On May 5th, my 25th book, Talking To Animals: How We Can Understand Them And They Can Understand Us will be published by Simon and Schuster. It is an honest account of a lifetime spent living with animals and learning how to communicate with them.

I share my experiences exploring and learning about body language, food, visualizations and emotions, our primary tools of communication.

One of the new and lovely traditions of my life is having Marilyn Brooks, a friend and the daughter of the Battenkill Bookshop owner, read a galley and then sit down for a video talking about how she felt about the book. Marilyn has a large following  after just a few years of doing these videos, she is just somebody you trust.

And Marilyn knows and loves books. If you pre-order my book through the Battenkill Bookstore, I will sign and personalize it and you will receive a free custom-designed tote-bag with a dog  on the cover and an inscription that reads “sit.down.read.” There are 400 left.

The tote-bags are pretty classy, the first reviews are pretty good. I’m shooting to get past the 1,000 books mark at Battenkill before the weather turns hot.

You can also pre-order the book by calling the bookstore at 518 677-2515. And thanks for thinking about it, here’s a chance to support a great independent bookstore, promote my work, and read a book that hopes to spark a new and wiser understanding of animals. A least, that is my hope and plan.

I believe the book offers a pathway to keeping our domesticated animals like carriage horses healthy and in the world, rather than shipping them off to “mythical” preserves and idyllic preserves where they will spend the rest of their lives eating hay and dropping manure. You can pre-order the book here.

Come along and see what Marilyn Brooks (she is my friend) thinks about the book.http://www.battenkillbooks.com/talking-animals-jon-katz-hardcover-autographed