For some people, animal shelters seem dark, desperate places. All terrified barks and frightened hisses, the shelter is the last stop for many an animal on what has too often been a painful journey. For others, the shelter is a place of hope, where the perfect dog or cat waits to be adopted. In her time spent volunteering at the Columbia-Greene Humane Society, author Elizabeth Hess discovered that shelter life couldn't be defined in such simple terms. In this "subterranean animal culture," life is a "complex mix of people and animals, emotion and ideology ... where life and death decisions are made as regularly as coffee."

Hess, an arts journalist who has written for the Village Voice and the Washington Post among other publications, first visited the shelter to adopt a dog for her daughter. A "series of ramshackle buildings and a shabby trailer, surrounded by a few chickens and a couple of contented cats," the Columbia-Greene Humane Society grounds were humble at best. But what Hess found inside the shelter inspired her to write Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter. From the dog kennels and the cat rooms to a puppy mill raid and rides in the shelter ambulance, Hess introduces innumerable animals and humans who will inspire, educate, and break your heart. With more than 20 million animals ending up in shelters each year in the United States alone, Hess's demand to rethink our relationships with domestic animals couldn't have come at a better time. Perceptive, well-written, and utterly moving, Lost and Found is a rare find indeed. --Stefanie Hargreaves