Review: The Accidental Veterinarian by Philipp Schott

I love my cats (as you will see in this post) but I never dreamed (as lots of kids do) of being a veterinarian, and I've never really been interested in the profession (or any medical profession, for that matter). Even so, Philipp Schott's The Accidental Veterinarian hooked me pretty much immediately and kept me laughing throughout. It is a fun, humorous and fascinating peek into the veterinarian profession, told by a thoughtful and quirky veterinarian.

The Accidental Veterinarian is written as a series of short essays of insights into the chaos and reality of the job. It includes entertaining advice on how best to take care of your animals (such as how to "pill the cat"), essays about Schott's personal journey into veterinary medicine, and (the best part) fun, silly stories from his years practicing. Including the time he treated an ostrich, and the time he treated a lionfish.

The Accidental Veterinarian is an incredibly fun, absolutely hilarious read that I think anyone would enjoy, not just animal lovers. I was laughing out loud after the first few pages, and didn't stop until the end. Philipp Schott is a lovable and humorous narrator, and his character shows through in his writing. I mean, I knew I was going to love this book when only a couple of chapters in Schott spends an entire chapter comparing the veterinary medicine building at the University of Saskatchewan to Hogwarts and states that "Manitoba is clearly Hufflepuff."

I also loved that while there are tons of silly, extreme and hilarious stories for your enjoyment, Schott also touches on the realities of being a vet and some of the hardships of the job. Some of his essays touch on having to put down animals on a regular basis and play grief counselor to many, many people, or the impact of the stresses of the job itself and the problem of suicide in the profession. It really demonstrates the thoughtful side of his character when he consistently points out that people are just as important a part of the job as the animals.

In any case, The Accidental Veterinarian is a quick, enjoyable read that gives a tremendously interesting glimpse into the life and trials of a veterinarian that I really think anyone would enjoy.

 ***

And bonus quote:

"But all that said, the love of animals is still at the heart of things. I often think of a card we got many years ago from a young child who boldly wrote, 'I want to be a vat!' Yes, I too once aspired to be a large container, but I became an animal doctor instead, and I have never regretted that decision."

The Accidental Veterinarian comes out in April 2019! Click one of the links below to add it to your list or pre-order.

Find it on
ECW Press
Amazon.ca 
Amazon.com
Goodreads

Review: Nobody Cares by Anne T. Donahue

On the back page of Nobody Cares is the catch phrase "Just a girl, standing in front of  a reader, reminding them they aren't alone." That line pretty much sums up the feeling of the book: a simple book of relatable personal essays.

Nobody Cares is based off Anne T. Donahue's online newsletter of the same name, and you can definitely feel that Donahue has an internet audience in mind throughout her book. While none of the personal essays really hit me hard, it was partly my own expectations, and I still enjoyed it enough to read the entire book fairly quickly. In some parts I did wish she dug a bit deeper, but I don't think that's what this book is trying to do.

The personal essays in Nobody Cares are light, short personal lessons that the author has learned over the course of her life. Basically each one is in the style of an inspirational online article. It's half advice column, half diary entry. They cover a variety of situations in Donahue's life, from friendship and dating to just things you learn growing up. A lot of her essays also focus on her personal experiences with anxiety, and learning that "nobody cares." Donahue's honest voice and ability to laugh at herself makes Nobody Cares an entertaining read.

I think this book would be a good gift book for anyone in your life, perhaps especially people who suffer from anxiety since a lot of Anne's personal essays focus on that. It was very much a feel-good book of essays. A good quick, easy read for a sunny day.

Nobody Cares on ECW Press
Nobody Cares on Amazon.ca
Nobody Cares on Amazon.com
Nobody Cares on Goodreads

2 Mini Memoir Reviews: A Two-Spirit Journey & From the Tundra to the Trenches

I think my favourite nonfiction books are memoirs. There is just something so special about reading the stories of real people's lives. Fictional characters are great, but there is nothing so strange and fascinating as real life. I often find memoirs to be some of the most eye-opening, entertaining, and hilarious books I've read. I love that the memoir narrator can introduce me to ways of living and being that I would never have even considered otherwise. I recently read two very different, and also similar memoirs and wanted to share them with you!

