Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Aug 1997, 310 pages
Paperback:
Dec 1998, 255 pages
Monty Roberts is a real-life horse whisperer - an American original whose gentle training methods reveal the depth of communication possible between man and animal.
Monty Roberts is a real-life horse whisperer--an American original whose gentle training methods reveal the depth of communication possible between man and animal. He can take a wild, high-strung horse who has never before been handled and persuade that horse to accept a bridle, saddle, and rider in thirty minutes. His powers may seem like magic, but his amazing "horse sense" is based on a lifetime of experience. Roberts started riding at the age of two, and at the age of thirteen he went alone into the high deserts of Nevada to study mustangs in the wild. What he learned there changed his life forever.
Monty Roberts has spent his whole life working with horses--schooling them, listening to them, and learning their ancient equine language. In The Man Who Listens to Horses, he tells about his early days as a rodeo rider in California, his problems with his violent horse-trainer father, who was unwilling to accept Monty's unconventional training methods, his friendship with James Dean, his struggle to be accepted in the professional horse-training community, and the invitation that changed his life--to demonstrate his method of "join-up" to the Queen of England.
From his groundbreaking work with horses, Roberts has acquired an unprecedented understanding of nonverbal communication, an understanding that applies to human relationships as well. He has shown that between parent and child, employee and employer (he's worked with over 250 corporations, including General Motors, IBM, Disney, and Merrill Lynch), and abuser and abused, there are forms of communication far stronger than the spoken word and that they are accessible to all who will learn to listen. This inspirational and gentle man, first introduced to the American public on Dateline NBC, is part James Herriot, part Bill Gates, and part John Wayne. And his story is one you will never forget.
CHAPTER 1
The Call of the Wild Horses
It all dates from those summers alone in the high desert, me lying on my belly and watching wild horses with my binoculars for hours at a time. Straining to see in the moonlight, striving to fathom mustang ways, I knew instinctively I had chanced upon something important but could not know that it would shape my life. In 1948 I was a boy of thirteen learning the language of horses.
In the wilderness of Nevada, the soil is silky and cool to the touch at dawn, and at midday will burn your skin. My summer vigils were marked off by the heat of the day and the cold of the night and a profound sense of solitude. It felt right to be there under those vast skies on that dove-gray moonscape in the company of wild and wary horses. I remember, especially, a dun mare with a dark stripe along her back and zebra stripes above her knees. Clearly the matriarch of the herd, she was disciplining an unruly young colt who had been roughing up foals and mares. I ...
Jack Canfield, co-author of The Chicken Soup for the Soul
Monty Roberts' book The Man Who Listens to Horses has inspired me to the depths of my soul. Observing Monty's philosophy and method of working with horses and people is one of the most profoundly deep, awe-inspiring, and heart-opening experiences I've ever witnessed. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
If you liked The Man Who Listens to Horses, try these:
by Laura Hillenbrand
Published 2002
Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.
by Jane Smiley
Published 2001
The strange, compelling, sparkling, and mysterious universe of horse racing is depicted with such verve and originality, such tenderness, such clarity, and, above all, such sheer exuberance.
The Stone Home
by Crystal Hana Kim
A moving family drama and coming-of-age story revealing a dark corner of South Korean history.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
