From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Dog Love
by Marjorie Garber
Simon & Schuster (1230 Avenue of the Americas,
New York, NY 10020), 1996. 346 pp., $24, hardback.

Marjorie Garber, director of the Center for Literary
and Cultural Studies at Harvard, is perhaps best known for two
groundbreaking scholarly works on what used to be called
abnormal sexuality––Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism
of Everyday Life and Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and
Cultural Anxiety. Both challenged readers to rethink perceptions
of just what “normal” means.
Not surprisingly, Garber is at her best in Dog Love
when discussing the sexual aspects of dog-keeping, both overt
and covert, normal and aberant, from sexual self-identification
with the dog, a common factor in male reluctance to neuter
dogs, to active sexual involvement with dogs. Her discussion
is frank without being smarmy, she cites verifiable sources,
and would seem credible but for two points.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Dogs For Dummies
by Gina Spadafori
IDG Books (919 E. Hillsdale Blvd., Suite 400, Foster
City, CA 94404), 1996. $19.99, 384 pages, paper.

Gina Spadafori, who occasionally writes for ANIMAL
PEOPLE, is better known as America’s most respected
pet columnist, syndicated by major metropolitan newspapers
across the U.S. and by America OnLine. Spadafori’s day
job as real estate editor for the Sacramento Bee conditions her
to get the facts first, while the challenge of writing interestingly
on a daily basis about a subject as mundane as real
estate has taught her how to write how-to without inducing
quick sleep.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Choosing & Caring
For a Shelter Dog:
A Complete Guide to Help You
Rescue & Rehome a Dog
by Bob Christiansen
Canine Learning Center (POB 10515, Napa, CA
94581), 1996, 190 pages, $12.00, paperback.

Dog Tales
From the Heart
edited by Sue A. Hershkowitz
High Impact Publications (Scottsdale, AZ 85254)
1995. 208 pages, $9.95, paperback.

If you’ve ever wondered how a publisher sets its
price for a book, Bob Christiansen’s Choosing & Caring for
a Shelter Dog will keep the trade secret a mystery. Just shy
of 200 pages, Choosing fits more into one compact volume
than you would expect. Every aspect of living with a dog is
noted, including much information not found elsewhere.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1996:

Two Perfectly Marvelous Cats
by Rosamond M. Young
J.N. Townsend (12 Greenleaf Drive, Exeter, NH
03833), 1996. 176 pages, $20.00, hardback.

Faith, the first cat in these two stories, is a “perfectly
marvelous cat,” but the rector who cherished her is an utterly
dreamy dish. Are there, were there, anywhere such men? He
wanted to understand his cat, to allow her independence as
well as protection. From her first entry, uninvited, off the
street, he accorded her full equality with any of God’s creatures,
and respected her as the wonderful work a cat is. He
drew from his prayer book to create a touching and beautiful
funeral service for Faith. In his unabashed tenderness toward
his little cat, he sets an example of the truly religious. Faith,
on the other hand, while showing indubitable courage in saving
her kitten from peril, is simply being a typical cat mother.

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