The Huffington Post: Interspecies Animal Friendships Will Warm Your Heart
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This is so cute! Check out the link’s video, and if you are looking for more unique furry, feathered, and shelled friendships, then I highly recommend you read the book: Unlikely Friendships.
Happy Tuesday All!
Top Ten by The Broke and the Bookish
Top 10 Favorite Book Covers:
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I know the list is supposed to contain 2012 covers, but I’m going to include my favorite covers from all years. These are in no particular order, but here they are. Enjoy! :)
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No Touch Monkey by Ayun Halliday – Come on, how could you not love this cover?! I mean just look at it! The main reason why I bought this book was because of the cover, and I’m so glad I did because the book exceeded my expectations. Check out my review of this book here.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - I am extremely biased with this book because it’s one of my favorites. But I do love the simple cover and if you read it, then you will understand how powerful this cover truly is.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel - I could literally stare at this cover for hours. It provokes such wonderment and imagination, and trust me this is just not another “pretty cover” because the book is absolutely AMAZING.
Unlikely Friendships by Jennifer S. Holland - Awww…just Awww! Do I need to say more?! Check out my review of this book here.
Modoc by Ralph Helfer - This cover brings tears to my eyes. I remember staring at this cover after I finished the book and the words I had just finished reading came flooding back in my mind. The cover isn’t even half as good as the book, but it’s definitely one of my favorite book art.
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs - Such a great book, and such a great cover. I just love it. It really captures the words that are on the pages.
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - Anyone who has read this book knows how amazing this cover is in person. It’s such a great design that it instantly attracts you into reading the book.
Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman - I remember stroking this cover when I first picked this book up, waiting desperately to read it. This cover is so cool. Screw Eat, Pray, Love, this book deserved its own movie.
The Devil’s Teeth by Susan Casey - I asked my mom to get me this book for Christmas based on the cover alone. It’s scary as hell, but also extremely intriguing. The book was great, but I think the cover is just a tad bit better. Check out my review of this here.
Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn - I haven’t read this book yet, but it’s definitely on my TBR list. And it’s on there for the most part because of the cover. It’s so cool, isn’t it?! Can’t wait to see if the book lives up to the cover.
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The cover art are sometimes my favorite part of the book, and it really is something that draws you into the book.
So this is my list, and hope all of you have a Happy Tuesday!
What are your Top 10 favorite book covers?
Musing Mondays by Should Be Reading
Q:
What’s one book you always recommend to just about anyone?
A:
I recommend them by genre.
If someone is looking for humor, I recommend At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream by Wade Rouse. This book is so hilariously funny that it is literally impossible not to laugh out loud while reading it!
If someone is looking for travel, I recommend either Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman or The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner. Both are very good travel narratives, though different.
If someone is looking for a true animal story, I recommend Unlikely Friendships by Jennifer Holland. The pictures alone are worth the read.
If someone is looking for a good fiction read, I recommend a few: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - an absolute beautiful read; The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - everyone who reads this book loves it; and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - love, love, LOVE this book, though I will never see the movie because the book is so damn good!
These are just a few of my normal recommendations. I have many more, however at the moment, these are the ones that come to the mind.
According to the Global Post, Shirley, an orangutan in Malaysia, must be forced to quit smoking after she has been showing some abnormal behaviors such as mood swings, drowsiness and becoming agitated when she doesn’t have a cigarette. But how did she start smoking in the first place?
Well, apparently, visitors to the zoo would throw lit cigarettes into her enclosure, and Shirley, mimicking her “wonderful” human “role models”, would smoke the cigarettes thrown in for her.
Luckily though, Nature Alert, a British activist group, complained, authorities realized that the zoo which Shirley was in was not a good environment. Shirley, as well as a tiger and a baby elephant, were all removed from the zoo, and should be sent to a wildlife center on Borneo island.
