I completed this book on a flight from LA to NY on 10/11/2000. This was my first reading experience by Jean Rhys. I learned that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis included Jean Rhys on her roster of favorite authors. That's why I bought the book. I was curious to learn what 'tickled her fancy'. At first...the book was 3 stars...but after a day or two had passed I realized that the book had quite an impact on me. I had just finished an A+ book (The Notorious Dr. August)...so, maybe that's why I didn't give this 5 stars. It explores loneliness, living on the edge, dealing with death, depression, the cheeriness of childhood, and the search for love. So, you can imagine why Jacqueline Kennedy loved this author. I felt the main character, Julia, was easily identifiable by Jackie. Mr MacKenzie was her Onassis and Mr. Horsfield was her own Mr. Tempelsman in many ways. Although, I saw Julia as a sort of prostitute "in cognito" style. I did gasp when I read 'She's gone'. 'Gone'. That was the word. It struck me because my own sister-in-law called me with those exact words when my mother passed away. And when she wrote 'Nothing matters. Nothing can be worse than how I feel now, nothing.' I gasped again because in my eulogy to my mother I started it with those two words "Nothing matters"...as that was how I felt initially. Therefore, if you know anyone dealing with grief this book should help during some trying moments. Overall, the book leaves you slightly depressed at the end. It went full circle. There were some extraordinarily good lines in this book. One favorite: Every day is a new day. Every day you are a new person.

After Leaving Mr. MacKenzie (1930) repeats the effective Jean Rhys formula: a broken woman of uncertain age, shattered by hypersensitivity, alcoholism, emotional abuse, vague mental illness, and other 'pathological cruelties of everyday life,' bravely attempts to face another day, suffering self-hatred and self-recrimination with each step of the way. The novel begins with anti-heroine Julia Martin in the last stages of a romantic affair with pompous, thick - skinned blowhard Mr. MacKenzie. MacKenzie has provided Julia with financial support since the termination of their dalliance, but now declines to continue to do so. Financially and emotionally destitute, Julia leaves Paris and returns to London, where, "hoping to rest," she unexpectedly discovers her extended family gathered around their dying mother.

Like Jean Genet, Rhys wrote a series of novels about permanent social outsiders and outcasts, and, like Genet, Rhys had only one dark if very human vision to express. Other novelists such as Erskine Caldwell and Muriel Spark similarly wrote novels of extremely narrow focus (Caldwell's Tobacco Road, Spark's Not To Disturb and The Driver's Seat), but were also capable of more varied, optimistic, and expansive works. The antiheroes in Genet's novels find a means of empowering and centering themselves through narcissism, violence, dominance, sexual expression, or mysticism; but Rhys' nonplussed female protagonists are perpetually at square one, never the better for their defeated plans or self-sabotaged efforts. Sadly, Julia finds relief only in brief moments of spontaneous rage or cruelty.

Rhys had an acute talent for portraying women in and under such conditions, but it's undeniable that Rhys' vision of harrowing experience, rote abandonment, and human indifference was projected outward onto every facet of her fictional landscapes. The curtains and wallpaper are always faded, the rented rooms shabby, the maids surly, the proprietresses petty and suspicious, the food tasteless, the milk rancid, relatives disdainful. In fact, Rhys created an entire universe of human desolation in each of her five novels, one from which none of the characters, young or old, male or female, wealthy or without means, are exempted; some merely play the game better and have more resources. One of the most satisfying elements in After Leaving Mr. MacKenzie is Rhys' brutal, very focused examination of those sides of human nature which Western societies prefer to privately deny and publicly avoid.

All of Rhys' anti-heroines are socially disenfranchised, emotionally wounded, needy, gullible, and financially insecure; but they are simultaneously often ill tempered, manipulative, callous, arrogant, amoral, and almost entirely self - absorbed. Julia Martin is Rhys' most hard-bitten protagonist, having none of the wisdom or humor that Sasha Jansen has in fourth novel Good Morning, Midnight, nor the innocence of Rhys' early ingénues. Somnolent and easily wounded Julia is acutely sensitive but only occasionally empathetic to the reality of others, unless, in the moment, she sees herself reflected within them. Julia is also a listless parasite and psychic vampire who lives off the emotions, energy, and money of the men with whom she has casual affairs; except for brief periods of work and a failed marriage, this is how she has provided for herself as an adult. In one grim but revelatory scene, the willful Julia indifferently tells the man she is about to lose that she can get another meal ticket any time she wishes, as she always has in the past. Is she speaking out of defensiveness, or simply telling the truth about her power and experience? For Julia, moments of happiness, enthusiasm, or pleasure are fleeting and as far away as the stars.

