The rare kitty book I don't need to finish.
21 June 2010
In what was probably an okay turn of events, I didn't have a lot of chances to read this weekend, and when I did read, I was trying to make it through a monster of a book about Nixon that is killing me (it's a book I'm reviewing for Library Journal), so my general reading pissiness abated a bit.
I did have a chance to continue listening to David Dosa's (M.D.)* popular nonfiction title, Making Rounds with Oscar. The book is written by a doctor who specializes in elder care and dementia, and works at least part of the time in a nursing home. In said nursing home, he relates the activities of one of the nursing home cats-in-residence**, Oscar, who seems to know when patients are dying and need comfort, and who goes and sits in their rooms when they do.
It's an okay book, but the people who say a narrator really makes or breaks an audio book are right on. This one is read by an actor named Ray Porter, and his voice is pleasant enough, but the narration is too slow and over-enunciated for me. Also, I have a cat, and I know how she acts, so it's no surprise to me that a cat can tell when something's off with people and just go sit near them. This is one of the nicest features of cats, as far as I can tell. (I know whenever I'm sick and dozing in bed or on the couch, I don't have to look around very far to find my furry friend dozing somewhere near me.) But, most of all, I have to stop listening because Dosa focuses primarily on issues in the field of elder and nursing care. Every time I listen to another couple of chapters, I up the ante in my directions to Mr. CR for my own elder care, from things like, "If I get sick in the nursing home, DON'T TREAT ME, for the love of god, just let me die," to "The first day I'm in the nursing home you find someone with pneumonia and park me near them so I get it, and THEN don't treat me." It's morbid as hell and it's bringing us both down, so I'm not going to finish this one.
*Every time the narrator says who the book is by, he's very careful to say "David Dosa, M.D.," with the emphasis on the M.D. This makes me chuckle, as hearing that someone is an M.D. makes me instantly wary and distrustful of them.
**If I do go to a nursing home, I totally want to go to one with pets around. I think that's a cool idea.