A lion or a lamb – how will March make room for April? The forecast shows a gentle departure, so perhaps more woolly than furry this year.
A tribute to sheep seems appropriate for today’s column. For those who have always wanted to have pet sheep, The Backyard Sheep: An Introductory Guide to Keeping Productive Pet Sheep offers advice and guidance for caretakers of Little Bo-Peep’s crew. If you don’t want to count sheep in your backyard, but counting sheep in your head isn’t curing your insomnia, check out Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications. Get ready to go baaa-ck to sleep.
I enjoy wearing wool scarves during the winter months, but I know next to nothing about the wool industry. Raw Material: Working Wool in the West tells one knitter’s search for local yarn, her side job as a sheep shearer, and her inside view into the textile industry. Related to the production of wool but from the perspective of a shepherd, The Shepherd’s View: Modern Photographs from an Ancient Landscape offers full color photographs of the English Lake District including sheep competitions, sheep dogs at work, and a shepherd’s view of a way of life very different from the hustle and bustle of modern times.
Finally, when I think of sheep – all farm animals, really – I think of James Herriot. His All Creatures Great and Small is a classic memoir of Herriot’s adventures as a veterinary surgeon in England. Add The Wonderful World of James Herriot to your sheep-ish reading list.
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans – James Herriot
- The Backyard Sheep: An Introductory Guide to Keeping Productive Pet Sheep by Sue Weaver
- Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications by Jade Wu
- Raw Material: Working Wool in the West by Stephany Wilkes
- The Shepherd’s View: Modern Photographs from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks
- The Wonderful World of James Herriot by James Herriot
New at the Library
Fiction
- My Friends by Hisham Matar
- The Princess of Las Vegas by Chris Bohjalian
- You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue
Nonfiction
- Cool Food: Erasing Your Carbon Footprint One Bite at a Time by Robert Downey, Jr
- Four Thousand Paws: Caring for the Dogs of the Iditarod: A Veterinarian’s Story by Lee Morgan
- Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears You Down by Corey L. M. Keyes
Children
- Max in the House of Spies by Adam Gidwitz
- Sick!: The Twists and Turns Behind Animal Germs written by Heather L. Montgomery, illustrated by Lindsey Leigh
- The Wrong Book written by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Alex Willmore
This is just a small sampling of the many new titles added each week to the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District collection. Visit the district’s 15 locations, our website at www.fvrl.org, or call (360) 906-5000 to reserve titles or find additional listings.
You can email Jan at readingforfun@fvrl.org.
