4 comments about Travels with My Chicken: A Man and His Companion Take to the Road.

1. I was looking forward to an adventure story, an odyssey, but instead, even though the writing is clever and good, it consists of endless descriptions of people I don't care about and very little "story." I got bored and put it away after 25 pages or so.



2. Reviewed by William Phenn for Reader Views (08/06)
   
   Martin Gurdon is a hilariously funny man. His, is the typical dry humor that our British cousins are noted for. Martin lives in rural Kent, England with his wife Jane, a dog named Hoover, cat called Mollie and Sven, Egghead, Aloe, Vera, Tikka, Anne, Meringue, Brahms, Liszt, and Peeping, their ten chickens. Peeping chicken is Martins travel companion in "Travels with My Chicken."
   
   "Travels with My Chicken" is a compelling tale of the humorous antics of a man and his beloved feathered friend and travel companion. Martin begins by explaining that this book "Travels with My Chicken" is actually a story about how he traveled about the countryside promoting his first book "Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance." The antics of that journey and all the unbelievable things that happened to him and Peeping are told here. Such things as the television studio interview, the photo opportunity at the book signing and many other hilariously funny situations-- one of my personal favorites was the Café' incident. Martin actually referred to the potatoes as French Fries rather than Chips, as I would have expected. In this Bookstore/Café' Martin encounters Teenagers from the city that had never known anything about chickens. The questions put to Martin were so genuinely naive and very funny.
   
   Midway through his travels, Martin has to return poor Peeping to the flock because the poor thing just got so stressed out. He continues the journey with Vera, a very well behaved hen. Vera accompanied Martin to a Writer's Workshop and wound up making her debut at a minimal security prison. Then on to the high tech Henhouse (a modern-day design by some art college students). Here Vera had the opportunity to road test this creation. Many miles and many comical antics later, Martin wraps up his journey with this thought, "Why had I done it? Fun. The whole thing had been a blast."
   
   That's what I thought of this tremendously funny journal also. "Travels with My Chicken" is a book you can read in a night. It is fast moving and drew me in from the first chapter. If it is just silly fun reading for entertainment (not answers to the world hunger crisis) that you are looking for, then "Travels with My Chicken" is the book for you. I give it my highest and funniest A+ rating.



3. I added this book to my library after I read Martin Gurdon's previous book "Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance". Basically, this book is all about Mr. Gurdon's shamelessly promoting his first book with the help of his chickens Peeping Chicken and Vera. He makes several different road trips encountering some very strange (and sometimes very moronic people) and a few kind ones along the way.
   
   "Travels with my Chicken" is less about the chicken and more about the people he meets along the way, which I found very disappointing. It wasn't as fast moving or as heartwarming as his last book. Tho, there were still a few touching parts. Still a good read.
   
   Also, if you don't like cursing or passages about "getting wasted" you might want to skip this one. It's not for young kids.



4. If Martin Gurdon's name sounds familiar, perhaps it's because his previous HEN AND THE ART OF CHICKEN MAINTENANCE elevated he and his fowl to fame as they wrote of their experiences together. Their decision to embark on a one-man, one-bird tour from southeast England to Edinburgh comes alive in TRAVELS WITH MY CHICKEN, a fun story of encounters along the way. Travel with chicken brings you in touch with a host of people you might not ordinarily meet: kids, chicken-lovers, and the curious. His lively vignette proves compelling and easy to read.
   
   Diane C. Donovan, Editor
   California Bookwatch

1 comments about Conure: Your Happy Healthy Pet.

1. Although this book does not have the answer to a lot of questions conure owners may have it is by far the most comprehensive book on these birds.

5 comments about The Game Cock - Being a Practical Treatise on Breeding, Rearing, Training, Feeding, Trimming, Mains, Heeling, Spurs, etc. (History of Cockfighting Series) (History of Cockfighting Series).

1. Interesting book on what has recently become such a trendy topic of outrage. Cockfighting is illegal in my state and I have no intention of violating that law. Nonetheless, I am glad that in this nation, founded on freedom, particularly of information and knowledge (the only way a democracy can function), I was able to read about the subject to satisfy my curiosity about the outrage towards the sport.
   
   It occurs to me that most reviewers here have probably little to no firsthand knowledge of much that occurs with our domesticated animals, be they for meat or dairy or laying...they certainly display a close-minded and hysterical attitude in their reviews towards 'cruelty' that is obviously mired in ignorance.
   
   I wish that before screaming their self-aggrandizing, high-handed moral biases...people would at the least read the book. Anyways, bravo to anyone who doesn't bow and scrape to would-be moral tyrants who scream on the 'innanets' (that's humorous irony in itself, I think).
   
   Once again: interesting read on what is obviously very deep subject matter.



