WINNER Animals/Pets: Narrative Nonfiction 2023 Best Book Awards
On August 29, 2005, the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States devastated the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi. Like many others in America and around the world, Chris McLaughlin watched the tragedy of Katrina unfold on a television screen from the comfort of her living room on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. In the devastation afterwards, almost 2,000 people and an estimated 250,000 animals had perished.
Miraculously, many pets did manage to survive. But in the months that followed the hurricane, thousands of them were fending for themselves in the ruins of devastated neighborhoods. They roamed the streets in feral packs or struck out alone. Their plight triggered a grassroots rescue effort unlike any this country had ever seen, and while relief organizations such as the Red Cross were tending to the human survivors, and movie stars and celebrities were airlifting food and endorsing seven-figure checks, a much smaller and meagerly funded effort was underway to save the four-legged victims. With no prior experience in disaster response and no real grasp of the hell that awaited them, scores of animal lovers, including McLaughlin, made their way to the Gulf Coast to help in any way they could.
Including photos from four-time Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist Carol Guzy, Mississippi Barking spans the course of two years as McLaughlin and others ventured into the wreckage of the Gulf Coast to rescue the animals left behind. McLaughlin tells the moving stories of the people she met along the way, both those who lost everything to the hurricane and those working beside her rescuing and transporting animals away from the neglected, derelict conditions in which they barely survived. Within this story of tragedy and cruelty, suffering and ignorance, Mississippi Barking also bears witness to selfless acts of bravery and compassion, and the beauty and heroics of those who risked everything to save the animals that could not save themselves.
WINNER Animals/Pets: General 2023 Best Book Awards
Have you ever treated your dog as if they were human? Were some of the best moments in your life shared with your dog? Then how do you think you will react when they die? And how might you mourn their passing? The Blue Leash: A Year of Mourning stands as a tribute to Scott's dog, Kuma, and the unforeseen struggle to reconcile his death. From the night Kuma died, Scott felt compelled to walk his favorite routes every day and write about his life every night for one year, leading Scott to examine the roots of his sorrow and redefine his identity as he headed towards retirement. Beginning with the mythical history of Kuma's origin to his last interview with Rolling Stone, his memoir processes a painful and rarely examined loss through a unique narration of true stories, fictional tales, journal entries and poetry. The Blue Leash symbolizes Kuma's profound influence in Scott's life, a one-of-a-kind relationship most dog owners might find remarkably familiar, and offers the reader a literary path of healing from the loss of their furriest best friend.
WINNER Animals/Pets: Narrative Nonfiction 2023 International Book Awards
In late March of 2014, death descended upon the community of Oso, Washington in the form of a massive landslide. Ten million cubic yards of dirt and mud crashed through homes, sweeping a 20-foot-high wall of debris before it and scouring the valley floor. In the cold rain of that morning, an entire community disappeared in a sea of mud. In the desperate hours that followed, rescue crews were able to pull only eight survivors out of the wrecked landscape. And then all became quiet, with the stunned realization that many more people were missing, but none were still living.
This is the moment when the story of A Dog's Devotion begins. The emergency call from Oso went out, and was answered by K9 Search and Rescue (SAR) teams from across the Pacific Northwest. Suzanne, along with her 4-year-old Labrador Retriever, Keb, and her teammate Guy, was one of the SAR teams to respond to this disaster. In this book, readers immediately find themselves on the ground in the cold mud of the Oso Landslide Disaster on the desperate search for the remains of over forty lost souls. In subsequent chapters, readers will accompany Suzanne, Guy, and Keb as they are inserted by helicopter to search high snowfields on Mount Rainier, or as they traverse steep, forested slopes searching for the clandestine grave of murder victims. They’ll join K9 Keb, as her keen nose leads to human remains in the forests of Washington State and as far away as the woods of Scandinavia.
Keb’s story is of a dedicated K9 who can distinguish the scent of the dead from the scent of the living, and who can detect buried bones and even corpses underwater. Readers will follow this intrepid K9 and her teammates as they face the challenges of changeable weather, deep northwest forests, high mountain slopes, and menacing coyotes to find dead bodies, missing hikers, and even the bones of murder victims from long ago. Among their successes: finding multiple victims buried by the 2014 Oso Landslide, solving the mysterious disappearance of women in wealthy suburbs, and finding human bones thought to be forever lost to time. It’s their story about evolving as search and rescue volunteers while overcoming harsh conditions, inner demons, a rust-bound bureaucracy, and back-stabbing teammates. While internal conflicts threaten their larger K9 team, Keb’s training, loyalty, and perseverance inspire them, and help them find the resolve to carry on their service to the community.
WINNER Animals/Pets: General 2023 International Book Awards
Presented in full color for the first time, Invertebrate Medicine is the definitive resource on husbandry and veterinary medicine in invertebrate species. Presenting authoritative information applicable to both in-human care and wild invertebrates, this comprehensive volume addresses the medical care and clinical condition of most important invertebrate species?providing biological data for sponges, jellyfish, anemones, snails, sea hares, corals, cuttlefish, squid, octopuses, clams, oysters, crabs, crayfish, lobsters, shrimp, hermit crabs, spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs, honey bees, butterflies, beetles, sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, various worms, and many other invertebrate groups.
The extensively revised third edition contains new information and knowledge throughout, offering timely coverage of significant advances in invertebrate anesthesia, analgesia, diagnostic imaging, surgery, and welfare. New and updated chapters incorporate recent publications on species including crustaceans, jellyfishes, corals, honeybees, and a state-of-the-science formulary. In this edition, the authors also discuss a range of topics relevant to invertebrate caretaking including conservation, laws and regulations, euthanasia, diagnostic techniques, and sample handling. Edited by a leading veterinarian and expert in the field, Invertebrate Medicine, Third Edition:
Provides a comprehensive reference to all aspects of invertebrate medicine
Offers approximately 200 new pages of expanded content
Features more than 400 full color images and new contributions from leading veterinarians and specialists for each taxon
Includes updated chapters of reportable diseases, neoplasia, sources of invertebrates and supplies, and a comprehensive formulary
The standard reference text in the field, Invertebrate Medicine, Third Edition is essential reading for practicing veterinarians, veterinary students, advanced hobbyists, aquarists and aquaculturists, and professional animal caretakers in zoo animal, exotic animal, and laboratory animal medicine.
