Daniel Tatarsky

How Dogs Work by Daniel Tatarsky and David Humphries is a delightful book that, for the most part, delivers useful information in a humorous and lighthearted manner. My biggest issue is more about my preferences than something done poorly in the book.

I found the parts that had to do with understanding and interacting with your dog the most interesting. They offered simple rules and guidelines with adorable drawings. I could have done with less about the breeds, or at least the breed groupings. Which brings me to what just did not appeal to me, the overemphasis on purebred dogs. Yes, choosing the breed(s) of your dog is important based on your lifestyle and other factors. But how many winners of various dog shows were of what breed do not matter to me at all, in either my choice of a dog or in my interactions with my dogs. The groupings and their general characteristics could have taken considerably less room and been replaced with more information actually useful for dog owners. Yes, I am one of those who get my dogs from shelters or friends who have an unexpected litter, so the emphasis on purebred dogs rubbed me the wrong way. Like I said at the start, this is my personal preference. The parts I could have done without were done every bit as well as the rest of the book, so those into inbreeding can rest assured that it is all done well.

While I would recommend this to many people this is also one I would not give as a gift. It is a fun book and does offer helpful hints, but if I am giving to a new owner I would find one that is more geared toward that end and if I am giving to someone who just wants to better understand their dogs, I would find one geared more toward that.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)

Back in the late 1970s, my parents bought me a Hamlyn anthology of Dan Dare stories one Christmas, containing ‘The Red Moon Mystery’ and ‘Safari in Space’, both of which remain my favourite Dare stories. Several years ago, I collected the full set of Hawk Publishing Dan Dare reprints. So when a “biography” of Dare was published a couple of years ago, I picked up a copy. And… it’s not very good. The book tells the story of Marcus Morris and Frank Hampson, and how Eagle was begun. But the writing throughout is terrible, and I spotted several inaccuracies (on things not related to Eagle, to be fair). There are some nice colour plates, particularly of the mock-ups of the first issue, and a useful appendix giving plot summaries of all the Dan Dare stories published in Eagle. But there are better books about Hampson, and reading about Dan Dare is no substitute for reading the actual Dan Dare comic strips.… (meer)