2. They've got just as much blood on their hands as those that participate in this national travesty. Too bad you can't rate something no stars.



3. I have been an Amazon customer for more than 10 years. I have decided to no longer be a customer until Amazon VOLUNTARILY removes material like this (Junk that promotes ILLEGAL activity - particularly activities involving cruelty to animals, children, or others that do not have the free will to decide their own fate)..



4. Wow. I am just shocked at how some people think. This is a book on how to raise birds to tear each other apart for people's enjoyment. There are alot of horrible things in mankind's "history" but do we really need to sell books on "how to" do them? Any kind of behavior that causes torture and pain to a living creature for someone else's pleasure is sure not something I'M proud to look back on! This kind of thing makes me so ashamed to share this planet with certain other kinds of people. And I'm very very disappointed that Amazon is more interested in making money than having morals and not selling material giving "How To"s on illegal behavior.



5. As one of the very first and most loyal customers of Amazon, I'm here to say GOODBYE. Amazon's ridiculous arguments to keep making a buck on animal cruelty ("fighting censorship" or "1st amendment rights") are ridiculous and insulting. I'll be buying all my online purchases elsewhere and to make sure Amazon knows about it, I'll forward all the purchase confirmations to Amazon -- just so the company will know exactly how much it's losing from just one ex-customer -- someone who buys EVERYTHING online.
   
   I also plan to make it my life's work to make EVERYONE aware how low Amazon will go to make a buck. ADIOS!!!

5 comments about The New Parakeet Handbook: Everything About the Purchase, Diet, Diseases, and Behavior of Parakeets : With a Special Chapter on Raising Parakeets (New Pet Handbooks).

1. This book provides a lot of great information, and is written in a way that anyone from an adult to a young child can understand it and learn from it. I also very much enjoyed the beautiful color photographs of the parakeets! I spent hours just looking at the amazing photos of these interesting birds, all of which are individually very unique and beautiful. I highly recommend this book for first time parakeet owners. I learned a lot from it.



2. I enjoyed reading this book, and I love all the pictures, but some important information is outdated. For example, the book suggests over and over that you give your parakeet gravel to help with digestion, but this is a big no-no. A more recent book would explain the dangers of this practice, and inform the reader to steer clear of gravel and grit, as well as sandpaper perches (which can hurt and injure your bird's poor little feet).
   
   Much of the information is very helpful, and again, the pictures are wonderful, but I would suggest a more current book to anyone who is looking for accurate information on the feeding and care of your parakeet. If I had noticed the publishing date of this book (English version was first published in 1986) I would have passed on it.



3. Please let me know about parakeets eating the paper on the bottom of the cage. "Wicky" has become finiky with his food and started to eat paper. Is this harmfil? What should I do?



4. This book is an exallent source of information on the raising, caring or breedind of budgies. It includes diagnosis and treatment charts for illnesses and injuries. This book also includes what and what not to feed the budgie, home grown foods and housing requirments. It even has a section for breeding, taming and the behavior of Parakeets. In my opion this book is a MUST for ALL parakeet owners. Wheither the first time novice, or a serious breeder. Use it as a guide to care for your bird or as a referance guide for diagnosing and treatment of any budgie problems. The book has lots of photos, drawings, and charts. I love this book and use it all the time for my budgie Joe. This is one awsome budgie book!



5. This book is excellent for children,or those of us just getting our first "keet".The information is concise and easily understood.The book is set up to cover a touch of just about everything from where did they originate to handfeeding babies.The color photos are exquisite! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has a budgie.It would also make a nice gift accompaniment if someone would like to give someone a budgie as a gift!

No comments about Saving Migrant Birds: Developing Strategies for the Future (Corrie Herring Hooks Series).

1 comments about Parrot Culture: Our 2500-Year-Long Fascination with the World's Most Talkative Bird.

1. I was very excited when I bought this book. After reading it once, I still found it quite wonderful, but since I`m writing a book of my own (on african greys), I had to check up on some of the "facts" I wanted to use myself. I`m sorry to say that some of the historical facts don`t add up to other, reliable sources. For instance, one painting is dated to 1889, but the painter died in 1883, and according to the book it was the French who invaded The Canary islands in 1402. It was the Spanish... A few other dates are wrong as well. I haven`t found (or searched for) many errors, but this makes me question the rest of the book as well. But if you`re not really "hung up" on historical accuracy, this is a very good book indeed. The facts themselves still hold water, although some dates and such may be wrong.

5 comments about My Fine Feathered Friend.

1. My Fine Feathered Friend
   By William Grimes
   North Point Press 2002
   $15 USA, $24.95 Canada
   85 pages, illustrations
   ISBN: 0-86547-632-2
   
   Reviewed by Karen Davis, PhD, President of United Poultry Concerns
   
   "I looked at the Chicken endlessly, and I wondered. What lay behind the veil of animal secrecy?"
   