It just outrages me that people are so gosh darn stupid and insensitive as to throw a cigarette into an animal’s enclosure. What the hell were they thinking? What if Shirley had eaten the cigarettes that were thrown in? What if a fire had started in the enclosure during a dry season or something? It’s bad enough that she smoked them, and it also says in the article that she’s more than 20 years old, so now, depending on how long she has been smoking, it didn’t say, she could develop cancer and other health problems.
Grrr … the human population just angers me. We all need to grow-up, and not think a “smoking monkey” is funny or cool because it’s not! It’s an outrage! It’s not natural for animals to be smoking, and it’s not right for humans to be exposing them to man-made death traps.
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According to the Daily Mail, award-winning photographer, David Slater, whom was visiting a national park in Indonesia, left his camera unattended for a while. Curious by her reflection in the lens, a female black macaque, grabbed the camera and “smiled” for a picture.
Apparently, by the time David Slater retrieved his camera, the macaque ‘must have taken hundreds of pictures’, though not all were in focus. Guess they still need a bit more practice!
I loved reading this news article not just for the cute pictures, but also because it really does show you how intelligent animals truly are. They are eternal children – we all know a few humans that are the same way! – and whomever says that animals don’t have feelings, souls or emotions is plain wrong.
Just by looking at the “self-portraits” by the macaque, and staring into her eyes, you can see that she is curious yet intelligent, excited yet cautious, and nothing short of a 3 year old human child!
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According to BBC News, only two, out of four, Liger cubs – offspring of a male lion and a female tiger – survived when they were born at the Xixiakou Wildlife Zoo in China.
When their tiger mother stopped nursing them, due to reasons unknown by the zoo staff, a dog, whom recently had her own puppies, became the new step-mother of these liger cubs.
Ligers are extremely rare and are known to only be born in captivity. While tigers and lions are from different species, they are still able to breed together, and ligers are the biggest known cat, even growing larger than both their different species parents.
It’s strange how different species are able to breed with one another and actually produce offspring. I wonder if, when/if aliens are found, humans could mate with them and produce a “huien” baby?! Sick thought, I know.
Anyway, I have always been interested in hearing stories about one species that ends up taking care and nursing another species when it is left orphaned. I know there are many stories about dogs taking in other specie babies such as pigs, kittens, and now ligers, however there are even other species – ones that no one would even think would do that – taking care of orphaned babies.
One of my favorite books, which gives examples of inner-species parent/child relationships, is Unlikely Friendships by Jennifer Holland. Hearing the stories which fill that book, and the story above, brings my heart joy as I think how much alike humans and animals are.
We both feel, love, nurture, and take care of those in need.
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*Note: Click on the links above to read the full articles. The pictures were taken from the sources. I, however, summarized the articles in my own words, and the opinions and thoughts in this post are my own: © Kalie Lyn, 2011.*
Being an avid animal lover, I love everything that has to do with our furry friends. So I wasn’t surprised when I impulsively bought this book that I found at a small book store in Holland, MI.
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Title: Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom
Author: Jennifer S. Holland
Synopsis: “A leopard lies down with a cow. An elephant cuddles a sheep. A housecat curls up with an iguana. These are just a few of the 47 heartwarming stories of interspecies friendship, documented in amazing photographs, that challenge everything we think we know about animals and the lives they lead.”
ISBN: 978-0-7611-5913-1
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My Review:
I fell in love with this book by just looking at the cover. I mean, who couldn’t?!
210 pages long, it’s an easy-read that captivates you from the beginning until the end. Complete with beautiful pictures of the real life friendships and stories about the animals involved, you can’t help tearing up and getting goose bumps as you read.
The author, whom is a senior writer at National Geographic, not only entertains but also educates the readers by adding facts about each animal featured in the book.
Unlikely Friendships by Jennifer S. Holland is one of those books that you pass on to others and will definitely bring your mind and heart joy. A highly recommended read, you will yearn for more cuteness once you are finished!
Purchase it at Amazon.com here: Unlikely Friendships
*Note: The review above is written by me. © Kalie Lyn 2011*
