Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Marty Becker, Carol Kline and Amy Shojai

I don't have a dog, but I like dogs.  They just require a lot of time, effort, which I don't really have an abundance of.  So I enjoy dogs through reading about them and this book was chock full of dog stories.

Like the other Chicken Soup books, this one was filled with little stories that were meant to inspire and create warm fuzzy feelings for you.  The stories ranged from dogs as rescuers, letting go of a dog, adopting dogs, and a whole lot more.  The dogs as rescuers was the most interesting because a lot were dogs that taught themselves how to help sick owners or alert them to danger.  It just shows how intelligent they can really be sometimes.  About the only story I didn't enjoy was the one where it described a dog going after a bunch of bicyclists.  The only thing that stopped the dog was quick thinking by one of the bicycle riders, but for some reason the story was presented as trying to be cute, instead of as a dog not properly supervised that almost hurt some people.

Dogs can be characters, but I didn't really get the goofiness I associate with dogs from this book.  In fact, none of them had a huge personality, despite their owners describing them and having lived with them.  The sense of the animals themselves just wasn't there, despite their stories being told.  I think the humans in the book came across more strongly.  Their love for the dogs and how they related to the dogs.  That seemed to be the bigger focus here.

The short stories were easy to read and you could read this over several nights or in one sitting because of the format.  I enjoyed most of the stories about the dogs and there were a few truly remarkable ones in there.  While some were just so-so and had more to do about the person than the dog, there weren't too many of that type.  And although this is a Christian publication, there wasn't much about religion in it, just a lot about dogs.

Not a bad read for people who like dogs.  There's a little bit of something in here for every type of dog lover.

Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul
Copyright 2005
398 pages

A 5th Portion of Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

Too much of a good thing can make it bad. And as with five servings of real chicken soup, a 5th book of "general" Chicken Soup for the Soul makes you more queasy than cured. Like all of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, this one contains a 101 short stories that are meant to inspire.

In this 5th portion, the chapters are titled, "On Love", "On Parents and Parenting", "On Teaching and Learning", "On Death and Dying", "A Matter of Perspective", "Overcoming Obstacles", and "Eclectic Wisdom". There was a lot of variety in the stories as you can see from the chapter titles, but none really stood out. There were even a few I couldn't really see why they were included as there was nothing inspiring about them (like the story of a mom who paddled her daughter at the beach and then marveled how easily kids forgive). It was just kind of rambling without a true sense of purpose to the story.

I didn't find any of the people in the stories especially endearing. Because the stories are so short you don't really expect to get a connection, but even just reading about them I didn't get the usual tears or smiles that I get with some of the other books. I think I got more meaning from the stories that had pets in them, at least they're cute and furry. Or maybe I'm just feeling anti-social and heartless tonight, who knows.

As I said before, there aren't any stand out stories in this book. I just got done reading it and while I remember what happens in a good many of them, none of them really did anything for me. I think they were just trying to get another book out and didn't pay as much attention to the quality of the stories this time around. And some of them even seemed familiar to some of the other books, especially the one that goes around naming famous people and their failures before they were famous. They have a rendition of that in every book. But at least it was a quick read and easily read in one sitting.

I think that most people will be content to stop at the first or second book in this series (of the general ones at least) rather than go on this far. Only a few really die-hard fans of the series could appreciate this book.

A 5th Portion of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1998
367 pages

Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Marty Becker, Carol Kline and Amy Shojai

I'm a cat person.  I currently have two of my own and could only wish for more.  So, on this streak of Chicken Soup books that I've been reading lately, it only seemed appropriate to read the Cat Lover's Soul book.

Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul is filled with the normal short stories of the Chicken Soup series.  They are broken down into different chapters titled, "On Love", "Celebrating the Bond", "A Furry RX", "Cat-Egorically Wonderful", "Cats as Teachers", "Farewell, My Love", "Rescue Me!", and "One of the Family."  Each of these chapters has several short stories relating to the themes and of course, they are all about cats.  There are stories of adopting special cats, cats alerting their owners to danger or illness, and many other things.  I especially liked the story "The Call of the Lobster" about a cat who talks to a special toy, because one of my mom's cats does the same thing with a fuzzy ball she carries around.  I knew she was strange, but at least she's not alone in her strangeness.  There were other stories I didn't like though, like the one about a lady who rescued a cat with FIV and then after treating it at the vet let it roam with her other cats (yes FIV can be contained and treated, but it can be infectious and it seemed an unnecessary risk to her other cats).

I'm of the opinion that all cats are pretty wonderful.  It's the owners that I sometimes don't care for.  There are a lot of people out there that are just cruel to animals (including a story in this book where four teenage boys are practicing target shooting on a cat) and it hurts to read about people like that.  Granted, there are just as many if not more wonderful people in this book who adopt cats and take care of them, so it does have that redeeming quality to it.  But really, it's the cats that make this book worthwhile and it showcases them.

I will admit that there were quite a few stories in here that made me laugh or cry.  The cat getting its head stuck in the garbage disposer (it was rescued successfully) made me giggle.  But, despite there being a specific chapter for cat death "Farewell, My Love", kitty death was rampant through this book.  I'm fairly convinced that the people at Chicken Soup aren't happy unless there's a death of a person, animal, plant, whatever, every ten pages or so in their books.  Not sure what's so inspiring about that, but they've sold a lot of books so it much be working.  I just wish there was more life than death in these books, especially this one since I appreciate my kitties being alive and don't want to think about their eventual deaths right now.  Still, they had a lot of good stories in this book.

Overall this is one of the better Chicken Soup books.  As a cat lover, I did enjoy it and read it in one sitting.

Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul
Copyright 2005
378 pages

Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Cynthia Brian, Cindy Buck, Marion Owen, Pat Stone and Carol Sturgulewski

I live in a third story apartment with no porch or yard.  I miss gardening.  I've had a few gardens, but nothing like the garden of my dreams, so I thought with this book I would live vicariously.  And I did, a little bit.

Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul explores the love of planting and growing things, whether it be food, flowers or trees.  Just the act of getting in the dirt and making something come alive can be very satisfying.  This book explored many different topics about gardening from The Joy of Gardening, Blossoming Friendships, Love in Bloom, Making a Difference, Little Sprouts, The Seasons of Life, Overcoming Obstacles, The Family Tree & Potpourri.  One of my favorite stories was about a little girl and her birthday party, where instead of cake, everyone enjoyed home canned soup, and noone thought of her as being poor.  All the stories were very nice, and I did notice quite a few were about roses (which I don't particularly care for aside from their cooking uses), but luckily, just as many were about vegetable and fruit growing.  And there was even a story about lilacs, my favorite.

Gardener's are a special sort, and like to share.  And there area  lot of stories about people sharing the wealth of their gardens in this book.  But as much as we read about the Gardener's here, I never really got a sense of depth about any of them.  The stories were just too short to really explore the person who inspired them.  There are a wide variety of peple represented in this book; couples, single people, older people, children, etc.  I'd say there is probably a story for everyone.

As with there not being much depth of people, I also didn't feel that there was much depth of story in this book either.  Like the flowers, they were pretty to look at, but you're forever at a distance and don't get to experience them up close or get in the dirt and plant them.  It's almost like seeing a picture of a flower, nice, but leaves you wanting more.  This is a quick read though.  You can take one story at a time or read it all in one sitting.

I enjoyed this book but it didn't lessen my desire for a garden.  Guess it's time to go live vicariously at the greenhouses.

Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul
Copyright 2000
352 pages

Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Mark and Chrissy Donnelly and Barbara De Angelis

I am currently not considered part of a couple. But I once was, so I feel qualified to review this book. Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul is all about relationships. Filled with short stories, it is meant to inspire and move you.

