Living Your Dream is a book with something most unusual: a combination of practical information about a delightful animal (the Icelandic horse)with storytelling sequences as inventive as any myth or legend. The reader who both practices animal husbandry and enjoys a touch of the magical (we are not all that rare, by the way) will enjoy double-dipping. The many illustrations make it clear how well-adapted these horses are biologically as well as how inspirational they must be upon acquaintance.
Living Your Dream is written in a consummately modern spirit. In the age of hypertext (the kind of point-and-click-on-what-you-want-to-see-now programming upon which the WWW is based), this book fits right in. The reader can segue between realistic stories of actual horse treks or ranching and story sequences highlighting the spiritual aspects of the Horse archetype in creation mythology. Or, the reader can sample a bit of each but mainly go crazy over all the photographs. Or read the creation story straight through, and then the narrative about the modern-day Icelandic Horse. Etc. In other words, this is a book laid out so you can custom read it, a book in which people/families with different or overlapping interests and reading styles can easily find something to share.
The attribution of authorship to one of these remarkable horses, Gletta, may be viewed in a number of ways. This reviewer is simply impressed by the nature of the bond that is possible between the Icelandic horse and the human, as experienced and chronicled by Gletta and Elisabeth Haug. Living Your Dream is truly an uplifting book. We need more uplifting books at this point in human history. Well done, Gletta and Elisabeth. -- Meredith J. Merritt, MLS
