Reheated Lio: A Delicious LIO Collection Ready to Devour

In Random Acts of Management, cartoonist Scott Adams offers sardonic glimpses once again into the lunatic office life of Dilbert, Dogbert, Wally, and others, as they work in an all-too-believably ludicrous setting filled with incompetent management, incomprehensible project acronyms, and minuscule raises. Everyone, it seems, identifies with Dilbert, who struggles to navigate the constant tribulations of absurd company policies and idiot management strategies.

"Confined to their cubicles in a company run by idiot bosses, Dilbert and his white-collar colleagues make the dronelike world of Kafka seem congenial." Parasitic consultants, weaselly stockbrokers, masochistic coworkers and the ever-present, evil-plotting pointy-haired boss? Welcome to the seventh circle of hell, er, the 22nd collection of Scott Adams' stupendously popular comic strip, Dilbert!

Words You Don't Want to Hear During Your Annual Performance Review updates loyal readers on the mind-numbing careers of Dilbert, Wally, Alice, the PHB himself, and an ever-expanding cast of walk-on "guest stars." In this installment, a cash-sucking "consultick" burrows under the boss's skin, a not-so-grim reaper pops anti-depressants, and a lab accident turns Dilbert into a sheep-a transformation which goes barely noticed by his beleaguered coworkers. All the while, Adams takes his patented over-the-top but right-on-the-money jabs at the inanity of the corporate world.

Cubicle-dwelling business people the world over have been knowingly nodding, faithfully push-pinning their favorite strips to their cube walls, and--most of all--belly laughing out loud ever since Dilbert first arrived on the scene. In this collection, Excuse Me While I Wag, Dilbert and his look-alike dog, Dogbert, once again provide comic relief to anyone who has ever had to inhabit a cubicle, endure an initiative of the week, or simply work in an office that has, on occasion, caused them to pull out large clumps of their hair. Scott Adams' dead-on humor in Excuse Me While I Wag is sure to satisfy the hordes of fans worldwide who avidly follow the misadventures of Dilbert, Dogbert, Catbert, Ratbert, the pointy-haired boss, and the rest of the cast of characters in Dilbert's world--a world that's eerily like the one we work in daily.

So begins Born to Bark, the charming new memoir by psychologist and beloved dog expert Stan Coren of his relationship with an irrepressible gray Cairn terrier named Flint. Stan immediately loved the pup for his friendly nature and indefatigable spirit, though his wife soon found the dog’s unpredictable exuberance difficult to deal with, to say the least.

Even though Flint drove Stan’s wife up the wall, he became the joy of Stan’s life. The key to unlocking this psychologist-author’s way of looking at dog behavior, Flint also became the inspiration behind Coren’s classic, The Intelligence of Dogs. Undeterred by Flint’s irrepressible behavior (and by the breeder’s warning that he might be untrainable), Coren set out to prove that his furry companion could pass muster with the best of them. He persevered in training the unruly dog and even ventured into the competitive circles of obedience trials in dog shows, where Flint eventually made canine history as the highest-scoring Cairn terrier in obedience competition up to that time. (Stan chose not to tell his wife that the highest-ranking obedience dog of that year, a border collie, earned a total score that was fifty times higher.)

Twenty-three-year-old Bill Putney enlisted in the Marines in 1943 in search of military glory. Instead, Putney, a licensed veterinarian, was relegated to the Dog Corps.

Putney became the Commanding Officer of the 3rd War Dog Platoon, and later the chief veterinarian and C.O. of the War Dog Training School at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. At Lejeune Putney helped train America's dogs for war in the Pacific. He later led them into combat in the invasion of Guam in 1944, the first liberation of American soil in World War II.

Always Faithful is the story of the dogs that fought in Guam and across the islands of the Pacific, a celebration of the four-legged soldiers that Putney both commanded and followed. It is a tale of immense courage, but also of incredible sacrifice.

On Guam, as on islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Japanese were infamously tenacious, refusing to surrender as long as there was a hole left to crawl into. Rooting out the enemy was an awful, painstaking job. To this task, Putney's dogs were well suited. Used for scouting, attack, carrying messages, detecting mines, and also as guards, the war dogs were so well trained that they could locate nonmetallic mines that had been buried for months deep underground; their hearing was so precise they could detect enemy trip wires by listening to them "sing" in the breeze.

Their record in action was perfect. More than 550 patrols on the island of Guam were led by dogs; not one patrol was ambushed. But for this success, the dogs, always out in front, paid a terrible price. Although Putney worked feverishly as veterinarian and C.O. to keep the dogs alive, many were lost.

After the war, Putney returned home only to discover that the dogs he had served with were being put to sleep. These dogs were ex-household pets, recruited from civilians with the promise that they would someday be returned. Outraged, Putney fought for the dogs' right to go home. He won, and headed the overwhelmingly successful program to "detrain" the dogs so they could return to their families. Alas, quickly learned, the lesson was quickly forgotten. The dogs of Korea and Vietnam did not come home. Then, in the final days of his administration, President Clinton signed into law a bill that allows military handlers to bring home the dogs with which they work. Once again, Putney was at the front of the charge.