Mackin draws the reader into a series of surreal, unsettling, and deeply human episodes: In “Crossing the River No Name,” a close call suggests that miracles do exist, even if they are in brutally short supply; in “Great Circle Route Westward Through Perpetual Night,” the death of the team’s beloved dog plunges them into a different kind of grief; in “Kattekoppen,” a man struggles to reconcile his commitments as a father and his commitments as a soldier; and in “Baker’s Strong Point,” a man whose job it is to pull things together struggles with a loss of control. Told without a trace of false bravado and with a keen, Barry Hannah–like sense of the absurd, Bring Out the Dog manages to capture the tragedy and heroism, the degradation and exultation, in the smallest details of war. Praise for Bring Out the Dog “Cuts through all the shiny and hyped-up rhetoric of wartime, and aggressively and masterfully draws a picture of the brutal, frightening, and even boring moments of deployment. . . . The Things They Carried, Redeployment, and now Bring Out the Dog: war stories for your bookshelf that will last a very long time, and serve as reminders of what America was, is, and can still become.”—Chicago Review of Books
