02/09/2009 11:00 am
Culture
Westminster-Quality Dog Books
Claudia Kawczynska/Photo Courtesy of Amanda Jones
Editor’s note: Claudia Kawczynska is editor-in-chief and co-founder of the award-winning dog magazine Bark and editor of the bestselling anthologies Dog Is My Co-Pilot: Great Writers on the World’s Oldest Friendship
and Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit. Her expertise on dog culture has appeared in several national publications. She was awarded a Hurricane Hero Award from the Humane Society of Louisiana in recognition of Bark’s Katrina coverage. She lives in Berkeley, CA, with her three dogs, Lola, Lenny and Holly.
Who can resist a story about the world’s oldest friendship — the bond between dogs and humans? Dog books are one of the oldest, most compelling categories in publishing and have become a perennial favorite of readers, whether it’s classics like Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s The Hidden Life of Dogs
and Caroline Knapp’s Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs, or more recent, meteoric successes like The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel. To our great delight, dogs continue to attract some remarkably talented writers and we are seeing a plethora of great books on this, our favorite subject. Of the many hundreds of dog-themed books that appeared on our desks last year, here are some of the more notable ones from the class of 2008. And so, with the release of our own humor anthology, Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit — a companion to our first bestseller — we round off our pick of the litter choices.
The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming,
by Shreve Stockton. The blog that became a book — a year in the life of an intrepid young woman who moved to Wyoming, took in a coyote pup and raised him to adulthood.
Dog Years: A Memoir (P.S.), by Mark Doty. A prize-winning poet and memoirist, Doty explores the complicated landscape of love and loss.
The Labrador Pact: A Novel, by Matt Haig. Mortality is left to the dogs in this bittersweet story of a canine who gives his all for his family.
The Lost Dog, by Michelle de Kretser. A man’s search for his dog in the Australian bush is the framework on which the author hangs a complex tale of relationships, aging and trust.
The New Yorkers: A Novel, by Cathleen Schine. Set in the microcosmic world of a New York neighborhood and its eccentric citizens, the dogs are the stars of this show.
Wolf Totem, by Jiang Rong. Winner of the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize, a fictional take on China’s marginalization and diminishment of Mongolian tribes and the sweeping landscape and animals they honor.
NON-FICTION
Dog Park Wisdom: Real-world Advice on Choosing, Caring For, and Understanding Your Canine Companion, by Lisa Wogan and Bev Sparks. Packed with dog-savvy folks’ advice and tips for all aspects of a happy life with dogs — from choosing a puppy to why you should wear a belt at the dog park.
The Dog Walker’s Startup Guide: Create Your Own Lucrative Dog Walking Business in 12 Easy Steps, by J.D. Antell. Combine business with pleasure — everything you need to know to replace your day job with one that’s much more fun.
Dogs at Work: A Practical Guide to Creating Dog-Friendly Workplaces, by Liz Palika and Jennifer Fearing. A how-to and why-to on adding dogs to the workplace; case studies lend support to their premises and step-by-step advice shows you how to make it happen in your office.
Positive Perspectives 2: Know Your Dog, Train Your Dog, by Pat Miller. Miller gives us tools (and hope) in this comprehensive and well-organized primer on positive training, informed by her pragmatic and educated point of view.
Tales of Two Species: Essays on Loving and Living With Dogs, by Patricia B. McConnell, Ph.D. An expert on the interior lives of dogs, McConnell covers all the bases in this new collection of her Bark columns.
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