Monthly Archives: October 2013

Fun Books. Laughter and Love and Animals.

  How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You by The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman.
If your cat is kneading you, that’s not a sign of affection. Your cat is actually checking your internal organs for weakness. If your cat brings you a dead animal, this isn’t a gift. It’s a warning. How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You is a hilarious, brilliant offering of cat comics, facts, and instructional guides from the creative wonderland at TheOatmeal.com.
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Sorry I Barfed on Your Bed (and Other Heartwarming Letters from Kitty) by Jeremy Greenberg. I am not picking on Cats. 
The cat’s answer to Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe, Sorry I Barfed on Your Bed is a hilarious collection of full-color photos and letters of excuses and suggestions from cats to the people who love them—no matter what bad thing they’ve done!

Inside Sorry I Barfed on Your Bed, writer and comedian Jeremy Greenberg presents a collection of laugh-out-loud letters and photographs that offer a cat’s eye view on common feline vs. human cohabitation conundrums. It’s the perfect gift for crazy cat lovers and anyone who appreciates hilarious (and so true!) insights into cat—and human—nature, including:

Your cat sits on your laptop not just for warmth or attention, but to prevent you from interacting with the outside world.   After all, isn’t the main reason to have a cat so you don’t have to waste time developing normal human relationships?

If you spent a third of your life licking yourself, you too would occasionally forget to stick your tongue back in your face. Eating grass has medicinal purposes, and most cats believe grass should be legalized. The cat feels bad about barfing on your bed…because now it must get to up to go sleep on your clean laundry instead.

I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano.
Cat lovers will laugh out loud at the quirkiness of their feline friends with these insightful and curious poems from the singular minds of housecats. In this hilarious book of tongue-in-cheek poetry, the author of the internationally syndicated comic strip Sally Forth helps cats unlock their creative potential and explain their odd behavior to ignorant humans. 
With titles like “Who Is That on Your Lap?,” “This Is My Chair,” “Kneel Before Me,” “Nudge,” and “Some of My Best Friends Are Dogs,” the poems collected in I Could Pee on This perfectly capture the inner workings of the cat psyche. With photos of the cat authors throughout, this whimsical volume reveals kitties at their wackiest, and most exasperating (but always lovable).

Texts from Dog by October Jones.
My dog sends me texts. Yeah. It’s weird. 
When October Jones figured out he could send text messages to himself on his mobile phone, he naturally decided that the best use of this discovery was to send passive-aggressive messages to himself under the guise of his bulldog. And so the exasperating, slightly delusional, and utterly endearing Dog and his alter-ego BatDog were born.

Texts from Dog features Dog’s attempts to keep the neighborhood safe from the likes of Mr. Postman and his arch-nemesis Cat-Cat—he has managed to only smash three TVs and a patio door in the process. And in between crime fighting sprees and run-ins with the squirrel mafia, there are romantic interludes with pillows, fetch sessions gone terribly awry, and the abusive banter only a bromance between man and his text-savvy dog can spawn.

For those of us who have ever had a conversation with a pet in our heads, Texts from Dog will make you laugh out loud and perhaps even make you think twice about leaving your pet home alone for the day.

Hope and Happy the Parakeets are arguing.  Now the dogs are barking and running around. Why? The doorbell didn’t ring. What did the parakeets just tell them? I may never finish this post. 😉

I Could Chew on This: And Other Poems by Dogs by Francesco Marciuliano.

A New York Times bestseller? Oh, you know the dogs weren’t going to let the cats get away with that! This canine companion to I Could Pee on This, the beloved volume of poems by cats, I Could Chew on This will have dog lovers laughing out loud. 
Doggie laureates not only chew on quite a lot of things, they also reveal their creativity, their hidden motives, and their eternal (and sometimes misguided) effervescence through such musings as “I Dropped a Ball,” “I Lose My Mind When You Leave the House,” and “Can You Smell That?” Accompanied throughout by portraits of the canine poets in all their magnificence, I Could Chew on This is a work of unbridled enthusiasm, insatiable appetite, and, yes, creative genius.
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Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe (and Other Heartwarming Letters from Doggie) by Jeremy Greenberg. See I told you I wasn’t picking on cats. 