   My Fine Feathered Friend is a bittersweet tale that leaves you aching after you put the book away. In part this is because the main character, a large handsome black hen who appears mysteriously one winter day in the writer's yard in Queens, disappears as mysteriously as she arrived. This is a true story. The author, William Grimes, a restaurant critic for The New York Times, is intrigued, fascinated, and finally haunted, by this hen. He perceives her as a kind of Earth Goddess, as solid as a tree trunk, rugged, compact, able and enduring, yet elusive, vulnerable, and, ultimately, as ephemeral as a fairy princess. She vanishes when he comes to love her. He calls the hen, simply and archetypally, the Chicken.
   
   When I first started reading My Feathered Friend, I was put off by the tone. Grimes refers to the hen for a number of pages as "it," while referring to his and his wife's cats as "hes" and "shes." His style is pat with similes and cultivated assurance. I thought, okay, Grimes wants to make sure that no one, including himself, gets emotionally involved with this chicken. He's keeping the lines drawn. But I was wrong. The story reflects his growing tenderness for the Chicken, moving through levity and wonderment to love, sorrow and loss.
   
   The Chicken has an aura of the "familiar" in folklore, an enigmatic being regarded as both a homely acquaintance and a supernatural spirit embodied in an animal that links that animal to a particular person while retaining an inviolable otherness. Grimes's Chicken is like a visitor from another planet (exotic and ineffable) who probably escaped from the local poultry market in Queens (squalid and local). She is a hero and a survivor -- "a brave little refugee"-- who flouts false stereotypes about chickens. "I'd look out back and see a cat chasing the Chicken across the yard," Grimes writes. "Ten minutes later I'd see the Chicken chasing a cat." She is at once endearingly personal and profoundly impersonal. She has her own projects. She is self-possessed. She projects an arch authority, like the author himself. She dominates Grimes's yard, his cats, and his consciousness. She is, he confesses protectively, "a hard read."
   
   The Chicken tracks through the universe by way of a residential patch of earth -- a "pocket paradise" reclaimed from a "wasteland of weeds" in New York City. She captures the eye of a beholder who becomes a Witness driven to Inscribe Her Being. Grimes attempts to fit what he "knows" about chickens (he eats them and makes his living writing about them as food; otherwise he says "the humble chicken was foreign to me") with his deepening perception of, identification with, and ultimate yearning and mourning over this particular hen. She moves him. He is affected by her "air of mystery," her "appetite for play," her "brilliant evasive maneuvers," her "genuine courage," her "character," her "willful high-spirit," her evocation of what the poet William Wordsworth inestimably versed as "something ever more about to be."
   
   Grimes reads up on chickens, passing on to us pieces of information (some accurate, some not) about Gallus domesticus in folklore, history, and poultry manuals, as a backdrop to, an explanation of, the Chicken, a creature so definite, and infinite, so solid and numinous, she eludes classification. He muses:
   
   "Was it pure coincidence that she liked to sneak up on Yowzer, the cat most likely to develop a nervous twitch when caught unawares? Time after time I saw the Chicken trot up delicately when Yowzer had his back turned, squawk a couple of times, and then watch as the cat leaped a couple of vertical feet. The Chicken, after a successful ambush, would run off jauntily, with a cackle that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle."
   
   At other times, "I'd see Bruiser and Crusher snoozing in the basket, Yowzer draped along a nearby wooden bench, and the dark, shapeless form of Midnight filling out the sagging seat of an old sea grass chair we had bought for a couple of dollars at a yard sale. And in the midst of the group, perfectly content, sat the Chicken. It was a heartwarming sight."
   
   One night a police helicopter hovers over the yard, causing the pine tree in which the Chicken is roosting to sway violently under a wind of hurricane force. "Somewhere, deep in the branches," Grimes writes, "the Chicken was holding on for dear life. I couldn't begin to imagine what was going through her tiny mind. By now, I figured, she had either suffered a fatal heart attack or had been dashed to the ground. But no. The next morning, amid wreckage out of Apocalypse Now, the Chicken reappeared, brimful of vim and vigor."
   
   But one spring day, the Chicken is gone. She does not return. Grimes and his wife Nancy look everywhere. They wrack their brains trying to remember if there were any behavioral signs they failed to notice. "The previous afternoon I had watched her resting comfortably in her nest beneath the pine tree," Grimes writes. "I searched for signs of violence but did not find any. The only trace of the Chicken was a single black feather near the back door. The Chicken was definitely, profoundly missing."
   
