Six Pix

Puppy Chow is better than Prozac: the true story of a man and the dog that saved his life, By Bruce Goldstein with Tom Amico

This is a whirlwind of a book. The authors draw the reader in with manic descriptions of Goldstein’s life, (he suffers Bipolar disorder) of fear, intimidation, hallucinations and painful thoughts, including suicide. His girlfriend has dumped him and he gets fired from his job in advertising. His mother has to call him to talk him into getting up in the morning. His attempts at getting help by taking several kinds of medicines and by going to counseling are not working. He is desperate, anxious and afraid.

With all the courage Goldstein can muster (he is painfully afraid of everything) he gets a black Labrador puppy and names him Ozzy. By taking care of Ozzy, Goldstein begins to trust the world again.

This work is heartfelt –dizzying even, with his mental distress and rapid fire thoughts and Goldstein is also a creative person and the story sails along with clever explanations and quips. This is an amazing and often funny true story about the healing powers loving a pet can bring.

Puppy Chow Is Better Than Prozac: The True Story of a Man and the Dog Who Saved His Life

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Night of the Avenging Blowfish: A Novel of Covert Operations, Love, and Luncheon Meat by John Welter

This book was published in 1994 and it remains one of my all time favorite fiction titles. I actually still feel some tenderness toward the main character, Doyle Coldiron, after all these years. Has Doyle found love yet? Has Doyle found the baseball game between the CIA and the Secret Service that had a date but the time and place was “unclassified”? I hope Doyle’s team won- he needed a break for sure. But then he manages his life by not managing it and the result is hilarious and at the same time, touching.

Both men and women have enjoyed this book, so guys – don’t let my reference to “love” scare you off- Doyle is a character we all can relate to. He is the guy who appears crazy but is actually the only sane person in the room. This book is fun for all ages - if you are young, Doyle is your hero – if you are older you enjoy the sheer lunacy of it all.

Interesting that they asked Joseph Heller to comment on the book’s cover, because if you liked Catch 22 and please say you did, you will enjoy Night of the Avenging Blowfish!

Night of the Avenging Blowfish: A Novel of Covert Operations, Love, and Luncheon Meat

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A Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South by Roy Blount Jr.

Blount is never very far away from his southern roots and thank goodness for that! In his first book in ten years he defends, laments, carries- on and sings his Southern pride! For fun, get this on CD and listen to Blount’s wonderful southern accent if for no other reason than to listen to the “The Way Folks were meant to Eat” story. It is just perfect both in wording and accent and it will make you wish you could go to your Grandma’s house for Sunday supper and eat some homemade gravy just one more time before you have to up the Lipitor. He mentions Southern food has recently been labeled, “comfort food.” He thinks that is condescending. He says it is more like the "fiber of being food." Mmmm..mmm..m.

He meanders through the south with us in tow and we are the richer for it. He has a vast (yes, vast) collection of different recordings of “Mama’s Little Baby Loves Short’nin’ Bread.” As a bonus you will find out what short’nin’ bread actually is.

He defends Mark Twain - seems there is a debunking of Mark Twain going on somewhere (north?) in the country. Blount defends each point as they come up and is fairly polite about it. In fact, there is so much here of interesting and varied topics you roll along with him just for the open air ride of it all.

He is smart, articulate, engagingly humorous (sometimes out loud) and I think we should listen or read his books just because we are Americans and he brings up things we should know about or at least think about for a spell.

He may live in Massachusetts but he is all southern fried and critically acclaimed as one of the best humorists of our time.

Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South

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Schmoozing with Terrorists, by Aaron Klein

After 9/11, Americans were all aflutter with the burning question, "Why? Why do these terrorists hate us so much?" Forests-worth of trees were felled so print media could speculate endlessly on the question, formulating opinions that were derived from every angle -- and often from a hodgepodge of "experts" all contradicting each other. Politicians, activists and psychologists held forth on the news and special programs regarding their opinion on what would cause healthy (physically, anyway) individuals to board planes and turn them into airborne missiles, incinerating their fellow passengers in the process. Instead of airing his personal opinion, journalist Aaron Klein decided to go directly to the source, asking terrorist leaders, radical clerics and and angry extremists the burning questions, "Why do you hate us?" and "What do you want from us?" Klein's chutzpah is staggering -- as an Orthodox Jew and a Westerner, he is doubly detested by those whom he interviews. There was certainly more than one occasion, chronicled in Schmoozing with Terrorists, in which the author was lucky to have left the interview (held on the terrorists' turf) with his body unmarred by bullets.

Klein doesn't tiptoe around the terrorists. He asks the hard questions and, more often than not, gets the answers because the extremists believe in their murderous agenda, and they're not shy about explaining exactly why they hate us.

Schmoozing With Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal Their Global Plans to a Jew!

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Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Ph.D:
Looking out across this vast country, and the vast girth of those who dwell here, it's apparent that Americans are doing a lot of eating.  Author Brian Wansink, Ph.D., posits in his book, Mindless Eating, that a lot of our gastronomic indulgences are carried out under our mental radar.  The John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University and the author of three professional books on food and consumer behavior, Wansink knows his subject. Wansink has even leant his expertise to the military to help them find a way to encourage deployed soldiers who are "overworked and overstressed," and who often have to eat in the dark -- all factors that cause them to under-eat.

The author takes the reader by his or her pudgy little hand and acts as an informed our-guide into the world of food marketing, labeling, restaurants, and packaging -- all meant to entice the populace into eating. And eating. And eating. Wansink's book is not only informative it's also loads of fun -- and all calorie-free! You know the saying of a certain fast-food chain --"You gotta eat!" It's true, and Mindless Eating gives readers the inside scoop necessary to do so in an informed manner.

Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

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Imagine being able to create a customized version of the perfect lover -- looks, personality, emotional capacity -- everything. James Patterson and coauthor Gabrielle Charbonnet have given that ability to the main character of their book, Sundays at Tiffany's.

Jane Margaux is a lonely little eight-year old who's career-driven mother, a Broadway producer, has no time for her only child. Every Sunday Jane's mother takes a client out for a power lunch and lets her little girl dine at a table all alone. But Jane isn't truly alone -- she is always accompanied by Michael, her perfect-in-very-way imaginary friend.

Of course all good things must come to end, and so Michael will have to exit. On Jane's ninth birthday, he tenderly tells her goodbye as that's "the rule" concerning imaginary friends, but he promises that she won't remember him at all. But remember him she does, every day until he reenters his life when Jane is an adult. But will she remember him? Will he remember her? Will they be able to recapture that perfect love from childhood? Will Michael vanish and leave Jane alone and broken hearted a second time? There's only one way to find out -- read this imaginative novel!

Sundays at Tiffany'sReserve It!

• By James Patterson, Gabrielle Charbonnet
• 2008-04-28 - Little, Brown and Company
• 9780316014779

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