Lesley can I just take this opportunity to say what an absolutely excellent book you have written!!!
I am ashamed to say that this is the first of your books i have read (I know, what took me so long?) but the good news is I started reading it on Monday morning and finished it on Tuesday night- I couldn't put it down, despite the fact I was doing a talk for the BHS on Monday night and had to prepare it!! It is the first horse book I have read in a long time that I have enjoyed that much- I think others that I have felt the same about are Ben Hart's e-books and Sylvia Loch's 'The Classical Rider'.
What an excellent job you have done, and my only real criticism is there where some parts I would have liked to see you expand further!! And possibly a few bits on dealing with behaviour problems and certain methods of horsemanship that I didn't totally agree with- but we are all different, so that is understandable!
I will be putting it on my workshop reading list. I now can't wait to read 'Realise your horse's potential' which I have also just purchased.
Well done, and thank you for writing such a good book, perfect for inspiring horse owners to get thinking!
Helen
THanks Francis will try and get hold of it!
You asked me about books I would reccommend, and I have got hung up on it because there are always small bits of books that i would love to see expanded on/ changed slightly according to what I believe in, but that is my personal preference and not necessarily what is right, just what I believe in! So there will never be a definitive reading list from me. But Lesley's book comes pretty damn close. I think I will lower the criteria slightly- I'll let you know what else I would add to it as soon as I can!
Wow, Helen – thanks for the glowing recommendation! It means so much to me coming from someone such as yourself…don't suppose you could put a short review on Amazon? I hope you enjoy 'Realize Your Horse's True Potential' too. )And thank you Francis, for your kind comments about ‘Inside Your Horse’s Mind’. That’s actually out of print now but even though J A Allen have only an archive copy, there do still seem to be copies available via Amazon & other online sources. It’s 8 years now since I wrote that and if I were writing it now there’s a lot I would change – some parts of it seem just too simplistic and could do with rather more rigour. I know a lot more now about certain things than I did then! I wish I’d had the same kind of latitude re the extent of ‘Let Horses Be Horses’ as I was given with ‘Inside Your Horse’s Mind’ but the later book was written after J A Allen became part of Robert Hale and old Mr Allen’s view that a book should be as long as it needs to be went out of the window. As you rightly point out, Helen, there were some topics that really needed further expansion but as I’ve said before in another thread, in commercial publishing you are given a maximum wordage and if you exceed that by too much you have to cut it. It’s an aspect of writing that I find eternally frustrating, because you can only ever cover the surface of a subject unless you make the book very specialised indeed – and publishers don’t seem to like that either. I’m thinking of going down the lines of publishing e-books on the internet – anyone got any thoughts about this?
I like the idea of you publishing ebooks that are more specialised if that's going to be the best way to get that kind of information out. I understand what you mean about not being able to go into as much detail as you'd like. To me there are two kinds of book that I like regarding horse behaviour and training: ones that are accurate, concise and engaging that i can recommend as introductory texts to horse owners, and the other kind that go into more detail, provoke more thought and have objective discussions within them so that I'm challenged by them - that way i'm happy that I've got my monies worth (am Scottish and skint - which is not great for my blood pressure!)
I haven't read any of your books - but don't take that personally, I haven't read many peoples books at all recently and I do intend to rectify this at some point. Perhaps more talking books so that I can listen to them inthe car that I seem to spend my life in?
Like Jenni, I like to see good introductory books that I can recommend to people. But I also want to see books written truly from the point of view of the author and not some compromise imposed by the editor. I want to be challenged and come away feeling I've learnt something - and generally need to go for psychotherapy and related type subjects in order to get that fix. Would love it if I could get it through horsey literature instead and I'm more than happy to buy e-books (in .pdf format so compatible with my non-Windows computer, pleeeeeease!!!) if that's what it takes.
This message has been edited by Brocksopp on Dec 15, 2006 2:12 PM
Lesley I am flattered that you think a reccommendation from me is special, I can promise you that I am just a humble horse owner who is trying to learn more and more! Ok so I did the PhD etc, but I know I am only at the start of my career, 4 years in practise giving advice on horse behaviour does not an expert make, just simply someone who is a little less of an inexpert!! (I hope!).
Jenni- audio books for cars, what an excellent idea! Finding time to keep on top of reading has been my problem lately too, that and the fact that the whole way through my research I had to read so many papers and technical books that after it I got a bit of an aversion to reading anything that wasn't a novel! Lesley I am happy to say I think you have cured me of it. A friend has just lent me Alois Podhajsky's 'My horses my teachers' which I have always wanted to read (I have the complete training and got so much out of it). I started it as soon as I finished yours and am really really enjoying it. Thank goodness for business quietening down for the christmas season and the cold winter nights, I am getting the chance to enjoy these books! Soon be time to write my own...!
Catherine I agree e books in pdf format would be great. I have a client/ friend who's husband is an academic and has published very specialist books this way, must pick his brains about it. And of course Ben has done this too. Ben's books really are excellent, I reccommend them at all my workshops.
Helen
Hi Lesley, I too enjoyed the book but for me (with my often excruciating attention to detail ) I felt a photo on page 129 did you no justice. It is tiny and perhaps I should not mention it as it does not detract from a comprehensive piece of work, I just found it disappointing. It states the round pen can provide a safe environment to work (which I agree it can) but it has a panel sticking out in close proximity to the horse.
Having looked at the photo again I can see your point - there is a nasty little angle there behind the panel in question that does rather negate my point about safety! Just shows how you can get so close to a book and its illustrations that things like this - in retrospect glaringly obvious - get overlooked! I'm not at all offended by you pointing this out - people who write books on serious subjects should expect to have their work held up to the microscope, and not sulk if people point out flaws! (I think some of us will remember an incident last year when another author did take the huff...I know I won't forget it in a hurry!) Actually I'm surprised my editor, Martin Diggle, didn't spot that (perhaps he didn't look at the photos in as much detail as the text) because he's got an eagle eye - in fact he's the kind of editor all non-fiction authors could do with - wish there were more like him!