   It is hard reading the final pages of this book. The depression Grimes describes is not roguish but real, though he tries to make light. "We had grown to love the Chicken," he says. We believe him: so had we. "She really was a big presence in the backyard," Nancy sighs. You go back to the book cover and study the jet black sweet bird face with its rosy comb and pert expression, framed in an oval mirror. If you know chickens, you know the look of that bright round eye, so attentive yet pensive.
   
   My Feathered Friend is like an exquisite blade sliced across your bowels in the midst of a light-hearted romp that won't heal. The book ends with unappeased longing and unsettled questions (unhappy questions on many levels), not "closure," nor should it. Though Grimes says the story is "at an end, at least for us," still, he wonders and hopes, maybe the Chicken will come back. Maybe she's on a journey. He bought things for her. He and Nancy wait for her. They keep a light in the window. Maybe he'll wake up one morning, look out the window, and see "a large feathered form bustling around the patio, scattering cat food and clucking."
   
   But for now, as Alice Walker said about a horse named Blue, in her excruciating essay, "Am I Blue,"* let us not let the animals whom we piercingly perceive become for us merely "images" of what they once so beautifully expressed and are. The Chicken is every chicken. One like no other. Take the next step.
   
   
   *In Living By the Word: Selected Writings 1973-1987. This book of Walker's essays also includes "Why Did the Balinese Chicken Cross the Road?" ("[T]o try to get both of us to the other side.")
   _________________________________________________________________
   Karen Davis, PhD, is the founder and President of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl (www.upc-online.org). She is the author of Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry; A Home for Henny; Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless "Poultry" Potpourri"; More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality (Lantern Books, 2001); and The Holocaust and the Henmaid's Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities (Lantern Books, 2005).
   
   
   



2. A poignantly told memoir of a season spent in the company of a somewhat bohemian chicken. I gave a copy of this book to my vet after we tried for several months to save the life of one of my pet chickens. She hadn't much experience with chickens, more so with the fanicier hookbills often found in one's the parlor, so I wanted her to know what it was like to know a chicken on a more personal level. The author accomplishes this very well, sharing valuable chicken lore with his affectionate and often respectful look at the life of a chicken and life from The Chicken's point of view.



3. I ran across this book at the library looking for substantive books on chickens--the cute cover caught my eye. This is a very entertaining and enjoyable read!

   I'd recommend this book as one you'll finish quickly, share with a friend or two, and want to read again yourself one day.




4. This extremely short book really qualifies as more essay than "book," and as much as I enjoyed it, I wondered who would shell out hard-earned cash for its slim contents.

   Then I found myself handing it around to people as I would share a cartoon or funny email. "Zip through it over lunch," I said, "Take it instead of a magazine while you're waiting for your oil change or dentist appointment."

   And so I learned what this book is best for: for a few bucks, you can pass a smile around to your friends. The eye-catching cover is hard for anyone to resist, and the illustrations are great. If you know someone who's been adopted by a stray animal, this is perfect for them. But if not, pass it on anyway. It's a light, funny read that will make anyone smile.

   In Grime's hands this unusual bird manages a truly universal appeal. I loved the pleasure it seemed to take in sneaking up behind a skittish cat and sending the cat vertically airborne with a sudden cackle. Then there's the pet store employee who tries to explain that they don't carry chicken feed, because a chicken is not a "particular animal." Grimes has an eye and ear for gem moments like these.




5. This is an absolutely adorable story about a man who comes to know and love a chicken who suddenly appeared in his backyard. I first read the authors article about the enigmatic and willful chicken in the New York Times and I actually saved that article because I enjoyed it so thoroughly. My Fine Feathered Friend is just as charming as that article was and better since the author is able to elaborate more on the chicken's fantastic personality and the personalities of the numerous cats that interact with the tenacious bird. The author really knows how to describe animals and the cats encounters with the chicken are truly vivid and terribly amusing. You will not forget this chicken. Its personality lingers long after the final page. The book is a joy and I highly recommend it. Thank you, Mr. Grimes, for sharing such a delightful story!

No comments about The Widowhood Book - A Complete Guide to the Best Methods of Racing Pigeons on the Widowhood System as Described by the Foremost Experts in Britain, Belgium and U.S.A.

2 comments about Parrots and Related Birds.

1. Owning a professional aviary housing over 300 exotic parrots I require an extensive library of easy to read and well indexed books. This book is always the one I grab first. In addition to it's valuable and well-written content, it also contains a huge collection of fantastic photographs. I highly recomend this book for pet owners and breeders alike.



2. The author was Henry Bates, my uncle, who passed away in 1968. He was a kind and brillant man who I continute to miss. I am gratified that his works are still available. Thanks, Dan Meador

No comments about Parakeet: Your Happy Healthy Pet.