Afbeelding auteur
14 Werken 178 Leden 9 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

Tim Rowland is a New York Times bestselling author and humor columnist for Herald-Mail Media in Hagerstown, Maryland. He is the creator of the Strange and Obscure Stories series and has written extensively on history, the outdoors, and the environment for a broad range of newspapers and magazines.

Werken van Tim Rowland

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Geboortedatum
1960
Geslacht
male
Nationaliteit
USA
Beroepen
historian
newspaper columnist

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Tim Rowland’s Creature Features is a new collection of 75 essays from Rowland's column at Herald-Mail Media in Hagerstown, Maryland. The essays, written between June 2008 and October 2012, are all about the animals Tim and his wife Beth lived with on their "Little Farm by the Creek" in Boonsboro, Maryland.

Rowland writes:
"Will Rogers said he ever met a man he didn’t like; by contrast, my wife Beth and I never met an animal we didn’t like. No question about it, our course is less challenging than Mr. R’s. But that doesn’t mean that our souls have not been tried time and time again, and our patience stretched well beyond the breaking point to the regions where it snaps and sends us over top of Mars." Page 11


"So we started with a pair of dairy goats. Or maybe it was the flock of chickens. It all starts to run together at this point. Pretty soon we had an ark-like assembly of about every farm animal that comes to mind. People who collect cars go through the same dynamic, I suppose. After a while the frame of logic shifts from 'Do we need it?' to 'What’s one more?' ” Page 12

"So with this collection of essays, I am letting animals past and present know that I forgive them. I absolve them of their sins, because hopefully some good has come from it, and I can focus on the laughs and entertainment they have provided to both myself and, hopefully, the reader.
Now if only the animals can see their way clear to forgive me. Page 12

Their wide assortment of animals (pets if they have a name, food if they don't) include: Juliet, the Siamese cat; Hannah the bulldog; Opie the Bouvier des Flandres; Magellan the zucchini eating pig, Roosters Stink and Chuckles, Doodlebug the cantankerous miniature horse; Cappy the horse, cows Cleopatra, Heifertiti, and the princesses; goats Hillary and Horsefly; plus horses, donkeys, more goats, llamas, chickens, geese, more pigs, and turkeys.

Some of the essays included in this collection are:
Egyptian royalty takes up residence on farm
Patch makes horse berry upset
Magellan the pig as adventurous as namesake
Ill-fitted pair finds short-term love on the farm
Cats live to make people look foolish
Broody duty has disastrous underpinnings
Rooster that eats stink bugs not for sale at any price
Chuckles the rooster avoids date with death
Goats, pigs compete for overconditioned kudos
This Thanksgiving promises to be the best ever
British invasion brings changes in pig culture
Turkeys go to big garnished platter in the sky
Darwin was wrong: Sometimes it’s “survival of the most pathetic.”
An Elizabethan collar by any other name would be a ‘Happy Hat”

This collection was hilarious. I laughed, hooted, snorted, whooped, chortled, wheezed, sputtered, chuckled, snickered, guffawed, howled... In other words, as I was reading Tim Rowland’s Creature Features, I sounded like I belonged on Tim and Beth Rowland's farm. The stories are short and easy to read, but thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. The word play Rowland engages in is a great part of what made these short essays so wonderful and satisfying. I wish I could share one of his columns with you, but you'll have to settle for some selected quotes below and read the book.

I'd like to also read Tim Rowland's earlier book, All Pets are Off, which is more about his pets while Creature Features focuses on other animals on the farm.

Very Highly Recommended - I loved this collection!
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Gemarkeerd
SheTreadsSoftly | 4 andere besprekingen | Mar 21, 2016 |
After reading Tim Rowland's Creature Features I purchased his first humorous collection of columns about his pets, All Pets are Off: A Collection of Hairy Columns. This first collection focuses more on his pet cats and dogs, but there are a few columns that expand to the more exotic farm yard animals. I was bound and determined to find the time to read All Pets Are Off and am thrilled that I did.

In the introduction, Tim Rowland writes:
"The cast of characters in this book — in the chronological order that they entered my life — include, but are not limited to: Tory and Lacey, two Australian shepherd mixes with good attitudes but bad manners; a black-and-white cat named Bubba, who was given to me with the assurance that it was a mild, “marshmallow kitty,” but turned out to be Satan’s own cat; Jake Biscuit, a Jack Russell terrier and the exception that proves the rule that Jack Russell terriers are smart; Colonel Sanders, a large, indignant and unspeakably uncoordinated Himalayan; Hannah, a sweet but self-doubting bulldog; Juliet, a noisy and opinionated Siamese; and the Bouvier des Flandres named Opie — who best as I can describe him is like Marmaduke, only not as sober. The latter three, along with some of the larger animals that have more recently arrived in my life, are courtesy of my wife Beth, who not only has introduced me to a wide variety of critters, but taught me how to better understand them." (Location 98-106)

"The kind of animals I like are the ones that have been with me all the while, that is to say, uh, spirited. All my pets are indeed off; and I like it that way." (Location 110-112)

Once again Rowland's columns were hilarious and perfect light-hearted entertainment during some rainy summer days.

On dog food:
"We have Mighty Dog: “It makes your dog a Mighty Dog.” These people have never experienced my dogs. If they had they would know a mighty dog is not a good thing. They would want a cautious, reserved dog. They would name their food 'Zombie Dog.'" (Location 282-284)

Concerning a large, clumsy puppy:
"Grace and agility are never strengths in a puppy, but this one took a lack of coordination to new levels. As a matter of fact, he fell over more often than a two-legged bar stool — so much so that for a time we seriously considered naming him “Thud.” (Location 1780-1781)

On his carpentry skills:
"And, long story short, construction is not my strength. I hear carpenters say stuff like “measure twice, cut once,” but that seemed like a lot of bother, so I’d cut twice as much as needed, never measuring at all, on the theory that one piece of stock or another would at least come close to fitting. This always resulted in finished products that were not terribly functional but were unspeakably picturesque." (Location 1872-1876)

Very Highly Recommended!



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Gemarkeerd
SheTreadsSoftly | 1 andere bespreking | Mar 21, 2016 |
Hilarious, laugh-out-loud, short stories of life on the farm. If you love animals, you will love this book and the sharp wit of the author. Bravo!
 
Gemarkeerd
LoriCrane | 4 andere besprekingen | Jul 13, 2015 |
I enjoyed this collection of interestingly-told anecdotes about the Civil War. Some things were completely new to me, others went in depth into incidents that are usually only mentioned in passing. I like to keep books on my I-Phone that I can read in spare moments, or if I just want something brief to finish instead of a full book. This was perfect for that. I think that I may have enjoyed reading the pieces here and there than I would have reading it straight through. Probably not for the real aficionado, but perfect for someone with moderate knowledge, or someone with no special interest in the war who enjoys little nuggets of history.… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
PuddinTame | Nov 17, 2014 |

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Statistieken

Werken
14
Leden
178
Populariteit
#120,889
Waardering
3.8
Besprekingen
9
ISBNs
30

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