This book was filled with short stories over a variety of topics involving couples. These topics include: Love & Intimacy, Finding True Love, On Commitment, Understanding Each Other, Overcoming Obstacles, On Family, The Flame That Still Burns, & Eternal Love. Strangely enough though, the majority of these stories seemed to involve someone dying. I get that it's a true test to watch a loved one die. But it's depressing, and not uplifting in the least. There were stories in here that didn't involve dying of course, but a lot of them involved children. I never really got a sense of the true celebration of being a "couple" from this book. Now I'm not going to say a couple of these didn't make me cry, because a few did.

There was a lot of dedication in this book. But a couple of the stories just made me raise an eyebrow because of the people in them. I had to wonder if they were true because human nature makes it hard to find so many dedicated people. Now granted they weeded out some of the bad, so it's a possibility that all the people in here were good people and their relationships were true. Like with most short stories though, you're just starting to feel attached to the people when the story is over already.

I've already told you about my problems with the types of stories included in this book. As I said, there is just too much dying and not enough joy. I'm not inspired by death even if it does show the dedication and heart of the other spouse. It just makes me sad for them. And this one was also a rather religious book (it is a Christian publication) but it made it seem as if Christian relationships held together longer, and statistically that isn't the case. It just wasn't as approachable in that regard as some of the other Chicken Soup books are.

Two and a half stars for this one. It just wasn't the warm fuzzy type of book a book about couples should be. But if you're a die hard Chicken Soup for the Soul fan, you may enjoy it.

Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul
Copyright 1999
350 pages

Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Steve Zikman

This particular book in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series is one of the better ones in my opinion. But maybe that's the wanderlust in me speaking. All I know is, I enjoyed a good portion of the stories in this book for the Traveler's Soul.

The Chicken Soup for the Soul series is known for short, inspiring stories. This one is no different, although it mostly goes over travel. But not travel in the usual sense of the word. We have a trip to the moon included in this book in addition to trips out of country. I especially liked the stories about the Peace Corps, and there were a couple in this book. I was glad to see they included that as part of their travel stories. But there were a few stories I didn't enjoy. It seemed a big portion of these were about small trips made by dying people or as part of a wish program for dying children. Yes, it is technically travel, but do they have to include stories that will make you cry in every one of these books? Just a light-hearted one in full once in awhile would be nice.

Because this involves travel, it talks about meeting people all over the world and what can be shared even if you don't speak the same language. There were stories where the people spent hours together even though they didn't understand each other. They didn't have to, because the feelings were there. And that's a beautiful thing. It seems that every traveling soul shares a common theme of wanting to meet different people. Because that's part of the whole traveling experience. And these stories showed that.

The short story format is a good one. You can read a story a night or sit down with the book for one read straight through. The enjoyment doesn't lessen either way. I do feel that this is one of their shorter collections though, which surprised me, because with the whole world as a topic, you wouldn't think there'd be a lack of stories. And surprisingly, this one had quite a few stories based on religion. Now I realize this is a Christian publication, but with the world having some many religions, I was surprised that these were so dominant in the book.

As said before though, I think this is one of the better Chicken Soup books. It inspires a love of travel and a want to see new things.

Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul
Copyright 2002
356 pages

Chicken Soup for the College Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Kimberly Kirberger and Dan Clark

Once, a long long time ago, I went to college.  And now I'm thinking about going back.  So it seemed fitting that I read this book.  Having somehow collected an unbelievable amount of Chicken Soup for the Soul books, I'm pretty convinced there is one for every subject, and this one just happens to be for the "College Soul".  Although I'm not sure what college these people went to, because their experiences sure weren't like mine.

