For most of my life no one guessed I could fall for a dog, much less write a book about one. I associated dogs with drool on the floor and fur all over everything. One of those “just a dog” people, I thought the marriage bed should be strictly for humans. It crossed my mind that an eager dog would keep me from working into the night at the office where I ran Chatelaine, Canada’s premier magazine for women, but I chose a treadmill at the Y over rambles with a dog. At 65 I discovered my inner dog person. A ragged-eared mutt is now my joy and my muse.
When my husband talked me into rescuing a dog, I was in a funk—mourning a friend gone too soon, lacking a purpose to replace the big job I’d left behind. I said yes to this plan for love of my husband but doubted I could love a ragged-eared mutt of no particular distinction. I fretted over lost travel opportunities and arguments over walking duty.
Then I started moseying around with a dog. My downtown neighborhood revealed its true face as I explored it with Casey, making new friends and discovering hidden beauty spots. I learned to have adventures on my own stomping ground. Through Casey, I fell in love with the world and my place in it, an animal among other animals.
Emily Dickinson composed poetry aloud while walking her Newfoundland, Carlo.
Edith Wharton wrote in bed, surrounded by the lapdogs she adored.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a housebound invalid until the “dognapping” of her cocker spaniel, Flush, drew her into one of London’s most dangerous corners to save the friend of her heart. The escapade set her on the path to independence, marriage to Robert and literary renown.
For each woman profiled in this book, writing was an act of courage. Dogs pulled them forward—if not with their vulnerability to armed criminals, then with their steadfast devotion in the face of loneliness, grief, or discouragement. Maureen Adams’ tender storytelling shows what literary icons share with everyone who loves a dog.
“Move over Marley. Make room for Carlo (Emily Dickinson's giant Newfoundland). Or Flush (Elizabeth Barrett Browning's golden cocker spaniel). Or, maybe, Keeper (Emily Bronte's intimidating mastiff mix). In self-contained chapters of "Shaggy Muses," the work of each author is viewed intimately within the context of the canine companions who provided love, comfort and inspiration." - Elizabeth Taylor, Literary Editor, The Chicago Tribune
“With this book, Adams has created a niche that will thrill those who love literature, biography and dogs.” - Bark Magazine
“Dog lovers and literary groupies alike will adore SHAGGY MUSES.” -Bookpage
When Rick Bragg shuffles home to his mother’s place in rural Alabama, spent from chemotherapy, depression, and years of hard living, he figures it’ll take a sweet old dog to lick the crankiness out of him.
There’s nothing sweet about the stray who shows up at the side of the road, “seventy-six pounds of wet hair and bad decisions.” In a willful Australian shepherd with a ruined eye and a lust for carrion, Bragg recognizes himself—his wounds, his tenacity, his devotion to family. Speck “would rather die than be clean” but he stands by his people when they need him, and Bragg is his number one human.
I loved the humor, pathos, and Southern character that elevate this story of redemption by a dog over more predictable versions.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin', the warmhearted and hilarious story of how his life was transformed by his love for a poorly behaved, half-blind stray dog.
Speck is not a good boy. He is a terrible boy, a defiant, self-destructive, often malodorous boy, a grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken with the Fed Ex man, picking fights with thousand-pound livestock, and rolling in donkey manure, and his nights howling at the moon. He has been that way since the moment he…
Pete the Irish Wheaten was supposed to comfort the children as their father lay dying of cancer. But it was their mother, author/illustrator Maira Kalman, who became his inseparable companion, following the pup into a whole new world of humor, heart, and inspiration.
Through Pete, she discovered the dogs of Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, and E.B. White—all captured in these pages with her customary wit and radiance. You’re never too old for a picture book, and if you have a soft spot for dogs, this one deserves a permanent spot on your nightstand.
Beloved Dog shows that “the most tender, uncomplicated, most generous part of our being blossoms, without any effort, when it comes to the love of a dog.”
Maira Kalman, with wit and great sensitivity, reveals why dogs bring out the best in us
Maira Kalman + Dogs = Bliss
Dogs have lessons for us all. In Beloved Dog, renowned artist and author Maira Kalman illuminates our cherished companions as only she can. From the dogs lovingly illustrated in her acclaimed children's books to the real-life pets who inspire her still, Kalman's Beloved Dog is joyful, beautifully illustrated, and, as always, deeply philosophical.
Here is Max Stravinsky, the dog poet of Oh-La-La (Max in Love)-fame, and her own Irish Wheaton Pete (almost named Einstein, until he revealed himself…
“She died sniffing life, and enjoying it,” wrote E.B. White in his obituary for Daisy, a terrier hit by a cab while smelling a Manhattan flower shop.
White had a keen eye for the distinctive personalities of dogs, and he shared his life with many, who scamper to life in this compendium of essays, letters, and occasional pieces. My favorite of his canine characters, the curmudgeonly dachshund Fred, “saw in every bird, every squirrel, every housefly, every rat, every skunk, every porcupine, a security risk and a present danger to his republic.”
White had better-natured dogs; none got under his skin like Fred. Love can be complicated, White reminds us. Even between human and dog.
E. B. White (1899-1985) is best known for his children's books, Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. Columnist for The New Yorker for over half a century and co-author of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, White hit his stride as an American literary icon when he began publishing his "One Man's Meat" columns from his saltwater farm on the coast of Maine.
In E. B. White on Dogs, his granddaughter and manager of his literary estate, Martha White, has compiled the best and funniest of his essays, poems, letters, and sketches depicting over a…
TV’s Lassie saved children from wildfire and quicksand. Real-life service dogs save entire families from the isolation and stress of a child’s incurable illness or severe disability.
Through the vivid stories of compromised kids who blossom with highly trained dogs, Greene celebrates the canine gift for understanding us humans—rooted in 10,000 years of interspecies history but ignored by science until the recent past.
This book gripped, moved, and informed me while hitting close to home. Like my own rescue mutt, many service dogs were trained by prisoners who discovered their own best selves by teaching an unwanted animal to love. Humans and dogs need each other, as Greene shows with heartfelt but rigorous reporting.
THE UNDERDOGS tells the story of Karen Shirk: felled at age 24 by a neuromuscular disease and facing life as an immobile, deeply isolated and depressed, ventilator-dependent patient, she was rejected by every service dog agency in the country as "too disabled." Her nurse encouraged her to raise her own service dog, and Ben, a German shepherd, dragged her back into life. "How many people are stranded like I was," she wondered, "who could lead productive lives with a service dog?" A thousand dogs later, Karen Shirk's service dog academy, 4 Paws for Ability, is restoring broken children and their…
When Lara was four years old, her father moved from Rochester, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket.
Now that he is in his eighties, she contemplates her obligation to an absentee father. The Truth About Unringing Phones is an exploration of responsibility and culpability told in experimental and fragmented essays.
When Lara was four years old, her father moved from Rochester, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket. Now that he is in his eighties, she contemplates her obligation to an absentee father.
The Truth About Unringing Phones: Essays on Yearning is an exploration of responsibility and culpability told in experimental and fragmented essays.
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