Llew's Reviews

After finding myself telling the new puppy, “Just wait until the pack leader gets home!” I decided I needed to study up on The Dog Whisperer’s method rather than just relying on Ben to know what to do. This book is fantastic, and about 75% of it I would have never gotten on my own. It’s just not intuitive to me as a human. I have decided to ignore all the conflicting instructions from the other dog training books, and to just follow Cesar Millan’s method of being a calm assertive pack leader.

The first half is Cesar’s own story which is part inspiring and part heartbreaking. Although I’ve watched his show for a few months now, I didn’t know he had illegally crossed the border and was homeless when he first arrived here in America. Nor did I know that this great insightful man’s wife left him because he was a complete ass to be married to. Here I had been thinking that he must be a dream husband with all of his knowledge and inherent gift to relate to and deal with others. (Evidently, after his wife set “rules, boundaries, and limitations” – just how an owner is supposed to do with their dog – he was able to fix his problems and they have a very good marriage currently.)

The last part of the book is what I really needed to know which is about the actual dog psychology. Unfortunately, I needed to know it a week ago. Who knew I wasn’t supposed to show ANY affection toward the new puppy until he lived with me for a couple of weeks? Whoops. Also, I realize now that I introduced the new puppy into the house the wrong way, and all sorts of other blunders. Thankfully, I can still correct it and at least know what to do from now on. Whew.

Soon it will be me you’ll see careening down the street on rollerblades while being pulled by a pack of my dogs. Awesome.

Guess who got a new puppy? Guess whose new puppy is not housetrained?

As far as how correct the information found in this work is, I guess I won’t really form my opinion about it until about a week from now. I can tell you now that for a “classic” on the subject this is a rather poorly written book. The entire guide is basically the same two paragraphs repeated incessantly. Sometimes, it’s rewritten so it says the same thing in a different way but frequently there’s the same exact set of sentences written over and over. Plus, the style leaves much to be desired. I’m not expecting Proust when it comes to how to housebreak a dog but the tales of how Miffy “stunk to high heaven” were too much like being pinned against my front door as my neighbor corners me about her own tales of woe about housebreaking her little Miff-Miff. By the end, I was just surprised that the phrase “bless her heart” wasn’t tacked on the end of these little “examples”.

“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life… To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

I’ve been meaning to read this novel for around seven years when it was first recommended to me as being quite excellent. However, you can’t just rush into a book with a main character by the name of Binx Bolling, you know.

I’m quite thankful I waited as well because I connect much more to a 29 year old Binxy boy much more now than I could have when I was 22. Although I suppose the wayward ennui and the dalliances with secretaries are things I could ALWAYS relate to. Such is the southern life.

Do I even need to say that I adored this book? I loved the descriptions of the long drives in fear that malaise would somehow seep out of the car into the atmosphere and narrator. Of course, the uncaring desperation and detached shiftlessness of Binx is exactly the kind of thing I would have smitten with seven years ago. Good thing I waited – otherwise I would have had to develop one of those terminally unrequited crushes on it that I was so fond of at the time.

Since I discovered the website, I’ve been addicted to PostSecret. Thus, I got the book when it first came out but just got around to reading through the entire thing (opposed to just flipping through it). I’m quite excited that there’s another book coming out this autumn – huzzah.

When I ended up having my car at the mechanics for eight hours, I was quite devastated to discover that the only book I had in my car and on me was a damaged copy of “Why Men Have Nipples” which I was taking to someone else. I never had any intention of reading this one, but it was that or learning about pistons through an auto mechanic magazine. I have standards, kind-of.

Thus, I read this book. It was pretty interesting, although it was completely over the top when it came to the authors trying to be funny. I had a friend who had read it (or at least flipped through it) and had reported it was disappointingly un-sexy in the topics it covered. Although there was not loads of risque questions and answers it did serve up to it’s subtitle (which I love) of “Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini.” There were a lot of random things ones wonder, but more the kind of thing you don’t care enough to ask rather than being too embarassed to. It was fun though. Well, at least when compared to pistons.

Although I have all of Mitchell’s other books on my night side table waiting to topple over and smother me in my sleep, this is the first one of his I’ve actually read. Black Swan Green is a coming of age story of a boy in England at the tail end of the Cold War. It was good, but didn’t blow me away.

Are his others better? I’ll get to them soon – I have to. No telling when they’ll attack, and I have found that I’m quite attached to my ribs.

Every since “Stitch & Bitch” came out for knitters, I have been jonesing for a like book for crochet patterns. FINALLY my dreams have come true. There’s some fantastic scarves and a handbag pattern which I simply can’t wait to sink my teeth into. Plus, an ipod cozy idea! Huzzah.

I think I’ll be staying away from the crochet bikinis though. Color me crazy, but – uhhhh – no thanks.

Oh, Miss Jackson is so funny. I think she’s going to be my new light trash reading.

My father really wanted me to read this book as he thought it would be something our customers would really love. I found this hilarious because it’s written in the exact same style as how my father writes (which differentiates drastically from how he speaks.)

There’s a part in the book where a daughter-in-law horrifies townspeople as she declares that her husband and his family all have the eyes of beautiful cows. She doesn’t mean it a derogatory manner, but that’s how it’s taken. I could relate because I get that comparison a lot, and I know that people mean well but…. please don’t ever compare a fat girl to a cow, even if it’s her eyes you’re speaking of.

I figured I’d give the most recent winnter of the Booker award a shot. It was a muddled tale of a elderly man whose wife has just died, and his memories of the summer of his first kiss. I use “muddled” because the narrator will be halfway through telling the story, and then suddenly remark something to the effect of, “Hmm, well it couldn’t have been the day of her first kiss because it was evening when we left the movie theater and not afternoon. Anyway…”

*Spoiler* In the end, his first kiss drowns along with her twin brother. I suppose it was an okay novel. I finished it quickly, and it didn’t leave me with any suicidal tendencies. But it’s as if it’s melancholy wasn’t enough to be striking. It was just there. Take it or leave it but with no ability to imprint the story upon the reader. Although, I guess I shall take away using the word “sozzled” for getting drunk. It has a nice little ring to it as if it would make for a great theme of a sea shanty.