The first one was A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, with Mary Louisa Plummer. It is the

story of Ma-Nee and the struggles she faces throughout her life, as a lesbian Ojibwe-Cree from Ontario. Her story was told in a very simple, straightforward style but what stunned me was the incredible resilience of this woman. There is so much pain in Ma-Nee's story - I lost count of the times she was abused or harassed by a variety of people, all throughout her life. It takes her a long time to find a place where she's content. But even so, she has such a positive outlook on her life and demonstrates compassion for others around her. She comes across as so humble and caring, even in the tone of her narration. Through her own outlook on life, she provides a tremendous amount of hope to her story, and to others. I think that is the strength of her story; her example of continuing to hope amidst pain. I would definitely encourage everyone to read Ma-Nee's story. (Just a warning though: while the style is easy to read, some of the content might be difficult to get through.)

The second memoir I read this year was From the Tundra to the Trenches by Eddy Weetaltuk, which is part of University of Manitoba's First Voices, First Texts series (an amazing series - all of the books in the series that I've read so far have been wonderful.) From the Tundra to the Trenches is a memoir written by an Inuit soldier, and his time fighting for Canada in the war. This very much just a life story, and very easy to read, especially if you're interested in war memoirs. There's a bunch of forewords and afterwards since it's an academic edition, but if you just read what Eddy himself wrote, it's a quick and entertaining read, that also opened my eyes to what it's like being an Inuit in Canada and in the Canadian army. I also appreciated how self-aware Eddy was as a narrator.

If you do want to read the extra essays though, it includes some really fascinating background to the publication of Eddy Weeltaltuk's story, and how he wanted it to be a bestseller to give hope and teaching to Inuit youth, while everyone else regarded it as an artefact to be stored in a museum. Eventually it was rescued from the museum and published in this edition by the U of M. I'm still hopeful it could make a bestseller list somewhere. :)

What are your favourite memoirs?

Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is definitely one of those stories - it's a nonfiction work about Henrietta Lacks, who in the 1950s had cervical cancer and had some cells taken from her body (without her permission), which then turned into the immortal cell line called HeLa which has been use in a lot of medical research since. The story of the development of HeLa is interwoven with the story of Henrietta's family and how unjustly they were treated and affected by their mother's cells.

I read this book because it was one of the few books I had on my e-reader that I hadn't read when I was in Vancouver (I usually only use my e-reader while traveling or when reading Australian books I can't buy physical copies of here). Awhile ago my parents and my brother read it, I think as part of The Book Faeries rotation, and the comments they'd made on it intrigued me. Although I think the only comment my brother gave was, "Did you know they ship cells in the mail?"

I'm not a scientist at all, but the medical and science stuff that was in this book was easy to understand and absolutely fascinating. It was interesting how many questions the book brought up about ethics in medical research and what the author calls in the afterword the "tissue issue", as well as the commercialization of research and science. All of this stuff was new to me, and just made me realize how incredibly strange (and awful) the world is. One of my favourite things about reading nonfiction is how it blows my mind open and exposes me to new worlds, and this book definitely did that.

I have to say, though, the most compelling part of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for me was the story of the Lacks family. Henrietta died not too long after her cells were taken from her, and her children didn't even find out their mother's cells had been taken until twenty years later. The book chronicles the story of Henrietta's childhood, her cancer diagnosis, her death, and the lives of her children and just how awfully they were treated and misled by all of these medical researchers who used and abused them. The book even included the journey of the author and the family (in particular Henrietta's daughter Deborah) discovering how Henrietta's cells were used in science, since even up to the point of the author's research the family still hadn't been told much. The inclusion of the story of the family is done incredibly thoughtfully and carefully, and makes Henrietta and her descendants the protagonists, not her cells, which I think is important.

One of the common themes of the book is how the children wanted Henrietta's contribution to science to be properly recognized, and while I'm sure this book has done a lot in that direction, I was surprised how many people hadn't heard of this story when I told them what I was reading. The book makes her sound so famous, I figured everyone had heard of Henrietta Lacks by now. Anyway, I would definitely encourage you to pick up this absolutely incredibly complex and fascinating story.

