BOOKS: Animologies

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Animologies: “A fine kettle of fish” & 150
other animal expressions, by Michael
Macrone. Cader Books (151 E. 29th St., New York,
NY 10016), 1995. 160 pp., $14.95 hardback.

Michael Macrone takes a colorful crack at explaining
the origins of animal-related phrases, but misses absurdly
often––failing, for instance, to recognize that “dingbat” is
a typographical term, not animal-related, originally applied
to the ornamental battens that kept a hand-operated letterpress
from “dinging” a sheet of paper by forcing it against an
uneven surface. Macrone is equally bewildered by “bat out
of hell,” having apparently never seen bats boiling from a
cavern at sunset. And he asserts that, “Dylan Thomas
coined ass—- in a 1935 letter.” Many people still alive can
testify otherwise.

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BOOKS: Cat Angels

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Cat Angels, edited by Jeff Rovin, illustrated
by Ernie Colon. Harper Paperbacks (10 East
53rd St., New York, NY 10022-5299), 1995. 96
pages; $6.99.

Cat Angels ties the revived interest in angels to
the perennial popularity of cats. From the rust-and-white
tabby on the front cover, complete with wings, halo, and
demurely heavenward-looking eyes, to the back cover,
bearing quotations admitting feline slips from grace, this
book is a charmer. You will find quotations from Jules
Verne, pet tombstones, Lowell Thomas, Mark Twain,
Gertrude Jekyll, Henrich Heine, and Charlton Heston,
among others, interlaced with editorial comments about
cats in world religions. There are a few rather cloying
Victorian verses, saved by sharing the page with funny little
sketches by Ernest Colon, whose cats usually appear to
be in free fall rather than angelic flight.

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BOOKS: Rabbis and Vegetarianism

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Rabbis and Vegetarianism: an evolving tra –
dition, by Roberta Kalechovsky. Micah
Publications (255 Humphrey St., Marblehead, MA
10945), 104 pages, $10.00.

As founder and director of Jews for Animal Rights,
and as director of Micah Publications, Inc., Roberta
Kalechofsky has made major contributions to the animal
rights/vegetarian causes, especially with regard to connections
to Jews and Judaism.

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BOOKS: The Flight of the Osprey

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

The Flight of the Osprey, by Ewan Clarkson. St. Martin’s Press (175 5th
Ave., New York, NY 10010), 1995. 192 pages. $19.95, hardcover.

Nicola Fray is widowed at age 37.
Her late husband, a botanist, taught respect
for all creatures. But when fishery owner
Martin Collier beds and subsequently weds
her, after much dithery coyness on her part,
she not only learns to live happily with his
fishing, but has her eyes “opened” to the
“scientific” virtues of hunting.

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BOOKS: Diary of a Cat

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

D i a ry of a Cat, by Leigh Rutledge.
Dutton (375 Hudson St., New York, NY
10014), 1995. $12.95, hardback.

After Dear Tabby, this book by the
same author may disappoint, because the
feline diarist focuses not on cats, but less
realistically, on human conversations and
activities. The details eventually merge into a
“fur-fetched” plot. For example, a mysterious
animal named Vlad, of unspecified
species, does in a villainous woman who gets
buried in the flower bed, and at the final
word of this book the deed has still presented
no problems. Some of the cats’ antics, while

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BOOKS: Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and Nonhuman Animals

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and
Nonhuman Animals, by Evelyn B. Pluhar. Duke University Press (Box
90660, Durham, NC 27708), 1995. 370 pages, index and bibliography, no discernible
price.

Add Beyond Prejudice to the dusty
mountains ground out by pedantic philosophical
debaters concerning the strained relations
between humankind and animals.
Pluhar is meticulous and thorough in
researching and presenting her
argument––over 300 pages of small
type––but does that justify yet another tome
on a subject long since picked to death?

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BOOKS: The Dog Who Rescues Cats

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

The Dog Who Rescues Cats: The True Story of
G i n n y, by Philip Gonzalez and Lenore Fleischer. HarperCollins
(10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299),
1995. $16.00 hardback.
Imagine a tough Vietnam veteran, a laborer who lived to
spend, turning into a man who lives impoverished by choice, to
enable rescuing and nurturing the outcast cats of the Long Island
beach areas––not just lost housepets, but cats born feral and afflicted
with every kind of pest, disease, and defect, including some gruesomely
damaged by cruel people. He cherishes cats who are blind,
deaf, lacking hind feet, and one who is neurologically defective, and
tells us that even these can make loving and pleasure-giving friends
and companions. Living on disability pay after an accident took away
his job and his former physical freedom , this man spent nearly
$1,000 on only one of the many cats he continually sought veterinary
aid for, all the time feeding many feral cats and neutering all he could
catch.

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BOOKS FOR GIVING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

Really Radical Reptiles & Amphibians and
Mind-Blowing Mammals, both by Leslee
Elliott. Sterling Publishing Co. (387 Park Avenue
South, New York, NY 10016-8810), 1995. 64 pages
each, $9.95 paperback.
If it’s from Sterling, you can bet it’s fact-filled and
copiously illustrated. Really Radical Reptiles and M i n d –
Blowing Mammals, the lead titles in Sterling’s new Amazing
Animals series, are print peers of the acclaimed National
Geographic Really Wild Animals videos, sure to fascinate
adolescents because they’re as entertaining as they are authoritative.
My only complaint about the Amazing Animals series
concerns the titles––especially the conclusions that the folks
who censor school libraries may jump to upon seeing them
spelled out on catalog cards. The word “radical,” lately
associated with Mutant Ninja Turtles, has not otherwise been
linked with reptilians since the eastern timber rattler ornamented
the “Don’t Tread On Me!” flag during the American
Revolution. Even worse, the phrase Mind-Blowing Mammals
implies the silverback gorilla on the cover could be in a crack
rage, while the title page lemur’s eyes may be dialated from
smoking marijuana. What’s next, Frenzied Fish? Sexy
Insects? Or Rock-and-Rolling Robins & Other Weird Birds?

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