Inside Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe, writer and comedian Jeremy Greenberg presents a collection of 50 laugh-out-loud letters and accompanying full-color photographs that explain Fido’s love of funky smells, why a ball needs to be thrown again, and practically every other lovably loony canine characteristic.

From an impassioned plea to stop the silly nicknames, to an attempt to skip a bath, to explanations for stolen shoes and swiped sandwiches, Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe offers a pooch’s perspective on common canine vs. human cohabitation conundrums. Sorry I Pooped in Your Shoe is the perfect gift for dog lovers and anyone who appreciates hilarious (and so true!) insights into dog–and human—nature.

Animals Talking in All Caps: It’s Just What It Sounds Like by Justin Valmassoi. See I told you – animal fun.

A goat who wants to sell you some meth.
A giraffe who might be violating his restraining order.
An alpaca with a very dirty secret.
A cat who’s really mad at you for cancelling Netflix instant.
Blog author here. Are you reading?  I’ll tell you a secret, only 3 of my dogs are in the chair with me as I write this and I swear all three just farted. I may not complete this blog as I am pinching my nose and typing with one hand.

Selfish Pigs: Adorably Awful Little Swine by Andy Riley.

From the creator of The Book of Bunny Suicides comes the book you’ve been waiting for: Selfish Pigs. Filled with more than 90 pieces of line art depicting pigs being selfish, this is the must-have for pig-lovers and Riley fans.

It’s pigs—and they’re being selfish. Horribly, nastily selfish. They drink, they smoke, they steal, they eat pork and bacon, and they’re funny while they’re doing it.

Do they metaphorically represent humans at their worst? Or are they just horrible swine who don’t give a damn about metaphors? You’ll have to judge for yourself.

I thought about adding the book The Book of Bunny Suicides and Return of the Bunny Suicides but didn’t want bunny friends to get any ideas or Bunny parents to send me hate mail.

Evil Penguins: When Cute Penguins Go Bad by Elia Anie.

What’s black-and-white and evil all over? Get ready to find out the terrifying truth…Penguins.

They’re everywhere-gracing movie screens, Coke ads, and merchandise. But don’t let those happy feet fool you. When they’re not surfing or marching bravely across the Antarctic, penguins have a whole other agenda going on. And it isn’t pretty.

In Evil Penguins, Elia Anie captures the antics of cute little birds who have gone over to the dark side. If you thought the worst a penguin could do is make you feel guilty about global warning, think again. Here are cartoons of penguins leading revolts, giving SpongeBob a swirly, causing plagues, clubbing baby seals, killing Inuits while dressed as ninjas, and wreaking havoc in dozens of other hysterically appalling ways.

Both penguin lovers and those who know that evil can come in even the cuddliest packages will appreciate these bad birds.

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Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Det by Jenny Gardiner.

A gift from an overseas relative, Graycie, an African Gray parrot, arrives in the Gardiner home not long after the birth of their first child, adding the responsibilities of parrot-hood to their newfound parenthood. Jenny Gardiner and her husband were hoping for a docile, beautifully plumed, Polly-want-a-cracker type of companion—but patchily feathered, scrawny, ill-tempered Graycie was the furthest thing from what they envisioned.

 In Winging It, Gardiner shares in vivid and hilarious detail the many hazards of parrot ownership, from endless avian latrine duty to discovering the multiple ways a beak can pierce human flesh. Whether she’s swearing at the dog, mimicking the sound of the smoke alarm, or bobbing to the beat of the kids clapping for her amusement, she brings the family joy, laughter, and, sometimes, tears.

So why would the Gardiners subject themselves to the crazy behavior of this parrot for so long? Well, because, as the Gardiners realize, Graycie is a part of the family, and just like in any relationship between living creatures, things do not always go according to plan..

A mix of hilarious pet hijinks and a poignant story of family commitment, Winging It is a reminder of the importance of patience, loyalty, and humor when it comes to dealing with even the most temperamental members of the family.