Check it out on:
Goodreads
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com 

Also fun fact: the book has been made into a made-for-TV movie on HBO which premieres on April 22.

Book Review: The Urban Cycling Survival Guide by Yvonne Bambrick

So a few weeks ago I entered a contest on 49thshelf.com, (my newest favourite website, for all your Canlit needs) to win The Urban Cycling Survival Guide by Yvonne Bambrick. I just entered on a whim, assuming there probably wouldn't be too many people entering so I had a good chance of winning. I also thought hey, I ride my bike in the city sometimes, although I assumed it was probably written for more committed cyclists.

Well, I was wrong - it turned out, The Urban Cycling Survival Guide was exactly what I needed. As I already mentioned, I'm not a super committed commuter cyclist like some people are. I don't ride in the winter or every day. I only started using my bike to commute to school this year because other years my commute has either been too far away, or close enough that I just walk instead. 

In the introduction, the author states that her goal is to basically give a grand overview to what you need to know about biking in the city. I think she accomplishes this really well. The overview was really easy to read, clear, and caught all the most important aspects of urban cycling. However, since it is an overview, you definitely need to do some more reading to learn more about each topic. Thankfully she includes a list of additional resources at the end! There was definitely a lot of stuff that I knew already, but I learned a lot of things as well.

Mostly I learned that my city sucks for commuter cycling. I mean, I didn't even know protected cycle tracks were a thing. That would be awesome. My city barely even has bike lanes. The author actually addresses the fact that a lot of cities are only starting to be more bike-friendly. She has an entire chapter at the end of the book about bicycle advocacy. I looked up bicycle advocacy in my city, and what do you know, there are multiple groups and organizations devoted to it. 

I think one of the best things about this book is that it doesn't preach at you about being environmentally friendly, or even cycling. It was mostly just a beginner's guide to encourage people to be less afraid to just go out and try cycling by equipping them with some important knowledge. Even if you have no interest in biking right now, I'd encourage you to pick up this book anyway and read it, and then see what you think about biking afterward.

In closing I'd like to leave you with a quote included in the "Why Ride?" chapter of the book. It perfectly expresses why I love biking, and why even though biking is often much harder than driving, I would much rather bike than drive somewhere.

"For me, especially from the raised vantage point of a bicycle seat, the feeling is reminiscent of snorkeling. Like an exotic seascape seen from a fresh perspective, the city reveals itself in new ways. Self-propelled motion at relatively low speeds offers us more than exercise and a chance to commune with our neighbours. It restores a geographic intuition that was weakened by the car - a feel for the real distances between things, a sense of the connections between the parts of the city." - Ken Greenberg

Interview With Someone Slightly Nerdy On What They Think About Books

My father's look-alike. Ha!

Awhile ago, I did an interview with my brother on his reading habits here. I've thought about continuing this theme of interviewing people on their reading habits, but never got around to it... until now!!

I've decided to call these similarly-themed blog posts a "blog series" called Ask The Reader.

Today, we'll be going into the head of someone who, like my brother, is slightly obsessed with soccer... along with car racing, astronomy, science, and organization. He also thinks of relationships in terms of graphs and talks a lot. Which is why I ended up having to compress a 28-minute interview recorded on my Olympus digital recorder (you're welcome, Olympus) into a blog post that would be short enough to keep you short attention span, internet-loving bugs' interest. (It's okay. I'm one too.) He doesn't have a blog, or a twitter, but he does have one link here. 

Now, I present to you... my dad! Oh, and, by the way... my dad does not actually emphasize every second word. I just bolded some words so you could skim (if you so please) the interview and still get the most interesting/important parts. I know, paragraphs are daunting, aren't they? :) Enjoy!

Me: What types/genres/topics of books do you enjoy the most?

Dad: Well the last year or couple years, I’ve been reading a lot of biographies... biographies of astronauts, motorsports things, like Murray Walker.  I also enjoy reading things about science, science history. History of certain development of ideas, like how they determine the expansion and size of the universe... or just history... I’ve read books on history of mathematics by different mathematicians... Natural history, like palaeontology all that sort of thing I’ve always found that kind of interesting. And.... there’s probably a few others as well, but... it tends to be nonfiction. Oh, and I also read adventure things... like I read The Adventures of Marco Polo (that was nonfiction too).

