Dog Books, Sad and Happy
Categories: Staff Picks , Nonfiction
It seems like a good time of year for feel-good books about dogs. Hollywood thinks so, anyway, since the movie version of Marley and Me, John Grogan’s bestselling memoir of life with his very unusual Labrador, premieres on Christmas. Here are a couple more to try.
I just finished listening to the audio version of The Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth Stein’s popular novel. Enzo, its narrator, is another irresistible canine. He’s a rather more philosophical creature than Marley. From a TV documentary about Mongolia, he has learned of a belief that dogs are reincarnated as humans, and he feels that he is ready for this step—certainly the ability to speak is something he looks forward to. The inability to communicate to and for his beloved master, racecar driver Denny Swift, is a frustration to him. Denny’s life is going through some terrible turns, with the illness of his wife and the potential loss of his daughter.
If a book narrated by a dog sounds a little precious, well, it is a bit, but if there’s a sentimental corner in your soul for dogs, you’ll enjoy it. Christopher Evan Welch gives an engaging audio performance.
For the less sentimental, how about a real-life dog story? Try From Baghdad, with Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava. Marine Lt. Col. Jay Kopelman was serving in Baghdad when his unit found a puppy during a house-to-house search. Despite all of the excellent reasons and innumerable regulations forbidding active duty troops from keeping pets, little Lava was quickly adopted. Which left the colonel with a quandary—how could he protect the dog from combat and from commanders and get him safely to the U.S.?
It’s another tale that will tug at the heartstrings, though the tough-guy quotient is also satisfyingly high in this story.
I don’t think I should tell whether these books have happy endings, but even the sad parts fit the “feel good” label.
So what other dog books can you recommend? Or cat books—I’m bipartisan.
