Like many of our fellow readers, we were heartbroken to hear about Trixie Koontz’s death in 2007. That’s why—since we hadn’t heard about Christmas Is Good!: Trixie Treats & Holiday Wisdom (written by Trixie Koontz and edited by Dean Koontz)—until recently, we were surprised to see a book bearing her adorable face at our local bookstore.

While Christmas Is Good! was published two years before her untimely death, Trixie’s good nature lives on in its pages. What makes the book even more wonderful is that all of the proceeds go to Canine Companions for Independence (CCI)—a charitable organization that provides service dogs for people with disabilities—and where Trixie herself was adopted from after she retired from being a service dog at the age of three.

After everything that the world has heard about Trixie, Christmas Is Good! seems to be the perfect testament to Trixie’s life. (We are going to take this opportunity to say we love the fact that Koontz has, and still does, make Trixie such a part of his writing.)

A small excerpt from Koontz’s website reads “[Trixie] taught Dean to trust his instincts, persuaded him to cut down to a fifty-hour work week, and, perhaps most importantly, renewed in him a sense of wonder that will remain with him for the rest of his life.” Christmas Is Good! absolutely captures the sense of wonder of a world seen through Trixie’s eyes. As Trixie says in the book: “[s]ometimes people seems forget wonder of Christmas. Dog like me could help people see wonder again.” Read the full story

The book F U, Penguin: Telling Animals What’s What by Matthew Gasteier is one book that you definitely don’t want to get your grandmother for Christmas.

Filled with cute animals and offensive language, Gasteier has somehow managed to merge matter and anti-matter; he has taken nature’s most innately cute phenomenons and paired them with language that would make even the most ruthless sailor blush.

Captioning animal pictures with three words of profanity (on average), Gasteier half-describes and half rants about each animal included in the book. (Imagine Wikipedia with drunken and profanity-laden entries.)

But there is a reason behind Gasteier’s seemingly random need to pick on nature’s cutest and furriest. As he describes in one of the bear entries, “[g]et off the hammock and go eat something with blood in it [bear] so I can think about the dichotomy between your cuteness and your insatiable thirst for flesh.”

Gasteier, like many of us, is simply trying to find the answer to an age-old question: How can cute animals be so ruthless? While Gasteier doesn’t arrive at a definitive answer, walking through the journey of F U, Penguin certainly is fun.

This is the perfect book for animal lovers with a sense of humor, but definitely not a book for people who are easily offended.

You can visit Amazon to read more about F U, Penguin, or you can view some page excerpts (the few without profanity) below. Read the full story