The world of the West has been from the beginning a man's world, but there are homes and wives and children there, too. And although the time of water hauled in barrels and of homemade candles is long past, the ranch wife of today must be prepared to deal with housekeeping, shopping, and personal problems in wholly original ways as the need arises. For ranches are usually far from town and neighbors are scattered, so that good humor and a good sense of humor, as well as the more conventional virtues of courage and fortitude, must be possessed by the ranch woman.For more than eighteen months Alice Marriott traveled the cattle country from Wyoming to Florida-visiting, observing, and talking with the women on the ranches and with their men. This book is the story of these women, who share with their men-folks the problems and pleasures of ranch life. It's about the city girl transformed into ranch wife, about the women who were born on ranches, and about their families and the cattle they raise. She reports on the modern roundups, the cattle sales, the courage of both men and women in the face of a howling blizzard, and the tragedy of a cow with a broken leg. Here they are-the real people of the cattle country and the real things that happen to them in a society in which the man's work is sharply distinguished from the woman's. And, concludes Miss Marriott, ranch life ""can be hard and tough and truly hell for the women who live it, but it can also come about as close to Heaven as any life a woman can live today."" This is a book for Western enthusiasts, for women everywhere, and for just good reading.

Thousands of people are keeping chickens as pets for the first time. There are plenty of books that will show you how. Doing Bird tells you what it's like, charting the highs and lows in the year of an amateur hen keeper and his flock. Split into months and seasons, Doing Bird is an extension of Gurdon's highly successful Sunday Telegraph 'Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance' column, and brings out the characters and idiosyncrasies of the birds themselves. Highlights include Bombay the Indian runner duck's unrequited and very non-platonic love for Bella the chicken. Sven the rheumatic, pensioner cockerel's last stand against a marauding fox, and his son Svenson's sometimes awkward transition from teenaged pretender to putative Alpha male with a dodgy aim. We see the power play between flock old stagers Peeping Chicken, Anne Summers, Brahms, Meringue, Bella and Nude to new arrivals Squawks 1 and 2 and the pair of birds initially known as 'the other two,' until one of them tries savaging the author's hand and is re-christened Slasher -leaving her colleague with the sobriquet of 'Too'.