Dogs are creatures Patti Lawson equates with men until the day she meets Sadie at PetSmart. Lawson, a successful lawyer and journalist who struggles with a weight problem, tries every kind of diet only to find a solution in Sadie. The Dog Diet: What My Dog Taught Me About Shedding Pounds, Licking Stress and Getting a New Leash on Life, Lawson’s new memoir, describes the healing effects of her adopted pet. Forced to revise both her eating and fitness habits when she brings Sadie home, Lawson undergoes a personal transformation. With Sadie I let go of the obsession for perfection and started enjoying my life in the most unexpected ways, she says. Sadie pulled me from a bleak depression, lightened up my mind and my body as well. The Dog Diet has practical applications pet lovers will appreciate. Lawson offers ideas for exercising and traveling with dogs and provides recipes for owners and their pets. Dogs make the best personal trainers, she writes. Fitter and happier by the end of the book, Lawson is living proof. Julie Hale tends to her dog Howdy in Waynesville, North Carolina.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.