pamelaokramer

Cool, Calm and Contentious by Merrill Markoe is a funny book filled with witty comments about everyday life, mothers, Christmas, virginity, and -- most hilarious to me, personally -- dogs.

Merrill has four dogs, so immediately any dog lover knows she has plenty of humorous material to mine. After discussing Cesar Milan's method of dog training, Merrill comes up with her own theories and methods.

Her chapter "selling" her (patent pending) Flexible Cohabitation is one of the funniest things I have read. Of course, you must be a dog lover to think it's even remotely funny. Non-dog-lovers will simply frown and think, "Thank God I don't have a dog!" or "There's nothing even remotely funny about this."

For example:

Q: You can't mean that you are advocating letting dogs run all higgledy-piggledy through your home?

A. To this I reply, "Obviously you have never been to my home."

The chapter includes her "very special form of Zen nonattachment to material goods, which, in these days of economic turmoil, your bank account is going to love!"

Read the whole review at: http://www.examiner.com/book-in-national/cool-calm-and-contentious-by-merrill-markoe-review