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How do you enjoy life during challenging times?

Spoiler alert: I don't have the answer. But it's the question we posed to bestselling author and internationally renowned animal behaviorist Dr. Patricia McConnell when we asked her to write a personal essay for our new June issue (which is — magnificently — entirely pet-themed). She obliged, and the result is a moving meditation on that unsettling mixed bag of emotions so many of us carry these days: It can feel so wrong to feel good when there is so much bad happening all around us, and sometimes to us.

McConnell wrote the essay months ago, and since then we've experienced new, unimaginable horrors, including two more devastating mass shootings and ... well, there are no words. (And I personally feel it's long past the time for words without action — but that's an essay for another day.)

But McConnell's piece about how her dogs' live-in-the-moment joyfulness gave her permission to embrace the same at least gave me words for that push-pull feeling. It articulated why I sometimes struggle with the mandate to enjoy this one precious life while others are suffering, and that helped. It also helped to be surrounded by so many animals for our two photoshoots, and just generally being immersed in page after page of furry goodness for my actual job, can you believe — but even then, as we were putting the celebratory June issue together, I was losing my beloved rescue Labrador retriever mix, Sully, to cancer. Push-pull, push-pull, push-pull.

Joy and suffering are inextricably linked in the human experience. Trauma recovery and our relationship with animals is often intwined, too, as it is in McConnell's powerful memoir, "The Education of Will." That's one of the books I'm reading this month — and I'm curious what you're reading, too, so I've added a new section to this newsletter where I will share your answers so we can all add new titles to our teetering to-be-read stacks.

Until then, I leave you today where I often do, which is searching for comfort in the words of fellow travelers on this wild trip of life. It's something I've done since long before I ever read lines like, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Because it always is.

Associate Editor Maggie Ginsberg curates this monthly newsletter for Madison Magazine.
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Is there a book that's got your attention right now? I'd love to hear about it. Reply to this email or click the red button below and I will share your recommendations in next month's Sunday Reads newsletter.

To start us off, I polled a few co-workers.

