A welcome addition to the Sidney Harris cartoon collection

Dogs are perhaps our most popular pets, and certainly one of the best-loved of all animals. They are not only humanity’s best friend, they are also its oldest: burial sites dating back 12,000 years indicate that dogs moved alongside prehistoric peoples before, during and after both species settled the world. The story of the canine has been fundamentally entwined with that of humanity since the earliest times, and this ancient and fascinating story is told in Susan McHugh’s Dog. This book unravels the debate about whether dogs are descended from wolves, and moves on to deal with canines in mythology, religion and health, dog cults in ancient and medieval civilizations as disparate as Alaska, Greece, Peru and Persia, and traces correspondences between the histories of dogs in the Far East, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Dog also examines the relatively recent phenomenon of dog breeding and the invention of species, as well as the canine’s role in science fact and fiction; from Laika, the first astronaut, and Pavlov’s famous conditioned dogs, through to science fiction novels and cult films such as A Boy and his Dog. Susan McHugh shows how dogs today contribute to human lives in a huge number of ways, not only as pets and guide dogs but also as sources of food in Asia, entertainment workers, and scientific and religious objects. Dog reveals how we have shaped these animals over the millennia, and in turn, how dogs have shaped us.

In this unexpectedly refreshing look at today's most inconvenient truths, acclaimed cartoonist Sidney Harris looks at global warming, with a little help from his friends. Featuring never-before-seen work from artists like long-time New Yorker contributors Matt Diffee, Sam Gross, and Lee Lorenz, among others, 101 Funny Things About Global Warming makes light of hot-button environmental issues, like unreliable hybrid cars, pie-in-the-sky alternative energy sources, and the existential crisis of our own biodegradable nature. Provocative, timely, and endlessly funny, 101 Funny Things About Global Warming fits into the growing trend of ecocentric public events and media coverage by pointing out in black and white how far we've come-and how far we still have to go-in improving the state of the world. "Great comedy can make you laugh and open your mind at the same time, and 101 Funny Things About Global Warming succeeds at both."-Global Warming Activist and Producer Laurie David Praise for Sidney Harris: "The humor in science that is most widely laughed at comes from nonscientists, like the cartoonist, Sidney Harris."-New York Times Book Review "Harris is a treasure."-American Scientist "What's so funny about science? Sidney Harris, that's what."-Isaac Asimov

"Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction" carefully deconstructs five examples of pseudoscience--UFOs, out-of-body experiences, astrology, creationism, and ESP-- and gives easy recipes to test other dubious notions so that the reader can ascertain what lies in the realm of real science and what more properly deserves the tag of pseudoscience.