Clara, the Early Years: The Story of the Pug Who Ruled My Life
by Margo Kaufman (ISBN: 0679452613)
Recommended by Julie Thomas, Technical Services Librarian

If you're looking for some light summer reading and you're an animal lover, you will probably enjoy the true story of Clara, a 12-pound, pure black pug who takes over the household ­ and hearts ­ of author Margo Kaufman and her husband Duke. Although Margo has a long history of pug ownership and even writes for Pug Talk magazine (as well as Cosmopolitan, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and National Public Radio), she has never experienced the likes of Clara:

"I was not a Pet Parent. The pugs were dogs. Cute dogs, willful dogs, lovable to be sure, but I was a Human. I was in charge. Then along came Clara, and all bets were off . . . The pug and I did share a blind spot. For all our combined knowledge, there was one fact neither of us truly understood. Clara was not a person."

But alas, Clara's world of prima donna privilege is turned upside down when Margo and Duke adopt a (actual human) baby from Russia.

OK, it sounds corny and cloyingly cute, but Clara, the Early Years is actually intelligently written with a sardonic tone that is often laugh-out-loud funny. [Sadly, author Margo Kaufman, who also wrote This Damn House and 1-800-Am-I-Nuts?, died of cancer at 46, only two years after publishing Clara.]

Down and out in Paris and London
by George Orwell (Cowles DC715 .O7 1950)
Recommended by Deborah Sulzbach, Acquisitions/Reference Librarian

This book, Orwell’s debut title, is an autobiographical work which details actual events in his life presented in a fictionalized form. Feeling guilty due to his privileged status in life, Orwell wanted to experience life as one of the downtrodden and outcasts of society, so he lived in the slums of London and Paris working odd jobs and interacting with the "low life." This title, which recounts many of his experiences, presents a frighteningly realistic portrait of poverty.

The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
by A.J. Jacobs (Cowles AE5 .E44 J33 2004)
Recommended by Karen Wallace, Circulation/Reference Librarian

This true, humorous story of the author’s quest to read the Encyclopedia Britannica cover-to-cover is laden with interesting, obscure, and profound information from that work interwoven with stories and reflections on Jacobs’ own life. Storylines include Jacobs’ competitive nature, the troubles he and his wife are having trying to become parents, the nature of intelligence, and his relationship with family members, notably his father, Arnold Jacobs, Sr., who is well-known in the field of securities law. The following excerpts from Jacobs’ discussion of his father’s legal scholarship demonstrate his sense of humor:

"I haven’t picked one [of my father’s books] up in years, not since I was fourteen. Back then, I used to enjoy the first volume of The Impact of Rule 10b-5, mainly because my dad had inserted a Playboy centerfold into a half dozen copies to send to friends as a joke. He had kept one of these customized copies for himself. So that was probably the closest I came to going to law school ­ studying the case of Miss January’s missing ballet tutu." As Jacobs reviews the book’s index, he sees an entry his dad added: "Birds, for the, 1-894."

"My father is proud of his footnotes. A few years ago he broke the world’s record for most footnotes in a legal article, coming in at an impressive 1,247. Soon after that, a California legal professor topped my dad’s record with 1,611 footnotes. My dad didn’t stand for that. He wrote another legal article and just crushed his opponent. Squashed him with 4,824 footnotes, ensuring his status as the Wayne Gretzky of footnotes. My dad tried to get the Guinness Book of World Records interested, but legal footnotes apparently don’t get the same respect as fingernails the size of adult rattlesnakes. So he had to settle for a mention in Harper’s Index."

Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag
by Janusz Bardach (Cowles DK771 .K67 B373 1998)
Recommended by Dave Hanson, Information Technology/Reference Librarian

This autobiography details Janusz Bardach's life in a Soviet labor camp in the early 1940's. Bardach, a Polish Jew, was conscripted into the Soviet Army after Poland was partitioned in 1939. While in the Soviet Army he flipped a tank at a river embankment and was court-martialed to ten years of hard labor. Bardach describes the horrors of the various gulag camps he worked at and details his own personal story of his resolve and will to live. Bardach would eventually find his life calling while working in a camp medical center.

Bardach was released in 1946 and began studying medicine in Moscow where he completed his residency in reconstructive surgery. He was a pioneer in the field of cleft lip and palates repair. Bardach joined the staff at the University of Iowa Hospitals in 1972 where he became a world-renowned doctor in his technique for reconstructive surgery.

Master Butchers Singing Club
by Louise Erdrich (Cowles PS3555 .R42 M37 2003)
Recommended by Sue Lerdal, Reference Librarian

Everyone in Iowa is reading this book! The author's grandfather was a butcher who fought on the German side in World War I and whose sons served on the American side in World War II. From this little piece of autobiography, Erdrich has created a sweeping story beginning with the homecoming of the German sniper Fidelis Waldvogel after the Great War. Eva, the woman Fidelis comes home to wed, has not been waiting faithfully for him, but for his best friend Johannes, whose child she carries and whose death in the war Fidelis must now report to her. Hoping to make a new life with his grieving bride, Fidelis heads for America and gets as far as Argus, North Dakota. This multi-generational, character-rich story chronicles a group of ordinary small-town residents as they encounter the extraordinary events ­ both in their own remote world and in the larger world, too ­ that come to define their lives. Master Butchers Singing Club was selected by the Iowa Center for the Book as the book "All Iowa Reads" in 2005. The purpose of All Iowa Reads is to encourage Iowans statewide to read and talk about a single title in the same year.

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The URL of this page is: http://facstaff.lawlaw.drake.edu/susan.lerdal/lawlibrec.html
Created: May 12, 2005
Maintained by: Susan Lerdal