Whether he's escaping the personal vendetta of a bull named Killer (I was a matador without a cape), entangled with a rabid cow, chasing a stallion (well, not quite, anymore...) through downtown Bangor, performing heart surgery in an arena, or having a close encounter?while airborne?with a B-52 bomber, this vet regards it all as part of a (long) working day.

Whether he was trying to geld a spooked stallion in a blizzard or found himself in the middle of an all-out fracas involving a monkey's abscessed tooth and a shotgun, he took it in stride, with great affection for both his four-legged patients and his two-legged clients.

James Herriot meets Jeff Foxworthy in the real-life adventures of a traveling horse doctor. Climb into the truck alongside large animal vet Dr. Madison Seamans and race to the aid of horses with wounds, stomach aches, allergies, and bizarre behaviors, as well as those in severe physical distress. Quite by accident, you’ll find yourself familiar with and understanding common equine medical problems and how they are diagnosed and treated, all while marveling at the remarkable situations a country veterinarian can find himself in. Playful yet serious, honest yet tongue-in-cheek, this wonderfully written book is an up-close look at a well-lived rural life that is about as authentic as America gets. No one who cares a whit for the animal kingdom, and the humans who dare enter it, will be disappointed.

Claude Wheeler is a young man who was born after the American frontier has vanished. The son of a successful farmer and an intensely pious mother, Wheeler is guaranteed a comfortable livelihood. Nevertheless, Wheeler views himself as a victim of his father's success and his own inexplicable malaise.Thus, devoid of parental and spousal love, Wheeler finds a new purpose to his life in France, a faraway country that only existed for him in maps before the First World War. Will Wheeler ever succeed in his new goal? The novel is inspired from real-life events and also won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.

How should we treat non-human animals? In this immensely powerful and influential book (now with a new introduction by Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari), the renowned moral philosopher Peter Singer addresses this simple question with trenchant, dispassionate reasoning. Accompanied by the disturbing evidence of factory farms and laboratories, his answers triggered the birth of the animal rights movement. 'An extraordinary book which has had extraordinary effects... Widely known as the bible of the animal liberation movement' Independent on Sunday In the decades since this landmark classic first appeared, some public attitudes to animals may have changed but our continued abuse of animals in factory farms and as tools for research shows that the underlying ideas Singer exposes as ethically indefensible are still dominating the way we treat animals. As Yuval Harari’s brilliantly argued introduction makes clear, this book is as relevant now as the day it was written.

In "The Reluctant Farmer of Whimsey Hill," opposites attract; for better or for worse. That is what troubles animal-phobic, robotics engineer Smith who just got married. He learns that his bride's dream is to have a farm where there are lots of animals and she can rescue ex-race horses to retrain and find them new homes. But according to a Meyers-Briggs Personality Test that they took for fun, their marriage is doomed. There is only one problem: the newlyweds took the test after the wedding. Whether Smith is chasing a cow named Pork Chop through the woods with a rope, getting locked in a tack room by the family pony, being snubbed by his wife's dog, or unsuccessfully trying to modernize their barn using the latest technology, the odds are stacked against him. It seems like everything with four legs is out to get him. Will the animals win, forcing Smith to admit defeat, or will he fight to keep his family and the farm together? Enjoy the true, warm, and frequently hilarious stories of Smith's journey along the bumpy road from his urban robotics lab to a new life on a rural Virginia farm.

“Jerry Nelson’s column comes from the true heart of the Midwest. He has the true voice, the slow twang. He knows wheat from barley. He knows hardware, he knows vegetation, he knows people.”—Garrison Keillor In the tradition of Mark Twain and Jean Shepherd, Dave Barry and Garrison Keillor, Jerry Nelson is a humorist whose beat is the American heartland, a small-town world of pickup trucks and Sunday night pancake dinners, dropping in on neighbors and complaining about the county agent. His depictions of daily life, from the point of view of an ex-dairy farmer and taciturn husband with a twinkle in his eye, are read by 250,000 people a week—and occasionally woven into Prairie Home Companion scripts. These are stories of courtship; childbirth—he offers the delivery room doctor the use of his calf puller; family; neighbors; chores; and the duties of a father—why is it that a man who spends his days in cow manure can’t change a baby’s diaper? Knee-slappingly funny one moment, poignant the next, it’s a very special look at a distinctly American way of life.