  • "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" by Taylor Jenkins Reid has been an immersive Hollywood origin story that's doing an incredible job of setting the bar high for my summer reading list. –Editor Andrea Behling
  • “Lizzie & Dante” by Mary Bly is all about a Shakespeare professor who is traveling with her best friend and his famous boyfriend. They are staying at an Italian island for six weeks. It’s partially an escapist piece as the protagonist has cancer, so you see her struggle with it. But you also see her falling for an Italian chef, his dog and his daughter while she thinks about the life that she wants. It’s definitely the summer read I was looking for. –Associate Editor Maija Inveiss
  • "The Lincoln Highway" by Amor Towles was recommended to me by a friend. I started listening to the recording but switched to the hard copy to savor the elegant writing from several characters' points of view as they travel eastward in the 1950's hoping for a new start in my favorite city: New York. –Senior Marketing Designer Carol Shufro
Your turn! What are you reading right now?
Email Maggie your current reads
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Dr. Linda Sullivan wearing a blue sweatshirt sitting in front of yellow flowers with her dog on her lap
Only in print for now
For his Person of Interest column in the June issue, Doug Moe wrote a moving tribute to Dr. Linda Sullivan, a University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine professor emeritus who died in February. Sullivan helped found numerous charitable initiatives and taught an estimated 2,500 future veterinarians. In this poignant profile, Moe details the life and legacy of Sullivan through the words of her numerous colleagues and friends. "She was probably the most beloved faculty member in the School of Veterinary Medicine," said one.
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On the left is the cover of the June pet-themed issue of Madison Magazine with a smiling dog named Toggle and on the right is the opening spread of the cover story.
Coming to newsstands
We started planning the June pet-themed issue last year and the results have exceeded our wildest expectations. We counted more than 250 pets from cover to cover, starting with our Cutest Pets Photo Contest winner, Toggle — and we didn't stop there. It was a real struggle to choose from nearly 370 entries, so our Top 10 finalists got a photoshoot and dozens more got shout-outs. Beyond the contest, every page is dedicated to pets including a robust service package for all stages. This is essentially a love letter to our furry besties; don't miss it.
Find the Issue
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Favorites from past issues
There's a good chance that even if Belle Case La Follette hadn't become half of one of Wisconsin's most famous power couples, history would have learned her name anyway. For last month's May issue History Lesson, I learned about the first woman to graduate from the UW–Madison Law School who also became a journalist, editor, suffragette, activist, mother and grandmother.
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Don't miss these web-exclusive articles
People walk their dogs along a dirt path at Anderson Farm Dog Park in Oregon
From the web
This news came too late for inclusion in our June pet-themed issue, but Dane County has a new, 36-acre, off-leash dog park in Oregon, just south of Madison. Madison Magazine intern Lydia Slattery wrote about the grand opening celebration and the park itself, which includes a designated 2.5 acre section just for small dogs. There are also paved trails connecting the park to Main Street and nearby Arthor Sholts Memorial Woods.
Mark Weller's photograph Storm at Wilke Prairie Preserve
Doug Moe's Madison
On the "Doug Moe's Madison" blog this month, Moe writes about a return to live performances and a new album from Madison folk-rockers The Whiskey Farm; the artistic journey of Madison financial consultant Jay Handy; fine arts photographer Mark Weller's use of time-stacking in his work; and a wild ride with a late, former NFL star Lyle Alzado (a decades-old story Moe says has yet to be fully told).
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New book releases, author events and other local literary news
  • Judith Brenner's debut novel, "The Moments Between Dreams," follows a Polish-American family in post-World War II Chicago as they navigate the polio epidemic and the challenges of domestic abuse. Several scenes are set in Wisconsin.
  • Madison author Danielle St. Louis's first book is "A Dog Lover's Guide to Hiking Wisconsin's State Parks," out now from the University of Wisconsin Press. It divides Wisconsin into five regions and is packed with helpful guidance.
  • The Wisconsin Book Festival will host mega-bestselling author James Patterson at Overture Center for the Arts on June 15, where he will discuss his new memoir.
  • UW–Madison French professor Richard Goodkin's novel, Mourning Light, will be out from UW Press in July. The "semi-autobiographical love story" is set in Madison and Connecticut during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
  • Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Milwaukee author Ben Riggs will be out in July from St. Martin's Press. It focuses on D&D founding company TSR's beginnings in Lake Geneva.
  • This month in Isthmus, Jason Joyce reviewed Doug Moe's latest book, The Right Thing To Do: Kit Saunders-Nordeen and the Rise of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Wisconsin and Beyond.
  • Madison365's Rob Chappell reports on a new children's book, "My Imagined World," inspired by the life and work of Prince and illustrated by Madison's Annik Dupaty.
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Meet a Wisconsin author
On the left is midwife and poet Ingrid Andersson and on the right is the cover of her debut collection Jordemoder: Poems of a Midwife
Q&A with Ingrid Andersson, author of 'Jordemoder'
"Poetry is a liquid, and a poem is a vessel." That quote by essayist Elisa Gabbert aptly distills what poet Ingrid Andersson believes is the life force connecting us all, an undercurrent she witnesses daily both through the act of writing and in her work as a certified nurse midwife. It's this latter role that may be more familiar to local readers. "I attend births at home and have caught over 1000 babies in the Madison area," Andersson says. But clients and others may not realize she is also an accomplished poet, twice-nominated for a Pushcart Prize and winner of an Eastern Iowa Review's Editor's Choice Award. Her writing has appeared in numerous articles and poetry and medical journals, but "Jordemoder: Poems of a Midwife" is her first published book. "Jordemoder," the Swedish word for "midwife," was released in April by award-winning Minnesota-based publisher Holy Cow! Press.
Read the Q&A

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