It's Raining Pigs and Chimps!

I apologize for my lack of posts lately. Spring is finally in the air and I have been completely unable to concentrate on reading! In preparation for a book talk I will be giving, I read two nonfiction "animal" books I would like to share with you. I was looking for read a-likes for Marley & Me by John Grogan and read The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood by Sy Montgomery and Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human by Elizabeth Hess.

The Good Good Pig was a touching, fun read. The author takes in a sick piglet who is the runt of his litter and nurses him to health. The pig, named Christopher Hogwood, becomes famous around the author's small town. Townspeople bring their table scraps for Christopher's slop bucket, and children love to help give Christopher baths. Christopher frequently breaks free of his pen and is seen wandering around town, only to be brought home by the local police chief. If you enjoyed Marley & Me, this is quite similar: funny misadventures with a pet, the human-pet bond, etc. And, we learn some interesting facts about pigs. I never realized how intelligent pigs are. The hard part that I have with all these pet memoirs is what we know is coming in the end-the animal dies. They always do. Some of them, such as Ted Kerasote's Merle's Door (which is wonderful), take up quite a good portion of the book with the death, which leaves me sobbing. Fortunately, Chris's death was relatively quick, not drawn out and painful. So, thank you Sy Montgomery, for not leaving me a sobbing mess.

I picked up Nim Chimpsky because 1) I thought the chimp's name was quite humorous, and 2) I thought it would be funny misadventures with a chimp. Wrong. The story is about a chimp who was chosen to be part of an experiment at Columbia University that was supposed to shed light on how language is acquired by humans by teaching communication skills to a "humanized" chimpanzee. Nim was born in 1973 at the Institute for Primate Studies (IPS), headed by Dr. William Burton Lemmon. Just a few days after his birth, he was ripped away from his mother and sent to live with a human family in New York. Nim was raised like a human-made to wear human clothes, eat human food, and required to learn sign language skills. The family that raised Nim seemed to treat him well, but no one-including the psychologist in charge of the project, Herbert Terrace-was prepared for the amount of care Nim would require or that he would become difficult to manage as he entered adolescence and adulthood. The project was ended early due to lack of funding and because Nim was becoming more and more difficult to manage and teach. Nim was returned to Dr. Lemmon's care at the IPS. Lemmon was known to beat and electrocute the chimps in his care, in order to "dominate" them, so Nim's return to the IPS was not a good thing. When Lemmon began having difficulty funding the IPS, he sold several of the chimps, including Nim, to a medical experimentation lab at NYU that was conducting research on Hepatitis B. When word of this got out, the outrage from the public ended up getting Nim a reprieve. He was returned to the IPS until a better home could be found for him (he was lucky-the other chimps were not returned). He was eventually relocated to a sanctuary, where he lived out the rest of his life, albeit in a cage. I will admit that I read only half of this book. Because I was so appalled by this "experiment" and what happens to Nim, I could not bring myself to do more than skim the rest of the book. There were definitely some good people involved in the project who tried to do the right thing for Nim, but the decisions and actions of Dr. Lemmon and Dr. Terrace were abhorrent. People will debate endlessly about the ethics of animal experimentation and testing, and I will concede that some may provide useful results that save lives, but this experiment seemed to be a waste that only caused needless suffering of an innocent animal. The story is well told. Hess does not sugarcoat Nim's treatment and clearly points out the flaws of the project and its leaders. But this is not a Marley and Me-type book. If you are an animal lover, be prepared to get angry.

And the Winners Are...

The 2008 Literature to Life Award is being given to Frank McCourt, for his memoir Teacher Man. Literature to Life, the American Place Theatre’s performance-based literacy program, presents professionally staged verbatim adaptations of significant American literary works. Yay, Frank McCourt! Love him!

The 2007 LA Times Book Awards were presented last week. Andrew O'Hagan's novel, Be Near Me won for best fiction. Dinaw Mengestu's novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears won for best first fiction.

The 2007 Nebula Awards were also presented last week. Michael Chabon's novel, The Yiddish Policeman's Union won for best novel. The novel has also been nominated for a Hugo Award and an Edgar Award. Chabon is the first novelist to be nominated for all three awards at one time.

Not To Burn

A few months ago I mentioned that Vladimir Nabokov's son, Dmitri, was torn between publishing his father's last novel, or burning the work, as his father requested. Dmitri has decided to publish the novel, after his father appeared to him to give him the OK.

Author Visit!!

Jen Lancaster will be promoting her new memoir, Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest To Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pie is Not The Answer, at the Barnes & Noble at 1441 W. Webster Avenue in Chicago on May 6th at 7:30 pm.

Lancaster's first two memoirs, Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office and Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why it Often Sucks in the City, or Who are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? were hilarious! Take a look at my review. If you can manage the terrible traffic and road construction to get downtown, I know her new book will be worth the trip.

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

This spring marked the first One Book One Zip Code for Deerfield, Bannockburn and Riverwoods, and the book chosen was Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. This is the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, who helped establish Partners in Health, which has helped to treat thousands of very poor people for TB and HIV/AIDS in countries such as Haiti, Peru, Russia and Rwanda. It is such an inspiring story and wonderfully written. There is so much I could say about this book, but it would not do it justice. Just read it.

Top Ten Books EVER!

A recent poll shows that the top 10 all-time favorite books for adults are:

1. The Bible
2. Gone With the Wind
3. Lord of the Rings trilogy
4. Harry Potter series (of course)
5. The Stand by Stephen King
6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Seriously? In the top 10 books EVER?)
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
8. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (Again, seriously?)
9. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
10. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

What's in your top 10?

*A reader asked for the source of this poll. This was a Harris Interactive Poll of 2, 513 adults, taken online during March. I believe I read about it in PW's daily email.

Author Visit!

Dorothea Benton Frank will be appearing at the Warren Newport Public Library in Gurnee on April 25th at 11 am. She is best known for her novel, "Sullivan's Island" which is set in the south. She returns to the south once again with her newest novel, "Bull Island."