The Chicken Soup for the Soul series deals in inspiring, heartwarming, and sometimes sad stories about human perseverance and kindness.  They are short stories, just enough to read a couple a night or sit down and read the whole book in one sitting because it does read fast.  This particular book is supposed to be about college, and there are a lot of college stories here detailing feeling overwhelmed at starting, dorm rooms, roommates, grades, and other such things you would associate.  There's the requisite story about drugs being bad and to avoid them on campus and stories of parents pride at seeing their kids go off to get their education.  And then there's just some random stories that have nothing to do with college at all, like the one of the mother explaining the meaning of sex to a little girl in a waiting room.  That one puzzled me.  But there were a few stories I liked, mainly the ones saying that if you try hard enough you can achieve anything, because I do believe that is true.

The majority of the stories in this particular edition of Chicken Soup are positive.  The people are mostly kind and want the best for each other or they impart valuable lessons to the reader and the protagonist.  But I couldn't really feel connected to any of them.  Sorority girls, class presidents, etc., they were all people that wouldn't even deign to talk to me during school let alone be something I had any reasonable hope of achieving.  And maybe that makes me a little bitter but I wish there had been more stories about the people who did what they could and got out of there straight into career.  More stories about people who went back after figuring out what life had in store for them.  Sure there were a few, but it just wasn't enough for me.

This is a Christian publication but religion didn't play much of a role in this one.  It mainly just focused on the different educational institutions and their students.  I do think it presented an unrealistic view of college.  A lot of times people are so busy working and the college classes are so big that close friends can't be made in the college classroom.  And roommates never seem to get along as well as they do in this book.  But I'm sure they were just trying to provide a positive outlook to a future college student so they wouldn't go screaming in terror at the thought of any negative aspects of their future.  It's meant to be sappy.  And I do wish they had stuck to just college stories.  There were a lot in here that I didn't understand why they were a part of the book, they just didn't fit.

Only an ok book.  I don't think it will prepare anyone for college, but for a few it may give them something to reminisce over.  And for another few, it may even be inspiring.

Chicken Soup for the College Soul
Copyright 1999
337 pages

Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jennifer Read Hawthorne and Marci Shimoff

I'm a woman, so this book applies to me right? Or at least that's what I thought. However, I think the authors of this book have a very narrow sight on what it means to be a woman. But more on that later. This book is one of the very many versions of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books out there. These books are known for their uplifting short stories that are meant to inspire, make you feel good, or just make you cry.

Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul takes stories about women and fills a number of places with them. The chapters range from being about Overcoming Obstacles, Motherhood, Marriage, Attitude, and Love. There are stories about mother's doing whatever they can for their children, to becoming a mom for the first time, to finding the love of your life and marrying him. Far and few between however, are stories about women who stay single and don't have children. There are a few, but barely any. The majority of the stories focus on motherhood and marriage. One of those few that was not however, was about a woman pilot, and that actually was an inspiring story. But then there was one of the first stories in the book, about a man who was inspired by his wife to take his mom out to dinner and other activities, but kept calling it dating his mother, which was kind of creepy (the story may have been innocent but continual references to dating your mother just doesn't sit right).

Since these are short stories we don't really get a sense of all the people. After all, you're seeing them through biased eyes without a lot of description. Everyone seems to be glowing. And mothers and married women are especially revered (are you sensing a theme here). But there are a lot of good people mentioned in these books. People who do good for other people. And there's even a few that are inspiring.

So obviously my main complaints with this book are its representation of women. I'm not saying that it's wrong to have a section on marriage or on motherhood, but I think equal status (and a devoted chapter) should be given to the single career-oriented and the non-mothers. They do a lot of good in the world too. And there's already plenty of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul books. It's almost like they're saying women who don't follow those choices in life aren't quite women. And that's heartbreaking. This is a Christian based publication, but this one didn't have too many stories that were preachy, which was nice. It was approachable in that way at least.

Not my favorite of the Chicken Soup books. Maybe I'm a little biased, but I just wish this book had been for ALL women.