I hope that from all that, you at least get that he mostly reads nonfiction. But read on, my friends!

Me: How do you go about picking books out to read?

Dad: You know, I see books in some of my astronomical magazines or the journal I get from the RASC [Royal Astronomical Society of Canada]. Occasionally someone mentions a book in some of the car magazines I read or motorsports things that I read or science things that I read and then I always make a note of it and then I’ll go and look up reviews and if it seems reasonable I’ll save a link to Amazon reviews or something and I have a whole folder with probably several hundred books listed and whenever I want to buy some books or whatever and then I look at that folder by date... usually the most recent things...

Kind of crazy, huh? I just have a small notebook with a cat picture on the front... what is your TBR list like?

Me: Have you ever not finished a book?

Dad: I know there was one... uh-oh, you’re not going to like to hear this... it was a huge book that I thought “this will be good” on the Incas (an ancient civilization in South America). Fascinating things, but when I started to read it, I realized quickly it was not a history but a sort of fictionalized account, with people and characters. Like historical fiction. If that’s what you’re after that’s fine, but if it’s not then...  There was another book by creationists that I had so little respect for and his ideas were so easy to dismiss... and since then, he has abandoned those ideas. I read all of that book, but skipped over some of the appendices.

Me: What do you think makes a book a bad book?

Dad: The books that I read, those type of books, it’s very easy to write something on history or science and make it extremely boring –reciting facts, and too much of that sort of thing and someone has to be a very gifted writer to make it interesting. So a book like that that has good possibility, good material but it’s just... poorly presented. There’s also the attitude of the writer. There was one book I read, Time Among the Maya or something, and it was kind of like it’s kind of fun to be with this guy for the first week or two, but by the end you just want to strangle him and just want to get away from him.

Read that, nonfiction writers? You've got to have a good personality in order for your book to be appealing.

Me: What are some of your favourite books or authors?

Dad: William Sheehan, who has written books on Mars and Venus and articles in Sky & Telescope... and Owen Gingrich, who I've heard speak at the university. He is a Christian but also one of the foremost astronomical historians.

Me: Have you ever read fiction?

Dad: I used to read a lot of science fiction. I read Lord of the Rings of course, and this book Dune by Frank Herbert, and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I think I also read Moby Dick... and for awhile I was reading Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). I tend to gravitate towards classics, just because they’ve stood the test of time and so on.

Me: What is so appealing to you about nonfiction? 

Dad: I just have an insatiable curiosity about the world around me and about history and I love to sort of see my place in where we are now in relation to time going back. And to me, it seems so sad when people are so focused on now and even their own history they couldn’t care what happened yesterday. There's just so many fascinating stories about the past.

What say you about nonfiction? Fiction?

Me: When you read nonfiction, how much of what you learn while reading do you retain?

Dad: It depends... but I like to work fairly hard at understanding when I’m reading. I don’t like to sort of gloss over things. Sometimes when I read books with math in them or formulas, or discussions that are a bit more in-depth like that then I don’t want to just skip over it. Because I know you benefit from [going more in-depth]. Certainly as time goes by it fades, but I think in general I remember a bunch of stuff.

Me: How long does it take you to get through a book usually?

Dad: I don’t like to rush through books. With the books I read, I wouldn’t want to read them all in one sitting even if I could. I usually read for ten or fifteen minutes to a couple of hours at the most but then anymore than that and I feel the stuff I’ve learned is already fading and I’d rather have it sort of sink in a bit... savour it a little bit. On average it takes me a month to get through a book. If I’m reading regularly, then at least several weeks.

So if you're amazed at those people that read a gajillion books per year... then just know that they aren't getting any soak time.

Me: That's all my questions! Thanks! You did better than bro did.

Dad: Well, when it comes to talking, you can count on me... for quantity, anyway.

That's for sure!

---

Do YOU want to be part of the Ask The Readers series? Just e-mail me (kazuntai101[at]gmail[dot]com) and I'll send you some questions specific to your reading habits/routines/personality. Then the interview will appear up on the blog so other people can learn about your unique reading habits!