When Julie Klam walks by, the stray dogs notice. They must sense her warm heart. She rescues dogs from adverse situations. Boston terriers in particular understand this Klam is a soft touch.
Last year, she published “You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness.” In that book she described how her connection with one special dog became a transformative experience for her. In her latest, “Love at First Bark,” Klam shares some of her dog rescue stories. Are you a person who appreciates canine companionship? After you read Julie Klam, you might just find yourself adopting the next stray dog that you encounter. These dog tales will surely tug at your heartstrings.
“Someplace Like America: Tales From the New Great Depression” by Dale Maharidge. Photographs by Micheal Williamson. (University of California Press, 244 pages, $29.95)
Thirty years ago, Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson embarked on an odyssey that took them across America. They hopped freight trains. They drove the back roads. They went on a quest to find people dislocated by deindustrialization.
The outcome of their journey was a book they called “ Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass.
Three decades later, they returned to locate some of the people who they had met before. “In Someplace Like America” we encounter resilient people who were displaced as our manufacturing base declined.
Through powerful essays and haunting photographs we experience how typical middle class Americans have endured job loss, poverty and homelessness.
“The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944-1945” by Ian Kershaw (The Penguin Press, 564 pages, $35)
When a country is losing a war, it usually seeks ways to end the conflict. By the middle of 1944, it became apparent that Germany would lose the Second World War. Yet Germany never tried to end it until much of the country was in ruins. In “The End,” the historian Ian Kershaw examines the period from July of 1944 until the German defeat in May of 1945 to try to shed some light on why Germany continued fighting until the end.
In his opening, he states that “in early 1945, Germans were sometimes heard to say they would prefer ‘an end with horror, to a horror without end.’ ” Of course, the main reason that Germany kept on fighting was due to Hitler’s fanatical refusal to negotiate.
As Germany was being crushed one would have imagined that Hitler’s generals might have started ignoring his increasingly delusional commands.
With few exceptions they obeyed.
Kershaw gives readers a panoramic view as the vise tightens around Germany. We meet Hitler’s inner circle. Most remained loyal right up until the end.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Friday at 1:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 11 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
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