Chicken Soup for the Women's Soul
Copyright 1996
328 pages

A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

Usually when you get into the third of anything, things start to wane a little bit. And that's true with this book. Although you don't have to read the Chicken Soup books in any particular order, this is considered the third book.

Chicken Soup for the Soul books are filled with stories that are meant to inspire and bring a tear or a smile to your day, depending on the section you are in. There are stories about coping with death, overcoming obstacles and a myriad of other themes that follow the same line of thinking. Some, like "Appointment with Love" are about relationships made over long distances and to never lose sight that it's what's on the inside that counts and not the outside. Others, like "The Flower In Her Hair" teach you not to judge someone without knowing the whole story.

Since these are short stories you aren't in with characters/people for the long haul. But there is a relatively diverse group of people that these stories are written about. Children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, you get the picture. And I can't say that any of them really had a story that resonated with me. There were none that I related to and thought, wow, their life is like mine. Sure they were all nice people (you wouldn't make it into one of these books if you weren't), but there was just something lackluster about this group.

Or maybe it was just the stories themselves that were lackluster. I'm used to them being nicey-nice. That's part of the appeal of this book. With all the violence and everything else out there this is one of those books where you just read and breathe. But aside from duplicating some of the stories in other editions of Chicken Soup (or rather they probably duplicated this one) there were also problems with the stories themselves in that they just weren't as interesting as the ones in the first book. There were a lot of religion-heavy stories in this one too, and although this is a Christian publication, they usually don't force feed it as much as they do in this one.

Just an average collection of stories. If you're a die-hard fan of the Chicken Soup books you may enjoy it, but at this stage in the game, it may just be better to branch out into the theme books of Chicken Soup.

A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1996
331 pages

Chicken Soup for the Country Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Ron Camacho

Don't let the guitar on the front fool you, this isn't a Chicken Soup for the Country "Music" Soul, this is a Chicken Soup for the Country Soul. So most of the stories are not from country singers, like you would expect.

In the tradition of Chicken Soup for the Soul Books, this book is filled with short stories that are meant to be inspiring and uplifting. From tales about getting to me country hero legends to stories about a mother doing what's best for her family, they are supposed to spread warmth and joy. And while the majority of the stories were ok in this book, there were none that I thought fantastic or that stuck with me. In fact, there was one that actually made me a little angry. The first story in the book, "Love Goes a Long Way" was a story about a man, who after an accident didn't have the will to live until some favorite country singers stopped by to visit him. Sounds sweet right? Well this man also had a wife and kids and apparently they were not enough to bring him back from the brink, it took the country singers to do it. And that just disgusted me a little bit that they weren't enough for him to live for. But anyways...

I have to say that even though I like country music, I didn't recognize a lot of the artists who were featured in this book. It seemed that most were older performers so if you're a modern country music person, this book probably isn't for you. But if you like the classic stuff, you'll probably get a lot of worth out of this book. And as I said before, it wasn't just country singers in this book. A lot of it was just tales of family life that they stretched into fitting the country model. Really, a lot of it was about loving your family and that fits all types of families, not just the country ones.

This is a religious publication. All of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books are. But it was especially noticed in this one. I don't know if it was because of the country theme (and the belief that they are among the most religious) but there was a lot of preaching going on in this book. I can't say that it made it less enjoyable for me, but it was something that was noticeable. There didn't seem to be as many stories in this book as there are some of the other editions either. It was definitely smaller in size than some of the others I have sitting on my shelf. And I just didn't feel drawn into the stories of this book. None made me cry, and there's usually at least one that does.

An ok book. Maybe a different audience than me would like it better. But I found this just an average Chicken Soup for the Soul book.

Chicken Soup for the Country Soul
Copyright 1998
236 pages

Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Marty Becker and Carol Kline

Ok, admittedly after awhile these all start to run together. I mean the collection of Chicken Soup books is just humongous. But I'm a sucker for anything involving animals, so I decided to delve into this particular collection of short stories.

