Hudson Valley Bookshelf
Featuring Local Authors & Regional Interests...

Buddy the Horse & Babe the Pig

Where the Blind Horse Sings: Love and Healing at an Animal Sanctuary
by Kathy Stevens. Foreword by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. Skyhorse Publishing. Hardcover, 208 pages. $22.95.

I am one to oooh and ahhh over puppies and kittens, and small birds fascinate me. However, I've never been particularly attracted to cows or pigs, and being in close quarters with a horse scares me. So, it was a bit of a surprise when I picked up a copy of Where The Blind Horse Sings and found myself completely engrossed in the lives and personalities of the farm animals written about in this book. This collection of poignant animal stories was written by Kathy Stevens, founder of The Catskill Animal Sanctuary, a haven for abused, abandoned and neglected farm animals. The descriptions of the animals and their shenanigans are touching and comical. Rambo the angry sheep turned pacifist, Buddy the blind horse, and Babe the 900-lb pig have all found their way into my heart. Although she doesn't dwell on it, there is a clear message about the horrific conditions endured by animals that are bred for food. There is also an unsettling and disturbing side to the book that points out not only the capacity some humans have for cruelty but the lack of sensitivity we have for animals as living, feeling beings.

In this high tech world I found it refreshing to read about something so down-to-earth and uncomplicated as life on the farm. The descriptions of the relationships that develop between the animals are nothing short of amazing. The dedication of the staff and volunteers are inspiring. I strongly recommend this easy but enlightening book.

— Gail Jaffe-Bennek

The Last Astor?

The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story
by Frances Kiernan. W. W. Norton & Company. Hardcover, 320 pages. $24.95.

What is it like to be a woman of great longevity who inherits both great wealth and a family name to go with it? Born in 1902 and still alive today, Brooke Astor can be credited with having nearly single-handedly changed the dominant popular image of New York's Astor family from one of tightfisted social exclusivity to one of beneficent philanthropy.

Or so she has been viewed in the New York City area. Her relationship with the Mid-Hudson Valley, however, is more ambiguous. Here, the family's local prominence and charitable activities had more positive associations. The Ferncliff estate in Rhinebeck had functioned as a family retreat — especially for the Astor men — since it was first built by William Backhouse Astor in 1853. The death aboard the Titanic of John Jacob Astor IV and the sailing adventures of his son Vincent Astor's Nourmahal (often shared by Vincent's distant cousin Franklin Roosevelt) were followed with avid local attention. The 1953 creation of the Astor Home for Children had been one of the Vincent Astor's proudest moments, and during his lifetime the Home was one of the major recipients of funds from his newly-established charitable organization, the Vincent Astor Foundation.

But Rhinebeck and its environs were not of any particular interest to Brooke Astor — perhaps unsurprisingly, since they were so associated with her third husband and his family, who were not uniformly welcoming of Vincent's last wife. Not long after Brooke Astor had successfully fought off the suit brought in Poughkeepsie's Dutchess County Court by Vincent's half-brother Jack, contesting the will that made her Vincent's sole heir, she broke up Ferncliff into several pieces and donated or sold them. Some of the donated land was used to create Ferncliff Forest; much of the rest went to the Archbishopric of New York to create the current nursing home, and some went into private hands.

Brooke Astor's marriage to Vincent Astor was the last and the shortest of her three marriages. As Frances Kiernan's excellent and nuanced biography makes clear, its material impact on her subject was far greater than its emotional one. Meanwhile, her untangling of the web of Brooke Astor's marriages and relationships and its impact on her son and grandsons turns the recent scandal involving her guardianship into a comprehensible family melodrama. There's a telling moment described in The Last Mrs. Astor when, after a speech by Brooke Astor at a 1981 evening celebration at the Knickerbocker Club during which she speculated that she was probably "the last of the Astors" except for a few that might still be left in England, one of the American Astors in the audience stood up and challenged her, "How dare you say there are no Astors left?"

— Paul De Angelis

A Sensible, Thorough Guide

A Kayaker's Guide to the Hudson River Valley: The Quieter Waters, Rivers, Creeks, Lakes and Ponds
by Shari Aber. Black Dome Press. Softcover, 224 pages. $16.95.

This kayaking guide by a former Queens, New York native who admits to searching for "a wildness that no longer exists," features excellent maps, good directions, helpful descriptive texts of dozens of trips narrated with a naturalist's eye, handy tips, and an easy-to-use format. Nearby waterways covered in detail include Tivoli Bays, Stockport Creek and Flats, Catskill Creek, the Esopus and Rondout Creeks (including Saugerties and Kingston), as well as nearby lakes. Farther afield are marshes, rivers, creeks, and wildlife sanctuaries in Orange, Rockland, Putnam, Greene, Sullivan, and Westchester counties. Highly recommended.

Two Chapbooks

A Girl
by Mary Leonard. Pudding House Chapbook Series. Softcover 25 pages. $12.50 gleonard@hvc.rr.com or www.maryclareleonard.com (includes postage)

Mary Leonard and Lynn Behrendt, two long-time contributors to AboutTown, have both recently published chapbooks of their poetry. Mary Leonard's poems are intense, nostalgic evocations of her mother, childhood, boyfriends whose lives were forever changed by the Vietnam War, and meditations on her daughter.

8 Poems from Meridian Roundelay
by Lynn Behrendt. LINES Chapbooks. Softcover 18 pages. $6. Lynn.Behrendt@gmail.com

Lynn Behrendt's stripped-down and linguistically agile verse offers a kind of mystical, oracular distillation of the world's cruelties, transforming them in the process into something strangely beautiful.