"A fun display of satire and farm animal insights."--Midwest Book Review
"Life with Pigs features pencil-and-ink drawings of the porkers looking proud, sad, angry, contented and aloof, and tales of life around them, like the odious job of cleaning the hog house."
--The Globe Gazette North Iowa
"One way or another, we're going to discover Artley has recaptured in the book a personal memory from some special moment in our lives."--The N'West Iowa Review
"For those of us who have raised pigs, it will bring back memories good/bad of days now gone. Current hog farmers will learn how raising pigs/hogs has changed since the early 20th century."
--(Woodbury, TN) Cannon Courier
Winston Churchill once said: "I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down. Pigs treat us as equals." This may be one reason for many people's fascination with pigs, but a more likely reason might be the long history of nearness to them. In America, less than a century ago, there were family farms where people raised, among other things, livestock for market and for the family's consumption. Nearly all of these family farms raised a litter or two of pigs. When pigs live near, they are always in the imagination. Natural escape artists, smart and quick-witted, full of personality, pigs invite comparisons to humans.
Life with pigs is unlike life with other farm animals. Their size and intelligence make them challenging to raise, while their lack of concern for their surroundings (other than shade or perhaps some nice mud to wallow in) makes them easier to care for than other farm animals. Bob Artley once again applies his finely honed memories of life on the farm to these porcine creatures, with a work that is at once informative, nostalgic, and beautiful.