If you're not familiar with the Chicken Soup series, they are a bunch of books, usually themed that contain lots of short stories that are meant to be uplifting and inspirational. This particular book, for the Cat & Dog Lover's soul, is about animals. But not just cats and dogs, in a little side note in mentions other critters too, although with the extensive amount of books I'm not sure why they just didn't make this one about cats and dogs; but I digress. Some of those stories will rip your heart out, because let's face it, a lot of these stories are about losing a special animal, while others are meant to be inspiring, like those animals that rescue humans from their burning houses. The Cat Who Needed A Night Light was one of these such stories, involving a guy and his heroic cat who saved his life.

There are a wide variety of animals in here, and some really aren't even that remarkable. The majority of the stories actually seemed to deal more with people's feelings about their pets than about the animals themselves. It was about emotions running high when pets were in danger or dying or when the person themself was losing a battle, be it physical or mental. I'm more of an animal lover than a people lover, so I would have to say that I wished the stories were a little more about the pets themselves.

And so many sad tales. I sometimes wonder if the Chicken Soup authors aren't in league with the sellers of tissues, as they seem to make you want to cry in every book. There's always someone or something dying and it gets a little depressing after awhile. A book full of happy stories would be just terrific. And yes I know I can skip the sad ones, but I find it hard not to read a book straight through so I always end up with a tissue in hand reading the rest of the books. And a lot of the stories are faith based, this is a Christian publication after all, but they are not in your face about it, so just about anyone can enjoy these tales. Since it's broken up into short stories you can read this in one sitting, or split it up into as many different reading times as there are stories.

An ok collection. All unique stories when compared with the other books in the series so you won't be rereading too much. And great for animal lovers, regardless of what kind of animal they're fond of.

Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul
Copyright 1999
408 pages

Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul

Well, I'm home sick and have been dosing myself with "Chicken Soup" all day.  And I have to say, it's probably the Powerade making me feel better, not the books.  Especially this one, which was downright depressing.

If you couldn't guess, this particular Chicken Soup book is about pets.  The feathered and the furred kind and even a little bit of the scaly.  While most of the stories seem to be about dogs, there's quite a bit of cats, a few horses, a couple stories about birds, and even one about a snake.  The stories are somewhat memorable, mainly because they seem to try to make you shed a tear.  There is so much sickness, death, and abuse in this book that I can't really call it heartwarming.  For every positive story there are three more where the animal dies or develops cancer or its owner has cancer.  The story of "Frisk" was one of those sad ones, in which a poor old man has a cat who keeps coming down with a mysterious illness.  "Soul to Soul" has a woman who has been abused most her life lose more than one to death in a short period of time.  And I could go on.

The stories are mainly about the animals, but also about how they effected their owners as well.  And it really is the owner's pain that you feel in this book rather than the animals.  They're almost a side note as to how the people dealt with the pain they were feeling.  But there was some joy too, as animals really do make people feel happier.  And I especially enjoyed the stories of the service animals who made visits to hospitals and nursing homes. 

All of these are short stories so the book can be a quick read.  It's especially good if you only like reading a few pages a day, but it can also be read in one sitting.  I do have one major complaint though, and that is that one of the stories in this book (about a horse) is also in one of the other chicken soup books.  As many stories that they get submitted for these things there is no excuse for a story to be recycled.  Ever.  But alas, this is not the only book that will do that.  I just think it's a shame that they don't try to make every work wholly original from the others. 

An ok book if you don't mind sad tales, but perhaps not what someone who enjoys uplifting tales would appreciate.  While all of the stories do show the compassion of animals, ultimately, this book is too heart-wrenching.

Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul
Copyright 1998
403 pages

Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

So a quick Wikipedia search showed that there are over 200 titles in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.  Don't worry, I'm not going to review them all, I don't think I could handle that.  But I am going to read and review all of the ones on my bookshelf already, so I can justify getting rid of them.  This book wasn't actually that bad, it had some decent stories in it.

Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul is about horses (and maybe a mule or two).  So obviously if you are not a horse lover, this probably isn't the book for you.  It's broken down into different sections, like "And....They're Off" which describes horse racing or "Horses as Healers" which shows the calming influences of horses.  All of the stories are short stories, no more than a few pages long.  I can't say there were really any stories that stood out for me or that I was particularly taken with.  They were all nice in that calming sort of way these books have, but nothing was outstanding.  And in the beginning at least, a lot of these stories involved the horse dying.  Which was a little disturbing to start a book out that way, especially considering it was supposed to be uplifting.

Since this book is more about horses than people, obviously the little quirks described are all the horses.  There are stories about difficult to train horses, horses that are so sweet they'll do anything, horses that are good with children, etc.  It kind of shows that horses have their own personalities aside from just being animals.  I've never really spent that much time around horses, so this part at least, was informative to me.  It also made me a little jealous though, no matter how much I wished for a horse as a child, I never got one, and I only got to go riding once or twice.  But I guess for a city girl, that's pretty good.  I have a feeling that people who were around horses more would find it easier to relate to this book.

The format of this book is a good one for reading in little doses.  Sure you can read the book in one sitting if you'd like, but if you're one of those people that prefers to take a few pages at a time, this book really lends itself to that.  The short story format is easy to read and there are a lot of stories in this book.  And a good variety of them too, although after awhile some start to sound the same. 

An ok book, good for those who love horses or short inspiring stories.  I can't say that I'd ever read this book again, but it was good for a first time read.

Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul
Copyright 2003
414 pages

A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen

So if you couldn't tell by the title, this is the 2nd book in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.  Not that you have to read them in order.  Since they're a collection of short stories, you can read whatever book in whatever order you prefer.  I do think starting at the beginning is always better though, because in the case of this series, it's when the work is more original and not repeated a thousand times over.

Chicken Soup for the Soul in its second helping is much like the first book in that it collects inspiring stories, fables, poems, etc. and groups it into different categories.  Those categories are "On Love", "On Parenting", "On Death and Dying", "A Matter of Attitude", "On Learning and Teaching", "Live Your Dream", "Overcoming Obstacles", and "Eclectic Wisdom".  Probably the story/poem that resonates with me the most is from the "Overcoming Obstacles" chapter and is titled "After A While".  It is just really moving and especially pertinent to my life in the last few years and I do get a lot of inspiration from it.  That being said, there are plenty of stories in here that I don't get so much from, especially the ones that are a little preachy on the religion aspect.

But that's to be expected.  This book is put out by a Christian printer and has Christian authors.  It's meant to be a religious.  I don't actually think overall that this book is too preachy, but there are a few stories in here that if you aren't religious, you'll probably just skim over.  And while there are mostly new and original stories in here, there was one that was almost the same as in the first book.  And so begins the saga of reusing stories in their books.  I do have to applaud them for having an extensive thank you and reference area.  It's nice to know that they give credit where it is due when they can.

One of the better books in the series but it still doesn't have the feel that first book did.  But if you like short, inspiring stories, this is a good book to read.

A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1995
329 pages

Chicken Soup for the Soul by Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield

So this is the original book. The one that started everything and spawned a series so large that most home libraries couldn't contain them all. Fortunately, since this is the first book it's not subject to a lot of the problems the others had. Although it does have it's cheesy moments, or maybe that's just me being older and more cynical than when I first encountered it.