Readers may wonder exactly what is wrong with Julia; the answer is: almost everything. Self - hatred and clinical depression primarily, but Julia is also anxious, passive-aggressive, lonely, financially destitute, lazy, narcissistic, morbidly introverted, co - dependent, anemic, and probably suffering from borderline personality disorder. Julia 'can't be alone and can't be too close.' She is also aware and proud of her outsider status; confronting decent younger sister Norah, Julia smugly considers herself the better of the two, the one who has brazenly spit in the face of social convention and middle class morality. Sociopathically, Julia never considers that her rebellion has brought about the almost nihilistic sense of failure and low self - esteem from which she painfully suffers. Rhys, while never less than convincing, hangs so many internal and external albatrosses around Julia's neck that her unhappy existence seems almost fatally determined. Today, Julia would be receiving a maintenance course of serotonin inhibitors.

Feminists took up the Rhys cudgel early; indeed, superficially, Rhys' novels and short stories seem tailor made for the feminist cause. But Rhys' novels are no more primarily about the plight of women than Genet's were about the plight of criminal homosexual men. Rhys cast a wide net in conceiving her fictional worlds; her truths are universal truths that, for better or worse, apply to all. Readers will certainly recognize a kernel of themselves in Rhys' ambivalent, envious, bitter, forlorn, and greedy cast.

After Leaving Mr. MacKenzie ends with Julia enjoying a second Pernod in a Parisian café as twilight falls, a time of day Rhys refers to as "the hour between dog and wolf." Since Julia's life can be said to exist only between these two polarities - between the potentially threatening and the actively harmful - the metaphor is apt. Julia, both a continuous victim and a manipulator, if not an outright abuser, herself, is a creature by nature between dog and wolf. Highly recommended to those who enjoy gripping psychological fiction.

Rhys is best-known for "Wide Sargasso Sea," which is a wonderful book but the least important of her novels. I recommend picking up all four of Rhys' early novels but this is my personal favorite. Rhys is a brilliant writer who can say more in a sentence than many authors can say in a chapter--and she makes you feel more in a word than many authors achieve in a novel.

Lots of good anecdotal advise, even humourous at times. The chapter on goat health problems, poisons, and antidotes has proven useful, and is well organized. Genetic discussion on link between hornless goats and sexual malformity is thorough and necessary.

However, the book is written for a British reader, and lots of the medicines, practices, and even forage crop names, are different in the US. (e.g. lucerne = alfalfa) Delves heavily into dairy goats and dairy farming, but meat goat farming (Boers, Kikos, etc.) is only cursorily mentioned. The section(s) on nutrition is excessive for the average goat farmer, and the copious information about UK regulations is useless to the US reader.

This is a reference for a serious goat owner. It is not one I'd recommend for someone just getting into goats. But if you're really serious about your caprines, this book is a must-have.

The topics covered include: Control and Housing of Goats; Principles and Practice of Feeding; Selection of Breeding Stock; Breeding Problems; Disease and Accident; Milking and Dairy Produce; Meat, Leather, and Fleece; Goat Farming Systems; Crops for Goats; Goats for Export; Harness Goats; and more.

There is a thorough index, a bibliography, and several appendixes. The info is presented in a rather dry manner, but is very useful. There are lots of great diagrams, charts, and pictures. It's just a ton of good information. The only major fault I can find is that being published in Great Britain, it does use some terminology unfamiliar to most Americans, and doesn't deal with the US at all. But that's ok, we have enough other books which cover those topics.

Bottom line, if you're looking for a really good, technical reference book on goats of all types, this is an important one to add to your library.

This is a highly technical treatise oriented especially for Brits. Don't let that scare you though - it is a terrific book worthy of shelf space on any serious goatkeeper's library.

I have not found a better source within one book for dairy goat information.

You'll find a lot of useful information if you're wishing to learn about dairy goat farming. If, however, you also want to learn about meat goat production, buy Raising Meat Goats For Profit by Gail Bowman.