By Merrill Markoe


Gil is a laid-back guy. A handy-man with a perpetual live-in job at a ritzy Malibu summer house for a richer-than-anyone-needs-to be retired couple, Gil happily works on their unending reno projects with his pack of four adoptee dogs at his side. Sure, he isn’t rich and has commitment-phobia (his ex-wife took care of that), but with the owners always away, Gil and the dogs have a pretty easy life, where they answer to no one and where it is always “beer-thirty”. Until the owners announce their imminent return. So Gil and the dogs have to move into his flaky girlfriend’s tiny home with her dogs. Sara is a “dog communicator”, but according to Jimmy, she always gets it wrong, and Jimmy should know – he’s Gil’s dog. That’s right, along with all the other upheaval, Gil suddenly finds he can hear and talk to his dogs – any dogs – like they were human, except they never think or say what we think they’re thinking or saying, and that’s when it gets a bit chaotic for poor Gil. For instance, Jimmy’s sage advice to the other dogs is “nose down, eyes up” will get a dog anything he wants. Plus, after years of being told he’s a “good boy”, Jimmy has come to believe that he is a higher, hybrid creature, half-canine, half-human, and is devastated when he learns that he is all dog. He insists on meeting his birth-mom – who happens to live with the ex-wife – and then refuses to leave his new pack. Soon Gil is trapped with his overly-friendly ex-wife, her jealous new husband and the detective he hired to spy on her. Gil heads for the hills to escape the coming catastrophe, gets into more trouble (with women), and gladly heads back to get Jimmy after his ex-wife’s marriage implodes. Only once he arrives in Malibu, he is met with raging wildfires that are engulfing most of the coast – and the guesthouse where Jimmy was left. Full of canine-human insights, foul language and screwed-up relationships, Nose Down, Eyes Up is nevertheless a very funny and heart-warming book, sure to have any dog-owner looking at their companions in a whole new light. Click here to find Nose Down, Eyes Up in the SPL on-line catalogue.

Dawn French is a household name in Britain and to those who watch BBC Canada. She played the Anglican minister Geraldine in The Vicar of Dibley for 10 years, which is tuppence compared to how long she’s been in the comedy biz with her buddy Jennifer Saunders (she of Absolutely Fabulous fame, and to whom the ‘Fatty’ of the title refers - who is anything but). Younger audiences may know Ms. French from her cameo as “the fat lady portrait” in the third Harry Potter film, and lately she has been seen in the series’ Jam & Jerusalem and Lark Rise to Candleford. In this most unusual memoir, however, she writes very little very about her own stardom, although plenty of pictures show just how broad her career has been. Still, she keeps the name-dropping at a tantalizing minimum, and instead focuses on the people in her life who have influenced and inspired her along the way. Each chapter is actually a letter to one of those people – her parents, Fatty, various friends met along the way, past crushes, her B.F. (best friend, whose name is not revealed), her husband and daughter – and each letter recalls hilarious anecdotes, cringe-worthy moments, and even imaginary fantasies (i.e. the kiss with George Clooney - not so imaginary, but the after-affect was). A perpetually overweight RAF-brat who moved around lot and developed her sense of humour to make friends and not alienate people, her seemingly privileged life has not been tragedy-free by a long-shot. However, she avoids being maudlin by introducing these episodes in a very gentle way, chapters before she gets into the nitty-gritty of the circumstances. More like a peek into someone’s diary, Dear Fatty is likely to leave one tearful as much from laughing at Dawn French’s ebullient self as from the tender revelations of her life. It is the best memoir I have read in a very long time.
Click here to reserve your copy of her memoir, or here to watch her in action on Youtube.
In the Stratford Gazette on January 9, 2009

Oct. 24th

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”
Griffin Maxwell is a quiet student who hates, above all else at school, class speeches. This year he is determined not to give a speech at all. With his best friend, Bryan, he comes up with a plan to fool his teacher – one that seems fail-proof, at first. It’s a plan that will indeed make Griffin, “speechless”!
However, events don’t play out as anticipated, and Griffin’s “fail-proof” plan results in a bizarre set of hilarious events. Long before the end of this book, young readers will also be speechless - with laughter!
Readers will easily identify with the likeable, realistic characters of Griffin and Bryan in this enjoyable, light-hearted story. Author Valerie Sherrard, from New Brunswick, has also written Kate, Sam’s Light and the Shelby Belgarden Mysteries.
** Recommended for ages 9 to 12 years.

Remember that book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”? First it was a book, then a poster that hung on every university student’s wall and in every teacher’s classroom. Well, the author of that “simply living” guide was Robert Fulghum (that’s Ful-jum) and he is back with his latest book of ‘stories, observations and affirmations’. He traveled looking for other people like him, people who are willing to embrace their childlike enthusiasm, people who can turn mundane things into extraordinary experiences, and people who can find wonder in the world each day by looking around them with from different perspectives. Thus he learned the difference between kalimera (good morning) and calamari (squid) in Crete, came to be wearing a giant rabbit suit in Seattle, and found artesian water from Fiji in the middle of the Moab desert in Utah. For anyone who delights in finding the profound in everyday living, or who needs an uplifting laugh, What On Earth Have I Done? is a quick, quirky, conversational read sure to raise the spirits of even the gloomiest Gus.


Find this book in the Library catalogue