The Chicken Soup for the soul books are compilations of stories, parables, verse, and other short writings that have a common theme of making you feel better about the world around you. Not all end happy but are meant to inspire. And this particular book has broken those different stories down into chapters titled, "On Love", "Learning to Love Yourself", "On Parenting", "On Learning", "Live Your Dream", "Overcoming Obstacles", and "Eclectic Wisdom". Sometimes the stories make sense in the chapters, like in the case of the parenting chapter containing a story "Why I chose my father to be my dad" which detailed the life of a dedicated parent. Others were not so obvious, like "Golden Buddha" in Learning to Love Yourself. Sure it was about finding that special something within, or they tried to tie it to that theme anyway, but it just didn't click with me in that chapter representation.

I'm not going to deny that some of the stories didn't bring tears to my eyes. They're meant to do that, just like those Budweiser commercials with the horses. They want to tug at your heartstrings. It's good advertising. And there were a lot of good stories in this book. At least half of them were positive, could make you cry, or had a good message. But then there were a lot of cheesy ones too. Or a lot that were quite obviously made up as opposed to being real life stories. A particular example of this would be the ones that mentioned a kind act preventing a suicide. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but the stories here involving that theme just didn't ring as true.

This book also has undertones of religion, particularly Christianity. Sure there was a story about a Buddha, but it didn't go into that religion, merely used it as a fable of sorts. While there's nothing overt about the religion in these books, it is a common theme that they all share and some are more blatant than others. It's pretty sure that you'll never see a "Chicken Soup for the Atheist's Soul" coming from these publishers. But that's ok. It's their business and they can publish what they want. It's the reader's choice if they want to pick it up or not. But this first book is one where the religion isn't blatant and any reader can sit down and enjoy a few good short stories.

Probably one of the best of the whole series, before it got too big for itself. Sometimes the original is the one you need to stick with.

Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1993
308 pages

Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul

Now that I'm newly single again and not enjoying it very much, I decided to give this a read to see if it could help. It had some nice stories, but unfortunately there weren't really any I could identify with. But hey, it passed the time and got my mind off things for awhile I guess.

Like most of the Chicken Soup books, this one has a bunch of stories separated into type. In this case its Single and Happy, Dating, Finding Your Mate, Making a Difference, Single Parenting, Single Again, Losing a Partner, We Are Not Alone, Friends and Family, and of course the lengthy stuff there always seems to be at the back. All the stories are meant to be inspirational and uplifting and there is a wide variety of people telling their experiences. Since this one is for the Single's Soul it of course has stories of divorce, raising the kids alone, losing a spouse, never having found your special someone, and other like themes.

Some of the types of stories to be found in this compilation are those of single parents struggling to make ends meet for their kids and the kindness from strangers that was given to them. Another story might talk of how a person adjusted after the death of their spouse. I think one of the stories that most resonated with me was the story of the woman who could only afford to live in a trailer park, yet still with her meager earnings managed to create a small library and bake bread for the even poorer families around her, mostly for their children. Her desire to do this eventually led her to her new career and a happy life. That was really inspiring to me. Another story that I particularly enjoyed was that of a single man constantly looking for the perfect woman, and finally finding acceptance with just being by himself. That was the type of story I really looked for in this book. But there were others I enjoyed for sure, those that talked of having the strength to leave and how they put their life back on track after they left the relationship, those that did find true love even after they thought they'd never have it again.

Despite all these wonderful stories, I found a few things that I didn't like as well. Mainly, the book didn't really have anything I could identify with. And there were more stories about moving on to find that new special someone than there was just about accepting the state of singleness. More appropriately this might have been called Chicken Soup for the Returning to Dating's Soul. There were even some stories in here from happily married people that didn't really have anything to do with being single.

To me, I consider the chicken soup series to be a form of Christian fiction, and as such there is a lot of religion incorporated into the story about praying, etc. They aren't all like that, but its a predominant theme. But since the stories are meant to be inspirational that can be expected. They are organized well and I'll admit that a few made tears come to my eyes, but I didn't have any full out crying in this one like I have with some of the others.

Its a good book, don't get me wrong. But it just didn't satisfy what I was looking for.

Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul
Copyright 1999
387 pages